James Comey, former Director of the FBI — the seventh in its history — was dismissed from his role by President Donald Trump in May 2017. The dismissal came about because the President was uncomfortable with Comey’s refusal to publicly confirm that the President himself was not a subject of the then-ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election.
In order to totally not look like a criminal, the President is believed to have coerced Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein into drafting a memo justifying Comey’s dismissal, which the President then cited as his primary motivation in acting to dismiss Comey, a long-time civil servant and former Republican.
The stated rationale given for Comey’s firing centered on perceived ‘atrocities’ and missteps in overseeing the FBI’s probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State, which is purported to have hurt morale within the FBI, and to have comprised public trust in the bureau. (Because, clearly, Trump and the Republican administration place a premium on trust in public institutions…)
So, who is Mark Levin, and how does he factor in to Comey’s dismissal?
The conservative media ecosystem has given rise to a number of personalities whose profile outside of that bubble come nowhere close to matching their impact within. Mark Levin is a prime example of the phenomenon.
Levin, the host of the creatively named “The Mark Levin Show”, on Westwood One, also appears regularly on Fox News, where he hosts “Life, Liberty & Levin”. On the former, Levin questioned Comey’s ethical compass as a way of questioning why he held such lofty positions in the U.S. government. Comey’s near-30-year career has spanned multiple presidential administrations from both parties, having begun his time in government under Republican icon Ronald Reagen, and has included stints as an assistant U.S. attorney, a U.S. attorney, and deputy attorney general, in addition to his time as head of the FBI.
How does Levin affect President Trump’s case against Comey?
The conservative/authoritarian wing of the modern Republican party, of which Levin is a clear and consistent champion, has a clear and defined media strategy. Best exemplified by comments made by Breitbart News co-founder Steve Bannon in his role as chief executive officer of Trump’s 2016 presidential bid, they view the media as the enemy (to their continued accrual of power) and seek only to “flood the zone with s**t”.
In this instance, in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s decision to dismiss Comey, pro-Trump media figures — including Levin and his fellow peddler in conservative fever dreams, Sean Hannity — were quick to say Comey deserved to be fired for his weak handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. In Trump’s memo regarding the firing of Comey, however, the President cited Comey’s tough stance on Clinton as reason for his firing — in particular, he characterized Comey as having “release[ed] derogatory information” about his opponent in a July 2016 press conference.
Did Levin destroy Comey’s case against Trump?
Quite the opposite, actually, as Peter Beinart, of The Atlantic, points out with supporting quotes from conservative commentators: