DOJ inspector general: Comey 'violated' FBI rules
The Justice Department inspector general released a scathing report on former FBI Director James Comey's notes memorializing his conversations with President Trump, finding that he disclosed them without authorization "to achieve a personally desired outcome."
The 83-page report on Comey's handling of "sensitive information," released Thursday, said the investigation found "no evidence that Comey or his attorneys released any of the classified information contained in any of the Memos to members of the media."
But Inspector General Michael Horowitz faulted Comey for his behavior, saying his actions, "violated Department or FBI policy, or the terms of Comey’s FBI Employment Agreement. As described in this report, we conclude that Comey’s retention, handling, and dissemination of certain Memos violated Department and FBI policies, and his FBI Employment Agreement."
Horowitz criminally referred Comey to the Justice Department for his conduct, but the agency declined to prosecute.
The report concluded that Comey "failed to live up to this responsibility. By not safeguarding sensitive information obtained during the course of his FBI employment, and by using it to create public pressure for official action, Comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees — and the many thousands more former FBI employees — who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information."
Comey, who was fired by Trump in May 2017, testified to Congress that he gave his notes of conversations he had with Trump to his friend Daniel Richman, a Columbia University law professor, to leak to the New York Times. He said he hoped this would spark a special counsel investigation. Former FBI Director Robert Mueller was appointed that same month to lead an investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia.
Horowitz did not approve of Comey's course of action, criticizing him for not attempting other "lawful" ways to secure the appointment of a special counsel.
"Comey had several other lawful options available to him to advocate for the appointment of a Special Counsel, which he told us was his goal in making the disclosure. What was not permitted was the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive investigative information, obtained during the course of FBI employment, in order to achieve a personally desired outcome," Horowitz wrote.
In a pair of tweets, Comey emphasized how the report cleared him of leaking classified information to the media and took shots at his critics who said he leaked classified material to reporters, which includes Trump, and deserves to go to prison.
"DOJ IG 'found no evidence that Comey or his attorneys released any of the classified information contained in any of the memos to members of the media.' I don’t need a public apology from those who defamed me, but a quick message with a 'sorry we lied about you' would be nice," Comey tweeted soon after its release on Thursday.
"Perhaps never in the history of our Country has someone been more thoroughly disgraced and excoriated than James Comey in the just released Inspector General’s Report. He should be ashamed of himself!" Trump said.
"Today's report is a disappointing reminder that the former FBI Director put partisanship and personal ambition over patriotism and his legal obligations to the American people. By leaking his confidential communications with the President in an attempt to save face in the wake of his firing, Mr. Comey believed he was above the rules of the DOJ," Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement.
"His actions were disgraceful and part of a wider effort within the Obama Justice Department to undermine President Trump. I am grateful that the Inspector General brought these issues to light and look forward to his and Mr. Durham's findings related to abuses of the FISA process," the Georgia Republican added.
Sen. Lindsey Graham said the report is "a stunning and unprecedented rebuke of a former Director of the FBI" and thanked Horowitz and his team for their work.
“This is the first of what I expect will be several more ugly and damning rebukes of senior DOJ and FBI officials regarding their actions and biases toward the Trump campaign of 2016," the South Carolina Republican said. “I appreciate the time and effort Mr. Horowitz and his team spent documenting the off-the-rails behavior of Mr. Comey regarding the leaking of law enforcement materials to the media. I also appreciate Mr. Horowitz for reinforcing the proper standards expected of senior DOJ and FBI officials. Well done Mr. Horowitz.”
Comey also had his defenders, downplaying Horowitz's report.
"This is perhaps the stupidest investigation the IG has ever done, and one of its dumber conclusions. Talk about fiddling while Rome burns, " tweeted Matthew Miller, an Obama-era spokesman for the Justice Department. "The IG has basically faulted Comey for speeding on his way to tell the village that a fire was coming. Such a narrowly-scoped view of the world."
Comey, 58, served as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York in the early 2000s before joining the FBI. He became FBI director in 2013, under former President Barack Obama, and led the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails. He has been a target for Republicans and Democrats alike. Republicans often criticize him for recommending no charges against the then-Democratic presidential candidate. Meanwhile, Clinton and her allies blame Comey for contributing to her loss to Trump by reopening (then closing) the emails investigation weeks before election night.
In a 2018 report, Horowitz criticized Comey for being “insubordinate” and “affirmatively" concealing in his intentions from Justice Department leadership during the investigation into into Clinton's private email server. However, the watchdog did not find that bias tainted the investigation.
