In his book, Comey asserted that since he was now a “private citizen,” he could do as he pleased to exploit the government-owned property that he’d pilfered in order to harm Trump.124 After an allegedly sleepless night, he came up with the idea that if he could stealthily leak the memos to the media, it would surely precipitate the appointment of a special counsel and the inevitable demise of the president who had unceremoniously fired him. Comey wanted to keep his fingerprints off the leak. On Tuesday, May 16, he contacted his “good friend” Daniel Richman, a professor at Columbia Law School, and arranged to deliver one or more of the memos so that Richman could communicate their contents to the New York Times for publication.125 Comey directed the operation, and the newspaper dutifully printed a story on May 16.126 A day later, Mueller, Comey’s longtime friend and colleague, was appointed special counsel. It was an insidious plan that worked flawlessly.
Comey told readers that he had given his friend just one memo, but that was untrue.127 Richman later confirmed that he had received four out of the seven memos Comey had authored and kept.128 Two other people were also given the memos, something Comey conveniently omitted from his book. For a man who once bragged to Trump, “I don’t do sneaky things, I don’t leak, I don’t do weasel moves,” it was the quintessential leak and the archetype of a weasel move.129 Comey insisted that the single memo he had given to his friend was “unclassified.” However, the Wall Street Journal reported that at least one, if not two, of the four memos in Richman’s possession was indeed classified.130 The inspector general at the Department of Justice launched an investigation of Comey.131
It was asinine for Comey to insist in his book and during interviews for his endless promotional tour that his leak was “not a leak.”132 No serious person believed that. The Freedom Forum Institute, which is dedicated to First Amendment protections, defines a media leak as “a government insider (including a former employee) sharing secret information about the government with a journalist” without authorization.133 Comey’s actions fit the definition like a snug glove. His contention that he did not “leak” defies credulity. However, it does demonstrate that he is insufferable and without conscience.
Under 18 U.S.C. § 641 it can be a felony punishable by up to ten years in prison for a person to “convert” a government record to his own use or “convey” it to another person without authority.134 This is what Comey appears to have done. He most certainly violated the FBI’s standard nondisclosure contract, which prohibited him from leaking information.135 That was a binding, enforceable, and actionable contract that did not lapse after he was fired. As FBI director, he was legally obligated to adhere to its terms, which state that he could be sued and face criminal prosecution for breaching the agreement. Moreover, if any of the memos he gave to Richman and others contained classified information, he could be prosecuted for the same crimes Hillary Clinton surely committed under 18 U.S.C. § 793.136
Why did Comey leak the presidential memos? The obvious answer is vengeance. He seemed to have written the documents as a form of “insurance policy,” realizing that he might be fired sometime soon. He kept copies in his home in the event he was shown the door before he could access his FBI files at work. The February 13, 2018, memo was what Comey tried to sell as a “smoking gun” of presidential maladministration. In reality, it wasn’t even a popgun; it was nothing at all. In both the memo and his testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on June 8, 2017, the FBI director recited a brief conversation in the Oval Office shortly after National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was forced to resign. According to Comey’s version, the president said of Flynn, “He is a good guy and has been through a lot. I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.”137 Comey told the committee he had interpreted the president’s words as a request that “we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December.”138
I asked Trump about Comey’s account of the alleged Oval Office conversation and whether he had ever spoken the words about Flynn that were attributed to him.
JARRETT: Did you ever say that?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: No. He totally made it up. It’s made up. His memos, in my opinion, were just made up stories. He was a bad guy for our country. He was a sick puppy and a bad guy.139
Trump may have been correct in his assessment of Comey. But let’s assume, arguendo, that the president did express his “hope” or wish that Comey and/or the FBI “would let it go.” So what? Those words do not constitute the crime of obstruction of justice, as the Mueller Report would later conclude because the special counsel conceded that “the President has broad discretion to direct criminal investigations.”140 But wait . . . what investigation? Comey and McCabe had sent two agents to interview Flynn about his conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak under the pretext of the Logan Act.141 That exercise was nothing more than a clever ruse. There was no legal justification for the FBI to have visited the White House to question Flynn. The act prohibits private citizens from interfering in diplomatic disputes between the US and foreign governments. For more than two hundred years since its passage in 1799, no one has ever been prosecuted, much less convicted, under this fallow law because it is universally regarded as unconstitutional.142 Regardless, the Flynn-Kislyak conversation did not even fall under the legal language of the act. Flynn was serving as a designated representative of the incoming government during the transition period, not as a private citizen, as the act requires. Flynn should never have been duped into being questioned by the FBI.
