EDITORIAL: Comey’s loyalty to royalties

Former FBI Director James Comey has shown that he has a higher loyalty — to the cash he’s going to collect from his book sales.

Mr. Comey spent the past two years portraying himself as being above the political fray. It was never an easy sell. He earned the ire of the right in July 2016 for failing to bring a case against Hillary Clinton, despite ample evidence that she violated the law with her homebrewed email server. Progressives and Ms. Clinton then blamed him for costing her the presidency by reopening the investigation days before the election.

That was a delicate line to walk — whatever your belief about the merits of Mr. Comey’s choices. With the release this week of his new book, however, Mr. Comey has given up even the pretense of objectivity and has more than justified Republican suspicions of his actions.

“Our president must embody respect and adhere to the values that are at the core of this country,” said Mr. Comey during an ABC interview promoting his book. “The most important being truth. This president is not able to do that. He is morally unfit to be president.”

Broadsides like that have the left fawning, but they expose Mr. Comey as little more than another partisan opportunist playing in the political pigsty. Why was Mr. Comey willingly serving under a man he now says is “morally unfit to be president”? He never says, but resignations don’t produce multimillion-dollar book deals. At least Mr. Comey fetched a high price for his ever-changing morals.

Mr. Comey’s book is titled “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership,” but he spent much of the ABC interview fraternizing with the truth’s mortal enemy — speculation. He ran his mouth about Mr. Trump’s hair, height, hand size and possible use of tanning goggles.

A long way from the “just the facts, ma’am” attitude one would expect from a former FBI director. That was just a warmup for his take on the Steele dossier, paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

“I don’t know whether the current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013,” Mr. Comey said. “It’s possible, but I don’t know.” Asked if the Russians have something on Mr. Trump, he said, “I think it’s possible. I don’t know.”

Those weasel words are worthy of the National Enquirer, not a former FBI director. By Mr. Comey’s own standard, it’s “possible” that he’s a Russian agent working deep undercover.

The only thing surprising about Mr. Comey’s book is that there are so few surprises. All he has is innuendo, and the national media can’t get enough. It comes at the expense of his reputation.

As lefty political consultant David Axelord suggested, Mr. Comey’s book should really be called “A Higher Royalty.”