Former FBI director James Comey will be the keynote speaker at an upcoming financial advisors conference.
BNY Mellon Pershing announced that Comey will address advisors at its INSITE 2018 conference, which runs June 6-8 in Orlando, Fla.
Comey, an attorney, served as director of the FBI from 2013 until his dismissal by President Donald Trump on May 9, 2017. He became the subject of controversy during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, when he made a public communications regarding an investigation into Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s email less than a month before election day. Critics contend the move may have played a role in Clinton's defeat by Trump, the Republican candidate.
In June 2016, Comey also opened the FBI’s investigation into alleged election interference by foreign interests, most notably Russia. As the investigation unfolded during the early months of Trump’s administration, tensions between the FBI director and the White House increased, eventually culminating in his dismissal.
Comey has also been in the news lately with the release of his book, "A Higher Loyalty," in which he details his personal interactions with Trump. In a TV interview leading up to the book's release, Comey called Trump "morally unfit to be president."
President Trump, in turn, has responded by calling Comey "a slimeball" and questioned whether Comey's alleged leaks represented violations of the law in their own right. Defenders of the president have charged that special counsel Robert Mueller, himself a former FBI director, might never have been asked to open the subsequent, ongoing investigation were it not for Comey's activities.
In addition to his previous Justice Department roles as a U.S. attorney and deputy attorney general, Comey has also served on the senior management committee of Bridgewater Associates, as a researcher and scholar at Columbia University and as general counsel and senior vice president at Lockheed Martin.
Comey is slated to speak at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 6, the opening day of the INSITE conference.