Russia Scandal: No wonder former FBI Director James Comey refused to press charges last summer against Hillary Clinton for her egregious security breaches: It turns out, he may have been guilty of the same thing.
As the inside-the-beltway political publication The Hill reported, more than half of the memos FBI Director James Comey wrote after having spoken to President Trump about the Russia investigation contained classified information. The Hill cites as its sources "officials familiar with the documents."
Not surprisingly, perhaps, Trump on Monday morning tweeted out an angry response: "James Comey leaked CLASSIFIED INFORMATION to the media. That is so illegal!"
He may be onto something there.
All told, Comey wrote seven memos based on nine meetings with Trump. In testimony to Congress, he asserted that he had made sure the memos in question didn't have classified material. But a subsequent investigation found markings on four of the memos indicating secret information, the kind that is not allowed to be routinely released to the public.
Comey has long maintained that the memos were his personal property, but virtually no legal authority agrees with that. Nor does the FBI, for that matter. The memos were created on government time and related directly to his work, so they were the property of government.
In short, it sounds like a game of cover-your-hindquarters he's been playing. Because Comey later let outsiders see those memos, and made sure they were leaked to the Trump-hating press, in this case the New York Times, so any protestations of innocence on his part sound more than a little weak.
Let's be very clear here: What Comey did is against FBI rules, and it's a violation of federal secrecy laws, on a par with the violation that Hillary Clinton committed when she decided to run the Secretary of State's office from a private, home-brew email server that was clearly illegal.
The agreement signed by all FBI employees says that "all information acquired by me in connection with my official duties with the FBI and all official material to which I have access remain the property of the United States of America."
It goes on to add that agents "will not reveal, by any means, any information or material from or related to FBI files or any other information acquired by virtue of my official employment to any unauthorized recipient without prior official written authorization by the FBI."
Hillary signed a similar agreement at the State Department. Yet, she routinely put classified information onto public servers, where it could be grabbed by unscrupulous actors, such as the Chinese and the Russians.
How does that compare to Comey, who asked a lawyer-friend at Columbia University, Prof. Daniel Richman, to leak his memos containing classified information to the news media?
The goal of the handoff was to generate stories so that a special prosecutor would be named to investigate Russian meddling in the U.S. election and, more to the point, Democratic rumors that Trump had colluded with the Russians to beat Hillary.
In short, Comey appears to have delivered classified information to the New York Times and other media for the sole political purpose of bringing down President Trump.
Comey's actions help explain a lot of things that people have puzzled over since last year. During last summer's campaign and the growing scandal over Hillary's cavalier treatment of U.S. secrets on her email server, Comey came to her rescue.
Yes, he said in July, Clinton's actions were "extremely careless." But stung by the criticism he received from the left, he later in the month said that Clinton's violations didn't rise to the level of a prosecutable crime.
On Oct. 28, he revealed that more emails had been found on an unsecured laptop belonging to former Rep. Anthony Wiener, estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. On Nov. 6, just two days before the election, Comey announced Clinton wouldn't be prosecuted. Case closed.
Comey's later actions suggest, if anything, he learned from Hillary's chutzpah. You can flout U.S. law, and as long as you have friends and political clout, get away with it — even use your illegality as a bludgeon against your political foes.
Moreover, a June piece by Fox News noted at least 14 stories written by the New York Times going back to Jan. 10 containing "confidential information related to Trump and the FBI, mostly sourced anonymously from senior officials in the FBI and DOJ." Comey, it seems, has been working overtime to sabotage Trump.
This calls into serious question the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel to look into the rumors of election meddling by Russia. Comey and Mueller are close friends.
At minimum, Mueller must recuse himself on the Trump matters now before him. His friendship with Comey makes impartiality impossible, and it's a clear conflict.
More importantly, Comey got Hillary off the hook last year from what appeared to be a slam-dunk prosecution. And please remember, no one thought at the time that Trump had any chance at all of beating Hillary.
Now, we find out Comey played a double game with the public and the newly elected president. A case of a deep-state operative, Comey, trying to sabotage Washington-outsider Trump? Or just someone with a fast-and-loose idea about following the law?