How on earth did a man with such a terrible memory, and so ignorant of the operations of an agency he headed, manage to have the stellar career that James Comey enjoyed (until Donald Trump fired him). In testimony Friday, like fictional comedic icon Sergeant Schultz, a Nazi prison camp guard, he claimed he knew nothing, and what he didn’t know, he forgot:

Rep. Mark Meadows totaled up the denials:

‘I don’t know’ - 166 times
'I don’t remember' - 71 times
‘I don’t recall’ - 8 times

The transcript from yesterday's James Comey interview is out. It includes:

‘I don’t know’ - 166 times
'I don’t remember' - 71 times
‘I don’t recall’ - 8 times

Read the transcript for yourself. Does this sound like someone interested in telling the full story?

— Mark Meadows (@RepMarkMeadows) December 8, 2018

James Comey, we are told by many people including conservatives like Andrew McCarthy, is a very smart fellow, an enormously talented administrator. He certainly had an amazing career in the federal government, and as a senior executive at Lockheed Martin, the nation’s largest defense contractor for a few years, earning millions of dollars. The investigations he claimed ignorance of were being run out of FBI headquarters, which is very unusual. It would be understandable for Comey to be ignorant of investigations run out of a field office, but this was under his nose and direct supervision. 

It is very curious – an aggressive prosecutor might say suspicious – that someone with his track record would claim under oath to have known so little and forgotten so much. Especially a man formerly charged with being the top law enforcement officer in the country.

Image credit: screen grab from YouTube video by Dave Tonnes