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[PAST EVENT] A lunch talk featuring James Comey
March 15, 2011
12pm
Location
Boswell Hall (formerly Morton Hall), Room 140100 Ukrop Way
Williamsburg, VA 23185Map this location
Mr. Comey graduated from the College of William & Mary in 1982, majoring in chemistry and religion. His senior thesis analyzed the liberal theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and the conservative televangelist Jerry Falwell, emphasizing their common belief in public action. After law school, he worked the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York from 1987 to 1993, where he served as Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division. Comey moved back to Virginia, serving as Managing Assistant U.S. Attorney of the United States Attorney's office for the Eastern District of Virginia. He then was the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, from January 2002 to the time of his confirmation as Deputy Attorney General in December 2003. He retired from that position in 2005.
Comey initially came to prominence for his pursuit of organized crime figures during his time in New York. More generally Comey's career has been characterized by a concern for ethical behavior. In the 2004 Martha Stewart obstruction criminal conviction, for example, he stated that "This criminal case is about lying--lying to the F.B.I., lying to the S.E.C., lying to investors." Comey, as Acting Attorney General during the March 2004 surgical hospitalization of John Ashcroft, refused to certify the legality of central aspects of the NSA program at that time. Testifying to Congress in 2007 regarding accusations of political firings of US attorneys, Comey said:
The Department of Justice, in my view, is run by political appointees of the president. The U.S. attorneys are political appointees of the president. But once they take those jobs and run this institution, it's very important in my view for that institution to be another in American life, that -- because my people had to stand up before juries of all stripes, talk to sheriffs of all stripes, judges of all stripes -- had to be seen as the good guys, and not as either this administration or that administration.
Sign up at this link:
{{https://forms.wm.edu/form/view/1368/8499471ebf5e4e746fd3b9b444d928e0}}
Comey initially came to prominence for his pursuit of organized crime figures during his time in New York. More generally Comey's career has been characterized by a concern for ethical behavior. In the 2004 Martha Stewart obstruction criminal conviction, for example, he stated that "This criminal case is about lying--lying to the F.B.I., lying to the S.E.C., lying to investors." Comey, as Acting Attorney General during the March 2004 surgical hospitalization of John Ashcroft, refused to certify the legality of central aspects of the NSA program at that time. Testifying to Congress in 2007 regarding accusations of political firings of US attorneys, Comey said:
The Department of Justice, in my view, is run by political appointees of the president. The U.S. attorneys are political appointees of the president. But once they take those jobs and run this institution, it's very important in my view for that institution to be another in American life, that -- because my people had to stand up before juries of all stripes, talk to sheriffs of all stripes, judges of all stripes -- had to be seen as the good guys, and not as either this administration or that administration.
Sign up at this link:
{{https://forms.wm.edu/form/view/1368/8499471ebf5e4e746fd3b9b444d928e0}}