Who is James Comey? Former FBI director has deep N.J. roots

A version of this story first published in April 2018.

Long before former FBI Director James Comey became a target of President Donald Trump, he was a much-admired high school student in Bergen County who played on the basketball team and wrote for the student newspaper.

Comey, 64, who grew up in Allendale, was indicted on Thursday by a federal grand jury in Virginia on charges of obstruction and making a false statement stemming from the FBI’s investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.

His indictment came days after Trump appeared to urge Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute Comey and others perceived as his political opponents.

Comey responded Thursday with a video posted to social media in which he said he is innocent.

“I’m innocent, so let’s have a trial,” Comey said.

Trump told reporters Friday that the indictment is about justice, not revenge.

“He wasn’t the biggest, but he’s a dirty cop,” Trump said. “He’s always been a dirty cop. Everybody knew it.”

The public battle with Trump has put Comey in a spotlight that would have seemed unfathomable decades ago when the former FBI director was growing up in suburban New Jersey.

When Northern Highlands Regional High School inducted its inaugural hall of fame class in 2011, Comey — a 1978 graduate — was among 14 alumni chosen for the honor.

Comey remained a familiar presence in Allendale long after departing for college and embarking on his legal career, making frequent visits to see his parents. His father, former Allendale Councilman J. Brien Comey died in 2020, seven years after the death of Comey’s mother.

NJ Advance Media visited Comey’s hometown in 2018 shortly before the publication of his tell-all book and sought out friends, classmates, teachers and others for their recollections of him.

Those who knew him offered similar stories of a straight-arrow, yet playful, teen who did not appear to take himself too seriously, was diligent about attending church and respectful of others.

“His nickname was Wheels. I think that was attributable to him playing basketball,” said Paris Eliades, a fellow 1978 graduate who also became an attorney and was later elected president of the New Jersey State Bar Association.

Comey took on administrators at Northern Highlands Regional High School while writing for the student newspaper, retired teacher Andrew Dunn recalled in 2018.

Dunn, the newspaper’s faculty adviser, said Comey and another student zeroed in on test scores in AP chemistry being lower than scores in other Advanced Placement courses. They co-wrote an editorial, “Bad Chemistry,” that laid out the problem in unsparing detail and urged a review.

“It raised a storm,” Dunn said, adding that their editorial “didn’t go over well” with higher-ups at the school.

That contentious editorial aside, people who knew Comey in high school say he did not seek attention. Peter Freeman graduated two years ahead of Comey and was in the same class as his sister.

“Growing up, you never would have known that he would be the celebrity he’s become,” Freeman said in 2018.

Comey’s 1978 senior yearbook photo shows him wearing a large bow tie and flashing a wide smile. His 12-line, lighthearted caption is laden with inside references, including his dislikes for “the gang,” pre-calculus, his first “C” grade and the student council.

It includes his career goal — becoming either a doctor or, presumably in jest, a rutabaga farmer. Rutabaga is a root vegetable derived from mixing cabbages and turnips.

Comey, who would grow to 6 feet, 8 inches tall, gave a yearbook shout-out to playing basketball and listed “people with big feet” among his likes.

On a serious note, his yearbook entry alluded to the defining trauma of his high school years, noting he will never forget “the Visitor with a gun on 10/25/77.”

Comey was home with one of his brothers at night when an armed man broke into their house in October 1977. The suspect — wanted for multiple home invasion rapes and robberies in New Jersey and dubbed the “Ramsey rapist” — was never caught.

Comey discussed what happened in a 2014 interview with “60 Minutes.”

“A guy, gunman, kicked in our front door at our home in New Jersey and held the two of us captive. We escaped. He caught us again. We escaped again. So a pretty horrific experience,” Comey said.

Asked how it impacted his career in law enforcement, Comey said it gave him a “sense of what victims feel.”

“And that even the notion no one was physically harmed, doesn’t mean no one was harmed. Because I thought about that guy every night for five years,” Comey said.

He attended the College of William and Mary in Virginia, graduating in 1982.

He got his law degree in 1985 from the University of Chicago and held a series of jobs over the next two decades, culminating in a stint as deputy U.S. attorney general from 2003 to 2005.

Comey was in private practice until 2013, when he was nominated as FBI Director by former President Barack Obama. He was confirmed by the Senate in a 93-1 vote.

Comey spoke with students at Northern Highlands Regional High School in October 2015, two years after being named FBI director and 13 months before Trump was elected.

Mike Koth, who remains an assistant principal at the school, said in 2015 that Comey shared his “four rules for success” with students during his visit.

His rules were: possess a high emotional intelligence; obsess over effective, clear speech; have the courage to ask questions; and value one’s reputation.

At the time, Koth described Comey’s visit to the high schol as “a great experience for our students, to see someone who just walked in their shoes rise to the heights that Mr. Comey has.”