Remarkably, Comey later admitted that he had intentionally broken protocol in requesting the Flynn interview. He actually boasted about it during an MSNBC audience forum, saying “It was something I probably wouldn’t have done or maybe gotten away with in a more . . . organized administration.”143 The FBI director knew he was flaunting established standards in bypassing the White House counsel when he said, “I thought: It’s early enough, let’s just send a couple guys over.”144 To make matters worse, McCabe got on the telephone to Flynn and encouraged him to avoid having a lawyer present so as to seduce him into thinking that it was just a casual conversation—no big deal.145 It was a big deal, because a year later, Mueller would resurrect the interview from the dusty FBI archives to charge Flynn with making a false statement. It was a deliberate effort to pressure him into saying something incriminating against Trump in the special counsel’s “collusion” probe. That was especially confounding—not to mention wrong—since Comey had informed the Senate Judiciary Committee that the agents “saw nothing that led them to believe [Flynn] was lying.”146 That assessment was corroborated by FBI written reports (called “302s”) that had been filed by the agents and eventually released by the special counsel.147
But in February 2017, when Trump allegedly commented to Comey that he “hoped” he could let it go, there were no real investigation of Flynn and, according to the agents who interviewed the national security advisor, no false statements appeared to have been made by him. The FBI knew that Flynn had not violated the Logan Act, and, further, Bureau agents believed that Flynn had not lied to them. Acting Attorney General Sally Yates “was not happy” that Comey and McCabe had pulled a fast one on Flynn and the new administration. Why, then, during the Oval Office meeting didn’t the FBI director tell the president the truth? If he had been honest with Trump, he would have advised the president that “there’s nothing to ‘let go,’ sir . . . because there’s no investigation of any wrongdoing.” Comey should have apologized for sending agents to bamboozle Flynn with a fictitious investigation. Naturally, he did not do this. Instead, he penned a memo that he might later need to either extort Trump or, if fired, destroy him.
There are other reasons why Comey’s memo was not evidence of obstruction. If the director sincerely thought Trump was obstructing justice in the Flynn matter, why is there no mention of that in his memo? The commission of a suspect
ed crime would surely merit a declarative statement. It’s not there in the memo because Comey knew that the president’s words did not constitute obstruction. In fact, he said so when he testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee three months after his discussion with Trump and just days before he was fired. He was asked if anyone had encouraged him to stop an investigation, to which he replied, “That would be a very big deal . . . it’s not happened in my experience.” Only after he was dismissed did he reverse himself and testify on June 8 that he had “understood” the president to be instructing him to drop the Flynn matter. So which was the truth and which was a lie? It is likely that Comey’s first account, when he was still the director, was the more accurate one. Aggrieved or disgruntled ex-employees tend to massage the truth and revise history as a way to avenge their termination. If there was any doubt, it was removed by Comey’s most senior aide, Andrew McCabe, who testified two days after his boss was fired, “There has been no effort to impede our investigation to date.”148
If Comey earnestly thought Trump was obstructing justice, he was duty bound to immediately alert the attorney general, the deputy attorney general, or Congress. People who serve in law enforcement have a special responsibility to report knowledge of a felony to a person of higher authority, not simply bury it somewhere in a file or take it home to be resurrected for future blackmail or retribution. Comey admitted that he had not informed anyone at the Justice Department that the president might have tried to interfere in the Flynn matter.149 It is worth emphasizing that in his May 2017 testimony, he assured Congress that no one had attempted to intercede in his investigations.
After he was fired, Comey testified that he had “understood” that the president wanted him to drop the Flynn investigation.150 But how Comey interpreted the president’s words is largely irrelevant. As the obstruction statute makes plain, the specific intent of the person speaking the words, not how the listener may construe them, proves obstruction. Comey, who was schooled in the law, knew that Trump’s remarks were not obstructive. During his June 2017 appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator James Risch (R-ID) posed the key question:
SENATOR RISCH: You don’t know of anyone ever being charged for “hoping” something, is that a fair statement?
COMEY: I don’t as I sit here.151
Of course he didn’t. Wishful thinking and hopeful observations are not the same thing as an order. Comey also knew that Trump was constitutionally authorized under both the “vesting” and the “take care” clauses to end any criminal pursuit and for any reason. That was also conceded by Comey when he told the Senate Intelligence Committee:
As a legal matter, the president is head of the executive branch and could direct, in theory . . . anyone being investigated or not. I think he has the legal authority. All of us ultimately report in the executive branch to the president.152
The fired FBI director knew that a lawful act performed under constitutional powers cannot, by definition, be an obstructive act. Even a corrupt motive cannot magically transform a constitutional act into a crime.153 This will be explained in detail in the chapter on Mueller’s report. The only reason Trump was accused of obstruction is because Comey, Democrats, and the liberal media shaped it into one of their favored anti-Trump narratives.
