One of the most interesting new disclosures today in the Comey hearing was the admission by former FBI Director James Comey that he intentionally used a “friend” on the Columbia law faculty to leak his memos to the media. Comey says that he did so to force the appointment of a Special Counsel. However, those memos could be viewed as a government record and potential evidence in a criminal investigation.
Notably, Columbia Law School Professor Daniel Richman on a faculty webpage reads that he is “currently an adviser to FBI Director James B. Comey.” Richman specializes in criminal law and criminal procedure.
The problem is that Comey’s description of his use of an FBI computer to create memoranda to file suggests that these are arguably government documents. Comey admitted that he thought he raised the issue with his staff and recognized that they might be needed by the Department or Congress. They read like a type of field 302 form, which are core investigatory documents.
The admission of leaking the memos is problematic given the overall controversy involving leakers undermining the Administration. Indeed, it creates a curious scene of a former director leaking material against the President after the President repeatedly asked him to crack down on leakers.
Besides being subject to Nondisclosure Agreements, Comey falls under federal laws governing the disclosure of classified and nonclassified information. Assuming that the memos were not classified (though it seems odd that it would not be classified even on the confidential level), there is 18 U.S.C. § 641 which makes it a crime to steal, sell, or convey “any record, voucher, money, or thing of value of the United States or of any department or agency thereof.”
There are also ethical and departmental rules against the use of material to damage a former represented person or individual or firm related to prior representation. The FBI website states:
Dissemination of FBI information is made strictly in accordance with provisions of the Privacy Act; Title 5, United States Code, Section 552a; FBI policy and procedures regarding discretionary release of information in accordance with the Privacy Act; and other applicable federal orders and directives.”
Lawyers generally ask for clients or employers to release information, particularly when it may be detrimental to the firm or the client or someone associated with your prior representation.
By the way, waking up in the middle of the night (as described by Comey) is not generally the best time to decide to leak damaging memos against a sitting president. There are times when coffee and a full night’s sleep (and even conferral with counsel) is recommended. Leaking damaging memos is one of those times. Moreover, if Comey was sure of his right to release the memo, why use a law professor to avoid fingerprints?
I find Comey’s admission to be deeply troubling from a professional and ethical standpoint. Would Director Comey have approved such a rule for FBI agents? Thus, an agent can prepare a memo during office hours on an FBI computer about a meeting related to his service . . . but leak that memo to the media. The Justice Department has long defined what constitutes government documents broadly. It is not clear if Comey had the documents reviewed for classification at the confidential level or confirmed that they would be treated as entirely private property. What is clear is that he did not clear the release of the memos with anyone in the government.
Comey’s statement of a good motivation does not negate the concerns over his chosen means of a leak. Moreover, the timing of the leak most clearly benefited Comey not the cause of a Special Counsel. It was clear at that time that a Special Counsel was likely. More importantly, Comey clearly understood that these memos would be sought. That leads inevitably to the question of both motivation as well as means.
What do you think?
Jonathan, I don’t understand your use of the word “leak.” Are you saying that our classification laws would allow the government to bar Comey from disclosing his conversations with the President? Or can we draw a distinction between Comey’s conversations with the President, on the one hand, and the written documents he created to record his memories of the conversations, on the other. If the former is classified then Comey’s entire Congressional testimony was one big “leak,” which is obviously incorrect. If the conversations are not classified but the written memoranda are classified, then the “leak” is immaterial, isn’t it? What’s the point of a classified document that contains only unclassified information? It feels like someone asked you to write a piece that questions whether Comey has done something wrong, so you gave it your best shot.
You can leak non classified information. It;s not a crime. He’s claiming that the information was a government record or work product and thus taking it was theft. This is of course ridiculous.
Actually, Mr. Turley explained precisely why classification isnt the only determination required to qualify a leak as a leak. He was fairly clear in his explanation. You may want to re read what he wrote. Additionally, I find Turley is very credible and knowledgeable. The left used to love him until that about which he was right to fit their desired analysis. Which, to me, says his analysis is something to seriously consider. He gives analysis based on law and not politics.
Correction…that about which he was right, didn’t fit their desired analysis. ….
I have reread the piece and I still don’t understand what you are referring to. If Comey had simply called the NYT himself and told them all about his conversations with the president, that would have been proper, correct? So Turley is saying, well, once he wrote it down, his writings became secret, even though the contents of those writings were not secret. So Comey’s crime is he leaked a secret document containing only non-secret information? Our classification laws can’t be that stupid can they?
