Jamie Comey
© AP Photo/Andrew HarnikFormer FBI Director James Comey
In less than two weeks, James Comey is poised to begin a book tour and break his silence about his experience serving as FBI director before he was fired last spring by President Trump.

Beyond the occasional tweet in which he has defended an embattled FBI from Trump's criticisms, Comey has largely kept out of the public eye while wrapping up his book, titled A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership. But with April 17, the day his memoir hits bookshelves, fast approaching, a number of potential complications have arisen.

An ex-FBI supervisory special agent put it bluntly on Saturday when he said he has no issue with Comey, now a private citizen, selling books and charging $1,000 for tickets for people to hear him speak, but that the timing of the media blitz was the issue.
"There are two major consequential probes going on right now. The Russia probe ... and with the findings not being released yet, James Comey is putting himself into a perjury trap position. He will be talking about things - meaning his interactions with the president - he had nine separate interactions either on the phone or in person with the president, and he's going to set himself up to purposefully or unwittingly saying something that is not consistent with what he's going to have told the special prosecutor,"
James Gagliano said during an interview on CNN, referring to special counsel Robert Mueller.

After Comey was fired, Mueller was appointed to lead the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

Gagliano said there is also the matter of the Justice Department Inspector General looking into the DOJ and FBI over their actions, including during the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's unauthorized private email server, which Comey oversaw. "He's also be a central figure in that. So, I think that the timing is the issue," Gagliano said.

At the center of the controversy of alleged bias at the Justice Department and the FBI was former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was fired late last month, less than 48 hours before he was set to retire with a full pension.

Responding to Trump, who celebrated McCabe's ouster as a "great day for democracy," Comey issued a stern warning: "Mr. President, the American people will hear my story very soon. And they can judge for themselves who is honorable and who is not."

But Comey could find himself in a bind, partly because of McCabe.

First discovered by the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General, and then corroborated by the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility, McCabe was reportedly fired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions for violating FBI ethics code three times, stemming from his authorizing the release of sensitive information to the Wall Street Journal to push back against a report about large donations McCabe's wife received from Democrats during her bid for the Virginia State Senate.

A CNN report last week said that Comey and McCabe gave conflicting accounts on the matter. Comey reportedly told internal investigators at the DOJ that he did not remember McCabe informing him about authorizing FBI officials to speak with the reporter about an investigation that was ongoing. However, McCabe publicly stated that he was authorized to allow FBI officials to speak to the media and that Comey was aware of his actions.

The FBI personnel report from Inspector General Michael Horowitz has yet to be released to the public, but according to Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, it says McCabe lied to Comey.

The IG is also expected to release another report on the FBI's handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation in the coming weeks. Comey oversaw that investigation, for which he received flak from both sides of the aisle - Republicans upset that he never recommended criminal charges against Clinton, and Democrats who were miffed because he reopened then closed the investigation a second time right before she lost the 2016 presidential election.

Republicans are now rallying for Sessions to appoint a second special counsel to pore over possible wrongdoing in the DOJ and the FBI, including in regards to the email investigation.

The specter of that debacle is slated to be revived on Monday, when a sudden NBC Nightly News interview with former Attorney General Loretta Lynch is set to address both Comey and her controversial tarmac meeting with former President Bill Clinton in 2016.

That tarmac meeting became a major issue during the 2016 presidential campaign, and later reemerged thanks to testimony from Comey in the summer of last year. Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Lynch requested he minimize Clinton's email investigation and said that Lynch's spontaneous tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton prompted him, in an effort to maintain the DOJ and FBI's credibility, to announce that the FBI would not recommend charges be pressed against Hillary Clinton, although he called her actions "extremely careless."

Still seemingly sore about her loss to Trump, Clinton on Tuesday again heaped blame on Comey for reopening the email case in late October 2016, right before the November election. At an event in New York, the former secretary of state said, "we may or may not read" Comey's book when it was mentioned.

She was also asked about what questions should be asked about the role Comey played in her election demise, to which she said, "I've never spoken to him. I've never met him. I've never kissed him."