Two Months Before His Firing, James Comey Called Trump “Crazy”

The news is coming fast and furious over the past two days, and there’s almost no way to keep up with it all, but one particular detail in the New York Times feature about the worsening relationship between Trump and Comey is worth highlighting: The FBI director thought the president was a nutjob. Here’s the lede of said story:

By the end, neither of them thought much of the other.

After President Trump accused his predecessor in March of wiretapping him, James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, was flabbergasted. The president, Mr. Comey told associates, was “outside the realm of normal,” even “crazy.”

As if in a self-fulfilling prophecy, Comey—who helped put the guy in office, it should be said—would eventually become the victim of that caprice. Trump grew angrier and angrier as Comey denied that he had been wiretapped by Obama, investigated possible collusion with Russia, and appeared before Congress to testify. This could only end one way, and it ended that way on Tuesday, with Trump trying to rid himself of one of his chief problems—in a move that, of course, has only made things worse for him in the aftermath.

There’s one more incredible detail from the Times story, and it involves the man who functioned as the voice of reason as Trump rallied support within the administration for firing Comey:

The chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, who has been sharply critical of the F.B.I., questioned whether the time was right to dismiss Mr. Comey, arguing that doing it later would lessen the backlash, and urged him to delay, according to two people familiar with his thinking. Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, at one point mulled similar concerns, but was supportive of the move to the president.

Bannon! The sane one! We truly are through the looking glass.