The contents were a secret. Only Comey and Trump were in that room.
How can an objective person assert that the contents of those memos were in the public domain before they were leaked?
That is just insane.
Comey made a point to tell other people. So it wasn’t a case where it was secret.
No one is asserting that the contents of the memos were in the public domain before they were leaked. The point is that Comey did nothing wrong in telling the NYT about his conversations with the president. You are saying those conversations were “secret” but they were not classified.
So, you don’t understand what is considered property of the Government, Priveleged executive communications, FBI Protocol. It would explain why you don’t understand what point Turley is making. So, Ask home to explain it to you in laymen terms. Turley isn’t an legal snob, in fact, he leans very much toward educating the general public.
You ask, “If Comey had simply called the NYT himself and told them all about his conversations with the president, that would have been proper, correct?”
No, incorrect.
Professor Turley explained why:
Besides being subject to Nondisclosure Agreements, Comey falls under federal laws governing the disclosure of classified and nonclassified information. Assuming that the memos were not classified (though it seems odd that it would not be classified even on the confidential level), there is 18 U.S.C. § 641 which makes it a crime to steal, sell, or convey “any record, voucher, money, or thing of value of the United States or of any department or agency thereof.”
There are also ethical and departmental rules against the use of material to damage a former represented person or individual or firm related to prior representation. The FBI website states:
“Dissemination of FBI information is made strictly in accordance with provisions of the Privacy Act; Title 5, United States Code, Section 552a; FBI policy and procedures regarding discretionary release of information in accordance with the Privacy Act; and other applicable federal orders and directives.”
Comey broke the law. His act was intemperate, inappropriate, and small. If there were no other reason to fire Comey, this behavior would have been sufficient.
But there were many, many, improper aspects of the Clinton investigation, an investigation which Comey sloppily oversaw and failed to impanel a Grand Jury.
Particularly egregious was Comey’s deceptive claim that he saw no “intent” of Clinton to compromise classified information when, in fact (and in the law), no “intent” is required.
And even if intent WERE required, it could easily be established that someone who was First Lady for eight years and a US Senator for six years, and who, having been appointed Secretary of State had a private classified material briefing from two agents explaining in excruciating detail the requirements to protect classified material at all levels, and who was well aware of FOIA laws requiring all government electronic documents to be saved and stored on government computers, HAD to know what she was doing when she set up private nonsecure email servers that everyone knows were easily hacked by foreign intelligence agencies and then has her lawyers delete at least half of the information on her servers, some of which was recovered and included not only FOIA documents but highly classified documents as well.
The real question people should be asking is: “When is Hillary Clinton going to be arrested for espionage?”
What Clinton did was vastly more damaging to our nation than what Reality Winner did. Yet, Winner was promptly arrested.
Why is Hillary R. Clinton getting a pass? Because she’s a loser? That is no reason to delay justice another second.
Hillary and co-partner Bill are going to go down eventually. Be patient.
should have just had a private server?
So if I tell you my dog died last week, am I leaking unclassified information? Or am I just telling you something? What’s the difference between a “leak” and just disclosing information as one might do in the course of living in a free society? Comey is not “leaking” when he tells us things he believes we should know, unless disclosure violates the law. Is the point of Turley’s piece that if Comey keeps talking then some smart lawyer will find a way to make him the villain? Maybe by calling his own memories “leaks” like his head is a government-owned hard drive? If so, then I say good luck with that. He is fully capable of explaining to the jury why he should be allowed to talk publicly about his conversations with the president.
Oh dear.
Anonymous hearsay has no evidentiary value anywhere except at the NY Times and Washington Post.
Nixon went down, not because of ‘hearsay’…it was the tapes. It was the transcripts.
Records and memos have evidentiary value and for a reason. They are a fixed account in time by a certain known induvidual, and the testimony therein can be transpatently assessed by everyone with no degradation or alteration of the source material.
A phone call is vapor in the ether.
It is good enough for the NYT, but they have been wrong on just about every majo scoop for months.
*individual
*transparently
*major
Oh, wow! So you agenda here is to post ridiculous commentary.
My agenda is to flood the zone with a thoughtful, well-reasoned defense of Comey. How am I doing?
Very poorly, Ian, my friend. LOL!
Wrong on 2 points…
1. He is arguing is that any verbatim recollection of a conversation with POTUS about topics related to a National Security investigation would absolutely default to “Confidential” status at the very, very minimum.
