Comey, James (1960-…), served as the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2013 to 2017. The FBI is the primary investigating branch of the United States Department of Justice . Comey had earlier held other positions in the Justice Department and served as a lawyer in private practice.
James Brien Comey, Jr., was born in Yonkers, New York, on Dec. 14, 1960. In 1982, he graduated from the College of William and Mary with degrees in chemistry and religion. In 1985, he earned a law degree from the University of Chicago Law School. From 1987 to 1993, Comey worked in the office of the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. From 1996 to 2001, he was an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. In 2002 and 2003, Comey was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
In 2003, Comey became deputy attorney general, the second-ranking position within the U.S. Department of Justice. He served as acting attorney general while Attorney General John Ashcroft was briefly unable to perform his duties because of surgery. After leaving the Justice Department in 2005, Comey served as general counsel for the Lockheed Martin Corporation , a leading military aircraft manufacturer. From 2010 to 2013, he was general counsel for Bridgewater Associates, an investment firm. In June 2013, President Barack Obama nominated Comey to become FBI director. The U.S. Senate soon approved the nomination, and Comey took office in September.
While Comey was FBI director, the bureau conducted an investigation into Hillary Rodham Clinton’s use of a private email server while she served as U.S. secretary of state. At the time of the investigation, Clinton was the frontrunner to become the 2016 Democratic nominee for president, and she went on to win the nomination. In July 2016, Comey announced that no criminal charges would be brought against Clinton, though he called her conduct “extremely careless.” The announcement drew criticism from Clinton’s opponents, including Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump . In October, during the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, Comey sent a letter to Congress announcing he was reopening the Clinton investigation because of new information that had come to his attention. This so-called “October surprise” dominated news coverage. Two days before the election, Comey declared that the information had not suggested that Clinton had been involved in any criminal activity. However, many political observers believed that Comey’s earlier announcement had damaged Clinton’s chances. Trump narrowly defeated Clinton on November 8.
In March 2017, after Trump took office as president, the FBI revealed that as a part of its investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, it had been seeking to determine whether such interference had involved collaboration between the Russians and Trump’s associates. In May 2017, Trump fired Comey. Some of Trump’s representatives said that the dismissal was related to Comey’s missteps in regard to the Clinton probe. Other observers—and Comey himself—believed that the firing was directly related to the FBI’s investigations of members of the Trump administration. Comey’s memoir A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership (2018) includes strong criticism of Trump’s qualifications and decisions as president. Another memoir, Saving Justice: Truth, Transparency, and Trust (2021), discusses the importance of the U.S. Justice Department and includes further evaluations of Trump’s administration. 
