The James Comey I knew at the FBI fully deserves whatever comeuppance is in store

The Justice Department’s announcement that former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of making a false statement and obstruction of a congressional proceeding is all but a fait accompli.

Pious, sanctimonious self-righteousness and hypocritical moralizing had long ago cost him his professional reputation.

With charges of perjury and obstruction, Comey could face imprisonment.

If that comes to pass, his tattered legacy will earn yet another stain.

More tragically, the narcissistic leader, who was relieved of his duties by President Donald Trump soon into his first term, will continue to damage the agency I love and served for a quarter of a century.

And that makes me — and many others in my ranks — weary, saddened and angry. 

Based on my own observations and those of my colleagues at the bureau, it was clear from the start that Comey was hellbent on altering FBI culture.

In the first of his five sermonizing books, 2018’s “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership,” the former director mused about his initial meeting with employees at FBI headquarters in 2013.

He describes placing himself atop a stool, sans suit jacket, but with a blue shirt and tie.

Tradition had long held that FBI directors wore dark suits and white shirts — keeping their jackets on while addressing employees in order to project proper image.

Yet per Comey, proudly resplendent in his blue shirt: “I thought that shirt color was one early, small way to set a different tone.”

Sadly, for so many of us at the bureau, Comey’s conduct and actions impacted far more than fashion at our agency.

His tenure as FBI director, blessedly, was relatively short — less than four years.

If he was initially well-intentioned, his galling hubris coupled with poor instincts doomed his tenure.

Consumed from the beginning with his legacy, he failed to sense the obvious character flaws within his inner circle of hand-picked acolytes.

That alone did irreparable damage to the bureau.

Many of us at first bought the myth of “Cardinal Comey” — a leader of considerable probity and moral rectitude.

It was a lie.

One of his fatal flaws was surrounding himself with young, callow sycophants on the Seventh Floor at FBI headquarters.

They told him what he wanted to hear and positioned themselves for promotions.

Some lied to continue the Russia hoax or about leaking to the press.

Some boasted of plans to “stop Trump.”

Confirmation bias permeated everything inside that circle — including the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation that was predicated on partisan “opposition research” and extended illegally to hinder a presidential campaign and cripple an administration.

Other contributing factors in Comey’s fall from grace: arrogance and mendacity.

In an interview on ABC News in 2018, he pretended not to know that the Steele Dossier — which “Crossfire Hurricane” was shamefully predicated on — had been deemed garbage by the Intelligence Community, including the FBI.

With a straight face and the indifference of a sociopath, he uttered these disgraceful statements: “I never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I don’t know whether the current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013. It’s possible, but I don’t know.”

Oh, he knew.

He certainly knew.

But he chose to allow that falsity, that smear, to breathe new life into the “resistance.”

Much as he pretended not to know the meaning of those seashells set in a “86 47” arrangement.

Now the disgraced former director faces a tough legal road ahead.

Under other circumstances, some prosecutors might have let his indiscretions slide.

But the odious stench of the Russia-collusion investigation, two failed impeachment efforts and the nakedly cynical lawfare employed by the Biden Justice Department and prosecutors in New York and Georgia have made the process here almost as important as the consequences.

Last year, Comey flippantly mused that if Trump were sent to prison, he could be placed “in a double wide, somewhere out near the fence, out in the grass, and he would eat there, shower there, exercise there.”

He relished the image of his adversary in such a position.

The worm has turned.

Comey should’ve made good on his promised goal in 2018: “I hope to be forgotten.”

We hope so, too, Ex-Director.

You’ve embarrassed not only yourself, but the entire FBI.

Please just go away.

Retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent James A. Gagliano served under four FBI directors from 1991-2016.