That absolutely would be illegal to leak these.
2. Read the quote from the Statute.
It says “sell, steal or convey.”
The newsworthiness of the documents do have economic value to the eventual publishers in terms of clicks and page views. The documents were misappropriated and resulted in financial benefit to publishers.
But where you really let us down is that you refused to see the word “convey.”
Nothing more needs to be said at this point.
I disagree. Something more needs to be said. There is no statute that says a verbatim memorandum of a conversation with the president on topics related to national security are automatically “confidential.” And I don’t believe Turley is saying that. Second, the notion that Comey couldn’t share memos he himself wrote about his own personal observations because his writings have economic value and are government property that he tried to “convey” to the paper – that’s gobbledegook. Did he convey ownership of the documents? Did he convey possession of them? Are you suggesting the newspaper should pay the government royalties? It’s like we’re just brainstorming how to manufacture a criminal case against Comey. Why would Turley be doing that?
Stop being obtuse. Comey wrote those memos on an FBI device, while he was Director of the FBI. News flash, they belong to USG, and aren’t Comey’s sole personal property to use as he chooses. Of all people, Comey would know this. That’s why this is egregious. An agent who would do this would be subject to investigation.
You are describing a meaningless technical violation of a law that doesn’t exist and then calling it “egregious.” Why is it “egregious”? If it’s egregious to treat notes you yourself wrote as your own property then everything is egregious. Again, what is the point of trying to find a crime to pin on Comey?
ridiculous? Seems to me to be pretty damn clear.
We have a lot of idiots on this blog space.
I think I’m going to have to accept the Supreme Court’s reading of 18 USC 641 over Turley’s. See Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246.
This case is irrelevant. A) Comey wrote memos on an FBI computer which is relevant to current investigations and events. These memos in no way are abandoned government property. B) Comey was a civilian junk dealer, he was the FBI Director that wrote the Memos on an FBI computer and then handed them to a second party to leak, while knowing these memos were currently pertinent, and completely undermined an FBI investigation. What Comey did was to undermine the Agency he says he loves.
…wasn’t a junk dealer…
I don’t think it undermined the investigation for Comey to publicly disclose and discuss his conversations with the president. I think it strengthened the investigation by leading to the appointment of Mueller. Which is why he did it. The written documents aren’t the point – it’s the factual assertions in those documents that are the point. Does it undermine the investigation for Comey to disclose that the president was trying to undermine the investigation?
It certainly did undermine it.
If Mueller ever needed Comey as a witness for a prosecution he just seriously hampered Mueller’s case.
Comey basically admitted that Trump did not *explicitly* order him to do anything.
Leaking materials to purposefully drive the public news cycle, and admitting that ad a motivation damages the credibility of all of it.
Comey stated his intention was undermine Trump, cloud the water and force a Special Counsel.
He admitted to having unusual motivations for doing this that are not aligned with the interests of the FBI, rather it serves his own desires.
Are newspaper interviews treated as depositions? Hell no.
There is a reason witnesses are told not to speak to the papers…it taints their testimony.
This is 101 stuff.
How has Comey hampered Mueller’s case by publicly disclosing his conversations with the president? He can still testify. Why would his courtroom testimony seem less credible because he previously testified before Congress? This is not like a witness in an ordinary criminal case who is told not to talk to the newspaper. Comey is the head of the FBI. Will that be the defense’s argument: you can’t trust Comey because he testified under oath to Congress? It doesn’t make sense to me. Also, it seems like everything he did was done to ensure that an independent investigation would proceed. This is entirely consistent with the FBI’s role. So this talk of “personal desires” makes no sense to me. He asked a friend to share information with the newspaper in an effort to get a special prosecutor appointed. Seems legitimate to me. Is he not allowed to try to make things happen that he thinks are good for the country?
Very good, Sheldonmf
What is puzzling about the leak is its stated purpose – to get a special counsel appointed. Mr. Comey’s own testimony suggests that he was not of the opinion that there was collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. He further affirmed that the President was not the subject of a criminal investigation. Why then did Mr. Comey hope a special counsel should be appointed? To investigate what?
His story smells!
Mueller was appointed to investigate Russian meddling in the election and to investigate collusion between Trump campaign operatives and the Russians.
Comey’s story rings true to me
Yes, it does. What is it really that Comey wished special counsel for?
“To investigate what?”
Loretta Lynch, among others, perhaps?
