It was a curious thing to watch former FBI Director James Comey testify before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence this week to explain what transpired during nine private meetings with the President earlier this year. Some Democrats claim that today’s testimony shows that the Republican Senators asking Comey questions represent a party that has been immensely rewarded by Russians meddling in our elections, perhaps thanks to Mr. Comey himself.
For some of us, it is hard to overlook the fact that the same Conservative and elite white male Senators have spent this term trying to silence the women of the Senate. The GOP has also launched attacks on the civil rights, economic participation, healthcare access and bodily autonomy of women around the world.
One might speculate that the Senate GOP’s lackluster and at times bizarre cross-examination of Comey may have proceeded differently had Comey himself been a woman:
“Mr. Comey, you said you met with the President alone nine times, and that he made you uncomfortable by violating professional codes of conduct. What impression did you hope the President would have of you after you met him alone for dinner at his home while his wife was out of town?”
“What did you wear to these meetings with the President? What color was your shirt? Did you leave your shirt buttoned for the whole meeting? Were you wearing cologne?”
“Were these dinners conducted by candle light? Were either of you drinking alcohol? Were you seeing a psychologist or on any medications at the time?”
“You say that the way the President spoke to you implied that a certain amount of, well, perhaps quid pro quo ‘back scratching’ would need to take place behind the scenes if you wanted to keep your job. Is that right?”
“I turn your attention to Exhibit A, a picture of the President pulling you in close for an intimate looking handshake and a hug. Is that your idea of resisting his advances?”
“The first time the President did something inappropriate in these private meetings, why didn’t you just say “no” to him? Nobody was holding you there against your will, so why didn’t you immediately get up and leave or tell him to stop?”
“After the first time the President crossed the line with you in a private meeting, you kept going back for these one-on-one meetings with him, a total of nine times. Do you think you might have led him on a bit about your intentions or the nature of your relationship?”
“You said the President’s requests made you feel pressured and violated, yet you kept the President’s inappropriate conduct to yourself for several weeks and months and said nothing about it publicly—-even when you last testified before the Senate in April 2017—-yet you continued to routinely call the President and accept his phone calls. Is that right?”
“At some point, you went to Attorney General Jeff Sessions to let him know that you didn’t want to be left alone with the President. Shortly thereafter, the President fired you. Why didn’t you fight harder to make Sessions believe your story before you were fired?”
“Do you believe you were fired because of your refusal to act on the President’s improper suggestions? Isn’t it true that you’d been previously highly criticized for effectively blocking Hillary Clinton’s election?”
“Do you think the President fired you in such an unsanctimonious way so as to publicly discredit you? Were you ever worried that such unprovable rumors might impact the President’s good name and future employment prospects?”
William Penn once wrote “Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.”
In writing this, I hope nobody is laughing because organized crime, exploitation and corruption at the highest levels of government is never funny. My hope is that Mr. Comey and the good men in law enforcement may come to better appreciate what it feels like to be targeted and exploited by a group of powerful white male leaders who appear to have no interest in the truth so much as preserving their own status. To that end, they may exploit and exclude outsiders to their own advantage.
Maybe, as Comey suggests, he could have become comfortable amongst this group of elite white Republican men who put party over country if he were willing to pledge his loyalty to the President before his position as Director of the FBI, but I’m glad he didn’t. It would, after all, be obscene to suggest that any smokey back room dealing in government should routinely take place in private penthouses or on America’s most expensive golf courses rather than in appropriate public forums where women and the rest of America might also safely participate.
Comey does not appear to be engaged in any illicit activity, he was just trying to do his job as Director of the FBI.
If you don’t know why Comey did not come forward sooner, ask any woman who has ever held a job in America whether they have, at one time or another, run across a sleazy “grab ‘em by the pussy” type boss who hired them under false pretenses, then made their lives miserable until they quit or were fired when they refused his advances. Many highly accomplished women probably never file complaints against such sleaze bags because they look up the food chain and know that their bosses will protect the interests of the company first.
Comey is hardly the Brutus to the president’s Caesar, but similarly situated aggrieved employees know that if their complaints were ever to go forward, victims must be willing to take on a very unforgiving system. Every grievance may be treated as a false allegation. The level of coercion and implicit threats won’t matter; the victim will be put on trial and systematically destroyed in the name of brand loyalty. No one will feel sorry for the victim, perhaps because no one wants to believe awful things about the people they love or what it might say about themselves if they were complicit in targeting the victim. Perhaps others blame victims for arbitrary reasons, like the way they smelled or wore their hair, the design on of their shirts, or because they had a glass of wine. The victim will become like the turd in the punch bowl that no one wants to hire or be alone with. In this situation, the violated person can’t win; they can only cut their losses. No one wants to be forever branded a victim, most of us want to go down in history for our own hard earned accomplishments.
That is why victims stay quiet.
Something is very wrong with the way America has raised their “traditional” Conservative sons if we now live in an era where the GOP treats Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress as evidence of an impeachable crime, but the FBI Director’s notes on possible treason and obstruction are discarded as “fake news.”
Whether you believe Comey ran the FBI office appropriately is not the point. The point is that no employee, man or woman, should be subjected to such inappropriate pressure and harassment in exchange for keeping their job. No employee should feel like accountability for such professional misconduct is beyond reach.