After investigating Comey’s leak of the presidential memos, the Justice Department’s Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, referred his case to the DOJ for potential prosecution. As reported by The Hill, the I-G determined that Comey “lacked candor” and concluded that there was sufficient evidence to support possible criminal charges for mishandling government documents.154 Thereafter, federal prosecutors evaluated the case and reportedly decided against filing charges.155 Why would Comey not be prosecuted? Not all corrupt acts are crimes that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. As of this writing, other actions by Comey are under review.
Comey in the Mirror
For much of his professional career, Comey has carefully crafted his image as a selfless government servant with unimpeachable integrity. Like many of his illusions, the truth can be found in a paper trail of financial disclosure forms. In 2005, after leaving the Justice Department, where he worked closely with then FBI director Robert Mueller, Comey entered the private sector as senior vice president and general counsel of Lockheed Martin, the largest defense and surveillance contractor in the world. According to the book Compromised: How Money and Politics Drive FBI Corruption, Comey’s net worth “skyrocketed over 4,000 percent.”156 In one year alone, he received $6.1 million in income, excluding highly lucrative stock options. How did that happen? The book’s author, Seamus Bruner of the Government Accountability Institute, explained:
During Comey’s time at Lockheed, Mueller’s FBI granted Lockheed contracts exceeding $1 billion for various IT and surveillance programs.157
Lockheed was grateful to Comey and enriched him accordingly. Financially, the career move was a colossal windfall. But it also tapped (or compromised) Comey’s insider expertise. While in government, he had been a strong advocate for increased government surveillance. Then he joined one of the biggest recipients of surveillance contracts, Lockheed. Comey was not above cashing in on his public service. It appears that his friend Mueller was instrumental in helping Comey make millions of dollars off of the same surveillance programs he had championed.
A review of Comey’s record demonstrates that he was also a shrewd architect of manipulation. When caught, he becomes a master of prevarication. His malevolence is exceeded only by his skill at deception and flagrant misstatements. He assured the president, “I don’t do sneaky things, I don’t leak, I don’t do weasel moves,” and he also testified before Congress that he had never “been an anonymous source in news reports in matters relating to the Trump investigation.”158 Then he proceeded to leak presidential memos to the media while insisting they weren’t a “leak.” He told lawmakers in a private session that his FBI agents had believed that Flynn was being truthful. He later, in a televised interview, denied ever having made that statement.159
He gave false testimony to Congress about the number of Clinton emails found on her aide’s laptop; the FBI had to correct the record because documentary evidence proved that Comey’s count was not even close to being accurate.160 In another hearing, he testified that he had never been given “any kind of memorandum from the Attorney General outlining his recusal.”161 That was false. Documents provided by the DOJ showed that he had received a detailed email informing him of Sessions’s “recusal and its parameters.”162 Finally, he testified that he had not decided to clear Clinton until after her interview.163 Yet he had written her exoneration statement months in advance.164 It is a mathematical challenge to keep track of all Comey’s false and misleading statements.
Comey is also prone to pleading ignorance. In his testimony before the House Oversight Committee, he claimed he hadn’t known that Christopher Steele worked for Fusion GPS, hadn’t known that Steele had been fired from the FBI as a source, and hadn’t even known that Bruce Ohr at the DOJ had served as a conduit transmitting information between Steele and the FBI.165 It gets worse, if possible. Comey told Bret Baier on Fox News that he didn’t know if Steele’s “dossier” had been funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.166 He then suggested that it had been funded by Republicans. Those are the kinds of statements that would make the average person’s head explode.
The “dossier” was never funded by the GOP. That was an old canard that had been disabused long before by Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, when he had testified before Congress that early opposition research, paid for by a Republican group, had ended well before he had hired Steele to compose the “dossier.”167 That was confirmed publicly by the group itself.168 How could Comey not know that? How could he not know that the Clinton campaign and the DNC had commissioned the anti-Trump “dossier”? How could Comey know almost nothing about Steele, Ohr, and Fusion GPS? He had
signed not one but three FISA warrant applications to surveil Carter Page, based almost entirely on the “dossier” composed by Steele. Are we to believe that the director of the FBI, who prided himself on being meticulous and conscientious, did not bother to learn the fundamental facts and evidence that he presented to the FISC in support of a warrant to spy on an associate of a candidate for president of the United States? He never even asked the paramount question “Where did this come from—and who paid for it?”
Whenever Comey is confronted with uncomfortable truths exposing his own wrongful acts, he feigns ineptitude and a failed memory. Unless he is the most incompetent FBI director of all time, it is unimaginable that he did not know all of those salient facts. Yet he pretended to be clueless because there were no viable explanations for his inexplicable actions. He knew exactly where the “dossier” came from and who had paid for it. He had used it as the primary basis for the warrants, used it as part of the nonpublic version of the intelligence community assessment, and used it to debrief President-elect Trump so that it could be leaked to the media in January 2017. To contend otherwise is the equivalent of believing in the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny.
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