There are no factual assertions in his memos. Did you hear his testimony? He himself said he’d never hear of someone who had a hope of something being indicted. This whole thing is so farcical, it’s shameful. I didn’t vote Trump, but watching this whole fiasco makes me wonder what in hell has happened to the average persons’ common sense. It’s one BS story after another. No, I don’t take Comey at his word. He has played games too many times.
There are factual assertions in the memos. That’s the whole point of the memos.
Whether you use a government computer or not is not determinative of whether a work product is an official government record. I don’t think the answer is clear cut. If you are writing meeting notes for your own purpose and your own personal use only, I don’t think this qualifies as a government record. I have 13 years of records management experience and was head of the City of San Diego’s records management program for a decade.
Do you work for the FBI? Know their policy. Know federal policy on personal use of gov devices? It belongs to gov once you put it on gov devices.
What policy are you referring to? Is this a statute? A regulation? Or is it something you made up?
He also said he leaked it because of Trump’s tweet about being recorded – He leaked it to the NYT on the 11th – Trump’s tweet was on the 12th – so he flat out lied.
Take a look at Circa News story on NSA abuse. Not the first time Comey has misrepresented, to be polite, fact under oath.
By having his friend pass on word about his notes, Comey was leaking and it is a prosecutable offense. Comey is a fired Federal worker with an ax to grind. He said as much in his “testimony” in which he kept notes because the president would lie. By the way, documents are not classified – the content is.
You are incorrect. There is no prosecutable offense. The content of Comey’s memos is what he shared in public testimony so obviously that information is not classified and sharing such information is not a crime. My read on Comey is not that he had an “ax to grind,” but rather that he resented Trump for interfering in the Flynn investigation and for insulting him with threats of termination.
Not that resentment is what led him to memorialize their conversations. I’m sure he just figured someday it might he important to be able to remember precisely what was said and to be able to explain how he was able to remember it so well. If It was all about resentment then he would have written stuff like “I hate that guy!”
Oh, now there are threats of termination? When did these alleged threats occur? How? Quote the threats by Trump.
I think when Trump asked Comey if he wanted to stay in his job, well after Trump and Comey had already discussed it and decided that Comey would stay on, Comey interpreted that as a threat that his job was in jeopardy. That seemed to be what he was saying in the hearing, no?
Ian, what is highly puzzling is that we are to trust Comey;s notes as the ‘gospel’ of truth. A man in his
position should have written a note to the president, to confirm that he, Comey, did indeed understand
what was being said.
Most of us with average intelligence do this routinely- in our work, and personal contacts.
A man with responsibility for our national security should be held to at least that level of competency.
Failure to do that alone should be a red flag about his effectiveness. Comey bending to Loretta Lynch’s
request to misclassify criminal investigation of Hilary Clinton for the media – another serious blunder.
Comey in his testimony believes that his notes , recorded on the FBI computer, were somehow HIS
personal documents. They were not. If he and Donald were chums who were discussing private matters
that might apply, with a bit of a stretch. But from position of Directors of FBI Comey, speaking with
the POTUS – that does not apply. Sorry. Plus there is NON-disclosure which Jonathan clearly mentions.
First, the notes that Comey wrote about his own conversations with the president are absolutely his own property. More importantly, his memories of those conversations are his own property. We are getting all hung up on the notes but it’s the contents of the notes that matter, not the notes themselves.
As for Comey’s effectiveness, Comey was highly effective. Your talk of “red flags” makes it sound like nobody was watching Comey before 2016. If there is a serious argument to be made that Comey was bad at his job then I’d like to hear it, but let’s not pretend we just woke up from a coma
Skepticism is important but so is Comey’s reputation. His testimony is not gospel but he is a credible witness, isn’t he?
As for your suggestion that Comey should have written a note to the president to confirm that he understood what the president had said, I think you are missing the point. Comey didn’t trust Trump and wrote the memos to protect himself in case Trump later lied about what had been said. Under those circumstances writing the memos showed a high level of competence.
Finally, regarding the non-disclosure agreement, any such agreement that would prevent Comey from giving the testimony he gave would be unenforceable as a matter of law. Comey has a duty to the public to share information that he believes the public should know.
Ah, I see. So anyone that works for the government can write their personal thoughts about their work and those they work with and what they work on, ignoring NDAs, and it’s perfectly legal if they themselves justify to themselves it should be public record? In that vein, that would mean every agent that has serious questions with how their boss conducted investigations shouldn’t go through appropriate channels. They should alternatively write a “memo to self” and leak it through third parties to the press? Good luck with that rationalization, Ian.
