Despite the White House claim that FBI Director James Comey had “lost the confidence” of his agents in the field, the head of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI told Newsmax that Comey was highly regarded by current and former agents.
“The overwhelming opinion of our membership is that Director Comey was outstanding,” said Nancy Savage, executive director of the 80-year-old society that includes more than 8,500 members.
Savage, herself an FBI agent from 1977-2011, was also president of the FBI Agents Association while she was on active duty. She insisted that current agents were "appalled" at Comey’s firing by President Trump on Tuesday.
“Nearly all of my contacts among the agents on active duty recalled how Director Comey worked very well with us during his four years as head of the FBI,” she told me. “And they mentioned how evenhanded he was in dealing with the Bureau and the Department of Justice when he was deputy attorney general [2001-02].”
Savage noted that there were have been only two directors in the last four decades who were themselves former FBI agents (Clarence Kelley from 1973-78 and Louis Freeh from 1993-2001). But Comey, she said, became “extremely popular” among agents “because he really got down in the weeds and focused on investigative techniques. He always came out swinging for what the agents needed.”
Savage added that agents she knows currently on active duty were taken aback by the “disrespect of methodology in the firing of the director.” Comey learned he was fired when he saw it on news monitors in the background as he was speaking to employees in the Los Angeles FBI office.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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