There were seven contemporaneous memos Comey wrote of his interactions with Trump between January and April 2017, spanning from prior to the inauguration to weeks before he was fired. They contain such claims as Trump seeking a loyalty pledge from Comey and pushing his FBI director to drop an investigation into his national security adviser Michael Flynn. Trump has vociferously denied both these accounts.
Only a handful of FBI officials knew about Comey's memos in those days, and they told the inspector general they were "official government records." However, Comey described at least some of them as being personal. "Comey's characterization of the Memos as personal records finds no support in the law and is wholly incompatible with the plain language of the statutes, regulations, and policies defining Federal records, and the terms of Comey's FBI Employment Agreement," Horowitz wrote.
The first memo focuses on Comey's first one-on-one meeting with Trump on Jan. 7, in which he first notified the president-elect of an unverifed dossier, compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele, on his alleged ties to Russia. Witnesses interviewed by Horowitz said they "discussed Trump's potential responses to being told about the 'salacious' information, including that Trump might make statements about, or provide information of value to, the pending Russian interference investigation."
Horowitz noted that "[m]ultiple FBI witnesses recalled agreeing ahead of time that Comey should memorialize his meeting with Trump immediately after it occurred."
There was some concern among the FBI's top officials that the memos about his conversations with Trump would look bad. Former FBI General Counsel James Baker told the inspector general that, "at the time, it was his understanding that the small group of people who had access to the Memos 'really didn't want anyone to know the Director…was recording at this level of detail his interactions with the President' because any perception that Comey was 'keeping…book' on the President would upset any effort to have an effective and ongoing working relationship."
Comey defended his creation of the memos. Horowitz wrote that Comey said it was "was important for FBI executive managers to be 'able to share in [Comey's] recall of the…salient details of those conversations.' Comey also said that an additional concern, shared by the members of his management team, was that if the briefing became 'a source of controversy' it would be important to have a clear, contemporaneous record because Trump might 'misrepresent what happened in the encounter.'”
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who may soon be facing criminal charges for lying to federal agents, told the inspector general, "that, in his view, it made sense for Comey 'to capture his … contemporaneous recollection' because there were “millions of ways that [the FBI] could get follow-up questions, or criticism…and [Comey] wanted to recollect exactly, from his perspective, how it had taken place.'”
Some of the memos did contain classified information, but not the ones that were leaked to the media. The inspector general report explains the creation and handling of each memo, including a detailed timeline of events.
Horowitz said his team conducted 17 interviews, including with former FBI lawyer Lisa Page and Richman, and found the FBI did not learn that Comey had shared any of the memos with anyone outside the FBI until Comey testified to Congress on June 8, 2017.
Comey told the inspector general that he feared cyber intrusion, printing out copies of his memos before deleting an electronic file. He also scanned some of the memos and used a private email account to send them to his attorneys. "Comey explained to the OIG that he is 'a maniac … about hacking of [his] personal devices' and that he is 'obsessive' about deleting files from his personal accounts. He told us that he 'never keep[s] any emails, personal emails' and tries 'to maintain almost a maniacal hygiene about records,'" the report said.
Last month, documents obtained by conservative watchdog Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information lawsuit showed FBI special agents from the Washington Field Office paid a visit to Comey's home on June 7, 2017, at which time he gave these them four of the memos as "evidence." These copies were kept in a safe, to which he told the inspector general "in theory" his wife had access, but not a key.
When Comey was fired, Trump initially cited a memo written by former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, which focused on the "mistakes" Comey made in handling the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's unauthorized email server. But a couple of days later, the president suggested a different motive in an interview with NBC, saying the “Russia thing” was a factor in firing Comey.
Comey, who has been a vocal critic of the president and his treatment of the FBI, is also a possible target of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's investigation into alleged Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse. He signed three of the four FISA applications targeting former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page before being fired by Trump. Horowitz's report is expected to be released after Labor Day. It is also likely that Comey's actions as FBI director will be scrutinized during the "investigation of the investigators," a review of the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, being led by Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham.
Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, said as recently as last night on Fox News that Comey should go to prison for lying to the FISA Court.
"The reality is that Comey's conduct was outrageous for a prosecutor. Any decent prosecutor, when we’re bouncing off the walls, starting with the completely fixed Hillary Clinton investigation. That was a sellout, a fix from day one. It’s a disgrace. I don't think J. Edgar Hoover ever did that," he told Fox News.
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