I don’t need luck. The presumption is that we should know what our government is doing. I don’t need to rationalize the sharing of information about the president – it’s the secrecy that needs to be justified. I suppose we could try it the other way, where government officials can’t share information about their work without permission. I bet that’s how they do it in North Korea
Ian, simply put, there are policies, procedures, protocol and laws that govern federal employees. Like it or not, it’s not just about transparency or lack thereof, it’s to prevent a free for all of politicized mayhem. This move by Comey certainly falls under that category. Worse, it was committed by the one guy who would have fired an agent for doing what he did.
i understand there are federal laws. I’m asking you to identify the federal policy you referenced in your earlier post. Is there any such policy? If so, what is it? I literally do not know what you are referring to
Don’t forget, this is the guy that had agents sign additional non disclosures during the Clinton investigations. Think about that, Ian. He took very seriously NDAs then.
Do we know whether Comey’s testimony violated a NDA? Or is this all speculation?
There is some very good comments here but I don’t think that anyone has mentioned Executive Privilege. Granted this is a fluid area of the la but one thing is certain the privilege does not belong to Comey it belongs to Trump. I do not believe that anyone can dispute that a private conversation between the FBI Director and the President is not a privileged conversation regardless of what they were discussing but especially true in this instance when they were discussing matters specifically related to an investigation involving the Executive Branch. This precedent goes all the way back to Jefferson and the Burr Conspiracy. Only the President can waive that privilege and since that never occurred here Cokey no doubt violated his ethical duties as a lawyer. This violation not only calls into question his credibility but suggests something more ominous regarding the underlying motive for even leaking this information in the first place. The idea of setting the record straight to protect the so his ethical reputation from defamatory statements is hogwash. First, Mueller would get the memos anyhow. Second, they would likely come out in his report with or without finding of criminal conduct by Trump or others in campaign.
Besides Executive Privilege is the question of who owns the Memos the Government or Comey? I suggest that the answer does not hinge on what device they were created or how they were created, the answer arises from the fact that they were created by Comey in his official capacity as FBI director concerning a subject matter related to ongoing investigations about the Executive Branch and these documents memorialize his thoughts, concerns and observations regarding possible evidence that could be related in some fashion to those investigations. In fact he admitted just how deeply the memos were connected to ongoing FBI work when he stated he met with and discussed the substance of his conversations with high level personnel in the FBI. Thus, I believe that the memos are unquestionable confidential and classified regardless of Comey splitting hairs about their creation. In fact his loosey goosey reasoning sounds remarkably similar to HRC’s story about why her private emails were not classified. So much so that one could get the impression that it was Comey and not Lynch who came up with the whole “matter” vs investigation concept.
So I believe that Comey was well aware at the time this information was leaked that he was violating not only ethical duties but was looking likely committing one felony and possibly admitting to the commission of a second felony – that being that if he truly believed Trump had overstepped his bounds in attempting quash the Flynn investigation then Comey had an absolute duty to take than to the appropriate channels. But he did not?
I have my theory which could be way off or dead on. First I was puzzled why Comey would even testify since he could be a potential witness to either criminal case or impeachment matter. Next, I was bothered by the leaks which in their detail led me to think they were coming from Comey or someone Very close to him. I ruled out McCabe after he testified this week. Anyhow, the leaks were also not really substantive but more directed at damaging Trumps credibility. My antennae has also been pinging lately over what I see is bizarre direct efforts by both Clapper and Brennan to insert themselvess personally into Trumps issues. What I mean is that these two old men have testified before Congress and that should be that but they there are for last several weeks blasting “Trumps” credibility and repeatedly saying the Trumps Collusion issue and the Flynn issue “would dwarf Watergate.” In my mind, I began to suspect that these two old men have a personal stake in the outcome of whatever was going in in the whole house of cards.
Next I was at first baffled as to why Mueller would even let Comey testify since Comey may be a future witness. Then I heard that Comey met with Mueller – Comey testified Mueller did not preview his testimony (also odd but explained in a few lines) – which is not unheard of in such circumastances. Before Comey testified I took this meeting and that fact that Comey was even going to show up and absolute proof that Trump himself was not the target of Muellers work. But then—-Comey testified.
