Despite declining to prosecute James Comey, the Department of Justice’s Inspector Total list released recently proved damning for what small repute remains of the aged FBI Director. His sophomoric victory lap is by hook or by crook extra petty than that of President Trump’s after the starting up of the Mueller list.
Whereas the Particular Counsel investigation simply proved that Trump’s finest crime was stupidity, the IG list presents irrefutable proof that Comey, a occupation prosecutor, violated several identified phrases of his employment and insurance policies of the FBI and Department of Justice.
[ READ: The full DOJ inspector general report on James Comey]
DOJ IG “learned no proof that Comey or his attorneys released any of the labeled knowledge contained in any of the memos to contributors of the media.” I don’t desire a public apology from these who defamed me, but a immediate message with a “sorry we lied about you” might perchance perhaps be good.
— James Comey (@Comey)
August 29, 2019
The Convey of work of the Inspector Total learned that, opposite to Comey’s assertions, his memos documenting interactions with Trump were truly public records.
The list lambastes his “characterization” of the memos as “wholly incompatible with the easy language of the statutes, regulations, and insurance policies defining Federal records, and the phrases of Comey’s FBI Employment Agreement.” Now no longer finest did the list pick up that Comey’s “non-public statements and actions show the inherently governmental nature of the Memos,” but additionally that “none of the contributors of Comey’s senior management crew” concurred.
Thus, when Comey texted the fourth memo to his friend Daniel Richman, a Columbia College professor, to disseminate the contents to the New York Instances with the relate method of instigating the appointment of a Particular Counsel, he “violated FBI coverage and the necessities of his FBI Employment Agreement.”
The list goes into extra facts of Comey’s mishandling of the memos with regards to their physical discipline and distribution outside of the FBI, but most damning is the list’s detailing of Comey’s oblique contact with the New York Instances:
By disclosing the contents of Memo 4, by Richman, to
The New York Instances, Comey made public nonetheless investigative knowledge linked to an ongoing FBI investigation, knowledge he had neatly declined to issue while indifferent FBI Director throughout his March 20, 2017 congressional testimony. Comey was no longer licensed to issue the statements he attributed to President Trump in Memo 4, which Comey viewed as proof of an alleged are attempting to hinder the Flynn investigation and which were linked to the ongoing Flynn investigation.
Comey clearly considered the contents of Memo 4 extremely nonetheless — truly, as he said in his June 8, 2017 congressional testimony, Comey and completely different senior leaders of the FBI had decided no longer to list the President’s statements to the Attorney Total or Deputy Attorney Total, and to defend the President’s statements “very carefully held,” in disclose that the FBI management might perchance perhaps also “determine what to form with it down the motorway as our investigation improved.” Comey positioned in the final public arena proof linked to the investigation of Flynn, and what he clearly viewed as proof of an are attempting to hinder justice by President Trump. As opposed to continuing to safeguard such proof, Comey unilaterally and with out authorization disclosed it to all.
So yes, the citation shared by Comey is technically factual. The list learned that he didn’t beget any explain contact with the click in sharing the memos, a arrangement that no severe individual was proposing. However the media’s rightful framing of Comey sharing the memos with Richman for the sole goal of getting its contents to the Instances was wholly correct. He is owed no apology, on fable of he was truly a leaker.
Like Trump, Comey is celebrating a list that paperwork, intimately, his forget for legislation and penchant for lies.
And to all these who’ve spent two years talking about me “going to prison” or being a “liar and a leaker”—place a query to yourselves why you indifferent have confidence these who gave you bad info for thus long, including the president.
— James Comey (@Comey)
August 29, 2019
But unlike Trump, he truly did the part he was before the whole lot accused of. He leaked federal records by a third celebration. Comey ought to be thanking his fortunate stars that the DOJ declined to prosecute. Entirely a fool with extra hubris than the president would consider this list is a cause for celebration.
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