A Higher Loyalty Book Summary

Book Summary

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Brief Summary

A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership is a memoir by James Comey, former FBI Director, offering insights into his career, ethical decision-making, and the challenges of leadership. The book discusses pivotal moments in his tenure, including high-profile cases, his interactions with President Donald Trump, and his views on integrity and justice in public service.

About the Author

James Comey is an American lawyer and 7th Director of the FBI from 2013 to 2017. He has been a Republican for most of his life. In 2016, he described himself as unaffiliated.

He worked as the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2002 to 2003 and the United States Deputy Attorney General from 2003 to 2005 under President George Bush. In 2005, he left the United States Department of Justice and became Senior Vice President of Lockheed Martin as general counsel while based in Bethesda, Maryland.

In 2010, he started work as general counsel at Bridgewater Associates in Connecticut. In 2013, he left to become a Senior Research Scholar and Hertog Fellow on National Security Law at Columbia Law School. He served on the board of directors of HSBC Holdings until July 2013. In September 2013, President Obama appointed him as Director of the FBI. According to experts, his decision to reopen the investigation into Clinton’s emails less than two weeks before the election might have cost Clinton the election. In 2018, the DOJ Inspector General Michael E Horowitz criticized Comey’s handling of the 2016 election in a report.

He was fired by Donald Trump in 2017 to ease the pressure Trump was under due to the Russian investigation. Comey leaked a memo written in 2017 during a private meeting with Trump, where Trump encouraged him to end the FBI investigation into Michael Flynn, a former National Security Advisor. Comey’s memos that describe many meetings with Trump and his testimony before Congress was used in the Mueller report as evidence of obstruction of justice on the part of the president.

Topics

Biography & Memoir Politics

A Higher Loyalty Book Summary Preview

We have probably all seen a mafia movie, or maybe even have played a mafia-style video game. We have probably also all noticed how they bully people to get them to do their bidding, regardless of its legality. According to James Comey, that is the position that James Comey found himself while working for the FBI under Donald Trump. Comey’s book A Higher Loyalty serves two primary purposes. First, it is a memoir of his tenure as FBI director. This role is among the most important in our nation. Second, Comey also wants to warn his readers about the dangers of an unethical president, namely, Donald Trump.

Comey used to be the director of the FBI. He began his career as a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York under Rudy Giuliani. He then became the deputy attorney general under President George W. Bush. Comey became the director of the FBI under President Barack Obama. Comey was surprised that Obama appointed Comey because he had opposed his presidency, as a Republican. But Comey came to respect Obama as a leader for several reasons, not the least of which is that Obama understood the importance of the place of the FBI in relation to the government.

Initially, when Trump took office, he said that he had the same stance on the independence that the FBI should have from the government. But when Comey began to investigate the allegations of Russia’s interference in his campaign in the 2016 presidential election, Trump took a different tune altogether.

Key Insights

The FBI must be independent of the government, despite the current president’s perspective.

The purpose of the FBI is to stand for truth and for the rule of law. The problem that arises if the FBI is tied too closely with certain political leaders or political parties is that their vision can become tainted due to the influence of Mafia-like leaders. According to Comey, Trump does not support the independence of the FBI.

The truth must be made known, regardless of its effects. Good leaders know and want this compared to bad leaders who do not.

Mafia leaders, political or not, demand allegiance—at all costs. According to Comey, they want a sense of honor that comes unconditionally and without question. This is a misuse of “honor.” Anyone who places themselves above the law is not worthy of such honor. And anyone who is afraid of the truth coming out demonstrates that they are bad leaders.

Bullies still exist, and they act how they always have: striking fear in less powerful people because of their own insecurities.

Just the mention of the word “bullies” probably conjures up images of actual bullies we have known in our childhood. Bullies still exist, even in the adult world. According to Comey, Trump is a good example of such a bully. He was an unusual presidential candidate because he came from the corporate world with no prior political experience. One of the larger concerns for people coming from the corporate world that Comey ties to Trump...