I was jaw dropped at Comeys testimony. Not about anything he substantively said because from criminal or impeachment stand point he said nothing of substance. I was blown away by the rampant never ending admissions by him of his own unethical conduct and possibly criminal conduct. Further, his validation of Trumps “he told me 3 times” claim utterly destroyed every possible truth to what Clapper and Brennan have rampantly gabbing about all over the media for weeks. The he drops the Lynch bombshell and I think I passed out for some short time in shock :).
But seriously, these 3 aspects is THE STORY from the Comey show. But why? Would Comey do this? Maybe I am wrong but Comey’s dead pan candor and blatant admissions leads me to believe that he has reached an immunity deal with his long time friend Mueller who he wanted appointed as special prosecutor which he leaked the memo for that very appointment.
If I am correct the what in world would Comey need immunity for? It can’t be for Russia Collusion that is debunked. It could be for not reporting obstruction of justice but that charge is very weak here at best and if there was anything to it Comey would have acted right away on it?
Hmmmmm. Clapper, Brennan, Lynch, Hillary Clinton, a tarmac, private email criminal investigation, Steele Dossier, FBI Requests for FISA warrant 3x twice denied, Susan Rice, unmasking, Obama Januar 2017 Ex. Order regarding dissemination and oddly enough our newbie Winner the leaker. And suddenly I thought OMG Comey exchanged his testimony regarding the underlying unmasking probe in exchange for his testimony regarding those involved.
Then I took my tin foil hat off. And my theory still held water in that i believe that Clapper, Brennan and Lynch used intercepted intelligence involving Trump campaign people and Russian people as both a retaliation against Putins hack of DNC and Podesta and as an effort to somehow blunt the damage those leaks did to HRC campaign. Maybe this was politically motivated or maybe it was just their way of balancing out the election but I am pretty sure that none of them ever believed the Trump would actually win the election and as such whatever they had done to unmask this stuff would be forever buried in the Clinton administration.
In my mind if the above is within the realm of reality I still hold out hope for Comey which is why I think he may have struck an immunity deal. I think Comey was under intense pressure to get a FISA warrant and even though he thought the evidence with Dossier was as weak he’s a company man and he did what Lynch told him to do. And the FISA warrant was a must have if what Russia Collusion narrative was going to have even an inkling of credibility. After the election everybody is gone home but Comey and now he looks around has this uh oh moment and starts to try to figure out how to close the door. He stalls for time by not telling Congress what he already knew that Trump was not under investigation.
But then Trump cans his ass and now Comey is no longer in the position to maneuver the matter so he has to act and he has to act fast to CYA.
I agree. If Hillary had become president it would have all been buried.
This hinges on whether the work product of a fired executive of the FBI is privileged property of the FBI. In all likelihood it is, and therefore this was a leak.
Don’t you become a private citizen after you are fired and whatever you write you own.
Rachel Maddow is a coke head.
MSNBC needs to stop milking Rep. Adam Schiff’s partisan teats.
Why haven’t they used any of their vociferous line of attacks on the behavior of Loretta Lynch?
There is a serious problem today with the post-1970’s FBI values and culture. Americans and those in the FBI worked very hard, after the Watergate scandal and the COINTELPRO scandal, to get the FBI out of political domestic intelligence activities and re-focused on law enforcement issues. Unfortunately, the 9/11 terrorist attacks brought an accelerated focus on domestic intelligence as an FBI mission. But there is a very BIG difference between a law enforcement culture and an intelligence culture. Could you imagine the police chief of your local police force writing up a memo and then giving it to someone to leak to the press? Because he could not, would not publicly tell the truth, except through a media leak? Of course not. This speaks to values and character. You would not expect your law enforcement agency to work in such duplicitous and conniving manner. We tried very hard to get the public’s expectations of FBI law enforcement to be the same. But now we are back to a pre-1970s “ends justifies the means” culture, despite all of our hard work and efforts at change in the FBI. We have an FBI culture today, that does not understand it is wrong for a law enforcement agency to run a child pornography website to manage to arrest others. The idea is not morally repugnant, but is viewed as clever and cunning. “The ends justifies the means.” And when the FBI Director can “leak” and get away with it, what signal does it send to anyone else in the FBI? Mr. Comey is very concerned about himself, as he has every right to be. But that is not the values of a leader in law enforcement, who is mostly concerned about the community, their safety, and their trust. Whether it was legal or not, it was not necessary, and it has done tremendous damage to an FBI already struggling. Mr. Comey’s cunning intelligence-centric and lawyer friends may not think so, but law enforcement needs trust and respect to be effective. It cannot be perceived to political in any way. Mr. Comey has gone out of his way to be political, and while he may be pleased with that, to the people in law enforcement, that will do significant and long-term damage to public trust. Despite what the political partisans may think, there are no “winners” here. America just loses. Innocents will suffer.
