From Stormy Daniels to James Comey, Can We Stop Overhyping These Non-Bombshell Interviews?

James Comey has finally emerged. And it wasn’t as thrilling as we thought it would be.

It has been almost a year since President Trump fired his FBI Director, which ultimately led to the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. To this day, the investigation as to whether or not the Trump campaign colluded with Russia continues to make headlines. And now, Comey is making headlines of his own with the release of his new memoir, A Higher Loyalty. and Sunday’s night interview with George Stephanopoulos is the first of many as he kicks off his book tour.

For the past week, we got a taste of what he was going to say to the ABC News anchor as excepts of his book were being reported and there really hasn’t been any breaking news from it and that’s largely due to the fact that he testified to Congress shortly after his firing.

Between the book and his first interview, Comey didn’t do as much damage to Trump as many thought he would. He compared Trump to being a “mob boss” and during the interview, he alleged that the president ‘possibly’ obstructed justice when he asked the FBI chief to end its investigation into former National Security Advisor Gen Michael Flynn. and declared that Trump was “morally unfit” to be president.

But frankly, he did more damage to himself than to the president.

Whether you’re a Trump supporter or a Trump hater, people on both sides had the same negative reaction to Comey’s mockery of Trump when invoking things like his hair, tan, and hand size while recalling their first encounter. Making such shallow attacks have become the norm from our current president, yet it seemed beneath the dignity of the former FBI director to taunt Trump’s appearance. One of the most jarring moments from the interview was when Comey said he didn’t feel the need to inform the president that the salacious dossier was funded by the DNC and the Clinton campaign. So right off the bat, Comey is hurting his image and his credibility.

And while rehashing the events that took place in 2016, he further incriminated himself in the court of public opinion. He claimed his decision to reopen the Clinton email investigation just days before the election wasn’t “political,” yet he himself admitted that he did it assuming based on “the environment” that Hillary Clinton was going to be the next president and feared that if he didn’t revive the probe that the American people would call her presidency “illegitimate.” His moral arbitration has blinded him from the reality that his decision to reopen the investigation was in fact a political one.

Comey also regretted using the term “extremely careless” when describing Clinton’s handling of her emails, saying he would rather find some other way to convey that this was “more” than some bureaucrat mishandling one document. And of course, Stephanopoulos failed to press Comey on why exactly the language of his remarks changed from “grossly negligent,” a term that would have declared criminality in the original draft.

If anything, Comey has done more damage to his former boss, Attorney General Loretta Lynch by saying she would have caused “corrosive damage” to our justice system if she closed the email probe and revealing in his book that there’s still classified information that is not known to the public that would cast “serious doubt” to her independence at the top official at the DOJ.

For weeks, there has been lots of speculation from the media and the #Resistance that this Comey interview and his new book would be a game-changer. They weren’t.

We’ve been down this path before. And not too long ago actually.

Stormy Daniels has been at the center of a titillating scandal because she was paid $130,000 to remain silent during the election about her alleged affair with Trump. And since the story broke, she wasn’t able to speak out because she had signed a non-disclosure agreement, which she and her attorney now argue is invalid because Trump himself never signed it. After weeks of buildup, she finally spoke freely about what transpired with the president on 60 Minutes with Anderson Cooper.

While one is a former FBI Director and the other is a porn star, James Comey and Stormy Daniels have a lot in common. Both are considered threats to the president with one as a character witness in the Russia probe and the other causing a legal nightmare for Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen, who is reportedly being investigated for bank fraud and violating campaign finance laws. And the recent FBI raids into Cohen’s home and offices suggest Trump may find himself in political jeopardy depending on if investigators come across any trace of wrongdoing in his lawyer’s possessions.

Another strong commonality between Daniels and Comey was that there was so much hype leading up to their what were supposed to be explosive tell-alls. Like Comey, Daniels’ story has been out there in the form of a tabloid in In Touch magazine. All the juicy details about her affair (and yes, even the gross ones) were talked about for weeks before her 60 Minutes interview. And because Comey already testified his side of the story last year, his book and his first interview haven’t moved the needle nor have they changed anyone’s views of the president or the ongoing Russia investigation.

Because the media is largely fixated on negative Trump stories, many froth at the mouth when its announced that someone like Comey or Daniels is going to speak out for the first time against him. Their imaginations run wild, predicting the beginning of the end for this president. Instead, they’re let down by their own fantasies. The #Resistance want a crucifixion of Trump, something ABC and CBS banked on. And in exchange for huge ratings, all they’ve learned was that Trump prefers tanning goggles over condoms.

In the end, only two people can completely change the narrative: Special Counsel Mueller and the DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

Their findings will determine many things. Among them are whether or not the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, whether or not the DOJ abused its power in obtaining a FISA warrant to spy on political opponents, and  whether or not the DOJ mishandled its email investigation into Hillary Clinton.

So let us retire our obsession we have with these not-so explosive interviews. As the saying goes, fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us.

[image via screengrab]

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.