realcourage, you write:”Could you imagine the police chief of your local police force writing up a memo and then giving it to someone to leak to the press? ”
The problem is the DC elite of law enforcement, IE: the DOJ is much more sophisticated.This is purely a political hit job. From usurping protocol and publicly announcing no crime on HRC’s part, accompanied by a pure silence by the Obama administration, Bill Clinton’s tarmac meeting,and Comey’s note taking to save his recently fired ass, the ruling class is willing to forget the public, consider them stooges and move on to their own elitists grasp for control.
I love how team Trump’s response is that Comey made up false things that Trump never said, yet Comey “leaked” the records of these conversations. Well, which one is it? How can they accuse him of “leaking” information if the information is fake in the first place?! Hmm.
Good luck with that line of reasoning. But officer, she wasn’t really a prostitute I was soliciting. Or, that that car I was stealing was only a bait car. Or, the hit man I was hiring was actually an under cover cop. Yeah, good luck with that.
Olly,
Your comment made me think that all this was a loyalty test.
“I am very skeptical about people; that’s self-preservation at work. I believe that, unfortunately, people are out for themselves. At this point, it’s to many people’s advantage to like me. Would the phone stop ringing, would these people kissing ass disappear if things were not going well?
I enjoy testing friendship…. Everything in life to me is a psychological game, a series of challenges you either meet or don’t. I am always testing people who work for me.
How?
I will send people around to my buyers to test their honesty by offering them trips and other things. I’ve been surprised that some people least likely to accept a trip from a contractor did and some of the most likely did not. You can never tell until you test; the human species is interesting in that way. So to me, friendship can be really tested only in bad times.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-01/trumps-1990-playboy-interview-we-are-being-laughed-around-world
Could be. If true, a career inside the beltway guy was worked by an outsider.
Great link, and great interview! Thank you for posting it!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Really good article. Trump knew back in 1990 that the ‘working guy would elect me.’ That’s exactly what happened 26 years later.
“Q: But if the grass ever did look greener, which political party do you think you’d be more comfortable with?
A: Well, if I ever ran for office, I’d do better as a Democrat than as a Republican–and that’s not because I’d be more liberal, because I’m conservative. But the working guy would elect me. He likes me. When I walk down the street, those cabbies start yelling out their windows.”
Good luck to Trump saying what I did did not obstruct justice because I didn’t know I was obstructing justice.
1. Did Comey “lie and defame” Hillary when he convicted and pardoned
her in a news conference?
2. When do we get the Comey “perp walk?”
3. President Trump always turns out to be right; Comey IS a “nut job.”
See, what Trump didn’t know is that when you work with a bunch of government bureaucrats, you have one goal. Keep your head down and your backside covered. You have no friends and no one is your ally, although your days are filled with well wishes, birthday cards and long elaborate lunches. You must understand this or you will be quickly voted off the island. (And yes, I played the game and played it well for 10 years. Then I woke up and looked at myself and hated what I saw.)
The ring of truth – Kathryn
His so-called leak was probably not illegal, but it definitely was not loyal to Trump. This fact alone shows that Trump was right to fire him.
It begs the question did other instances exist where this prof was used to leak info to the press.
Wow talk about stupid. Seems like he makes the case for trump firing him a leaker of sensitive and self serving documents to undermine a sitting president. No wonder trump suspected him of disloyalty.
I think Comey’s testimony showed that he valued his job as Director of the FBI above all else. I see this as one of two scenarios: Either Comey believed Trump to be interfering with his investigation and lied in his (Comey’s) May 3, 2017 testimony, thus compromising his integrity, or Comey did not judge Trump’s conduct to be improper initially, testified honestly on May 3 and then turned on Trump for revenge after his firing. Either way it shows how much Comey coveted his title as FBI director. The leaking of his memo(s) was purely revenge, like a scorned lover and it is hard to imagine if a first year FBI agent was fired and did the same that an FBI Director Comey would have found that acceptable.
In MHO today’s revelations clearly show some of the damage Mr. Colmey has caused to the Democracy: if the head of the FBI takes these crazy actions, what to expect from people working under him and the rest of the Federal Government. No wonder the neverending leaks!
It is also troubling to see how our nation is quickly falling to the level of many third world countries. Very sad indeed. Whether you are pro Trump or against him, our Democracy is at stake.
OK, sooo what I went and done was to make an ORIGINAL Gilbert and Sullivan parody song about the kind of person James Comey is. I worked on this for about an hour, sooo please don’t be shy to tell me how you feel, one way or the other. There is no other website in the world which this, because it is an EXCLUSIVE for here!
I Am The Very Model of A Modern Sneaky Bureaucrat
A G and S Parody Song by Squeeky Fromm
I am the very model of a modern sneaky bureaucrat,
I use confusing rhetoric to hide I’m just an empty hat,
And in the “Swamp” of Washington I find my perfect habitat,
There never is a limit to what I will find hors de combat*;
I’m very well acquainted with the latest gossipy chitchat,
And when I need assistance how to call on buddies from my frat,
And if my rambling testimony’s not enough to hide the pith,
My Harvard-educated lawyer taught me how to plead the fifth.
I learned so very early how to make denials plausible,
And how to couch deceptions into language so applausible.
And though unto the hoi polloi my scent resembles a polecat,
I am the very model of a modern sneaky bureaucrat!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
*hors de combat, is French for “dude fell off his horse”. It means someone or something that is out of the fight,now. I have used it to mean “off limits.” Sooo, please don’t nobody tell the French, or I could maybe be fined in the EU or something. But if you pronounce in an English way, it just gives the song a certain je ne sais quoi which, I don’t know what that means.
Nicely done! 😉
SUPERB, Squeek. Comey is the consummate bureaucrat. When he described all the people in a meeting and the bureaucratic titles w/ ease and pride I chuckled. It sounded like a Monty Python skit. I know FBI agents who hate all that bureaucratic mumbo jumbo. They don’t move up the ladder. Guys like Comey move up quickly.
Thank you NickS and Olly! I am glad that you both liked it! That proves that both of you have good taste for classical things like Gilbert and Sullivan!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Yes, Squeek. And neither of us are gay. NTTAWWT.
Is that the classical gay or the modern version?
modern, Olly.
Nick, you are spot on. I went to work for a state court when I was 43. Needless to say it was a culture shock. I quickly noticed that those at the top all have the bovine tranquility that Comey displayed today. It was truly disconcerting.
Kathryn, “Bovine tranquility” is PERFECT, and hilarious. Keep those witty, insightful, comments coming.
Trump is the consummate casino owning mobster.
Who will win in the end? The FBI or the mobsters. Pops Kushner lost the battle. Will son Jared and father in law Trump? Don’t know but Jared will be going up to the committee to talk mid June.
Don Corleone
Pure genius! The parody I mean.
As for Comey, he sounds like a teenager caught breaking curfew. Is he actually afraid of a 70 year old man? Seriously?
As for his questionable documentation of meetings, that seems more like hearsay than actual witness accounts. Any lawyer will tell you eyewitnesses are burdened by their own bias and from what I heard and read today, Comey has plenty of both.
How about this for a scenario instead:
Bill Clinton, alarmed at his wife’s laissez faire attitude toward home servers, contacts Loretta Lynch on a remote from DC tarmac and promises her God know what to quash the investigation. Lynch tells Comey to avoid the term “investigation” deferring to the more innocuous “Matter” (as opposed to anti-matter). Then Comey in his star turn, skewers Hillary, but stops short of calling for a deeper investigation. Investigatus Interruptus abounds. Comey promises there is no more to be discovered in that “matter/investigation”. Then, surprise, surprise, surprise, a vice squad investigating child porn find Anthony Weiner (aptly named) with a laptop full of secretly copied 30K emails under a file marked “Life Insurance.” But none of this was of interest.
Fast forward to today and Comey discusses how his feelings led him to think Trump was lying. Excuse me, is this an FBI director or a middle school girl? Since when do “feelings” overwhelm data and evidence? Neither was revealed. In fact Comey admits committing perjury and leaks memoes of private meetings with the president to an unauthorized third party who then in turn leaks it to the press in order to ostensibly stampede the congress into appointing a special prosecutor. Does this sound more like a frame? I’m not a big fan of Trump or his twitter habit, but honestly Comey looks more like a weasel every word he speaks.
Since when do “feelings” overwhelm data and evidence?
Maybe he meant his spidey senses were tingling.
Thank you!!! I am glad you liked it!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Wrong……Trump”s deputy ag appointed Mueller. The spreading of disinformation is rampant here.
+1000
Thank you. That’s great. 😀