Lordy, those Comey memos

The Hill’s John Solomon reports that “more than half” of former FBI Director James Comey’s seven memos of conversations with President Trump “have been determined to contain classified information, according to interviews with officials familiar with the documents.” By my calculation, “more than half” of seven memos would be at least four.

Comey testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8 that he showed at least one of the seven memos to his friend Daniel Richman at Columbia Law School. Richman acted as Comey’s cutout to peddle the contents of the memo to the New York Times.

The possible ironies are manifold. Solomon raises the most obvious one at the top of his story: “This revelation raises the possibility that Comey broke his own agency’s rules and ignored the same security protocol that he publicly criticized Hillary Clinton for in the waning days of the 2016 presidential election.” It’s possible, but too good to be true.

In his testimony Comey also professed his view that the memos constituted his personal property for him to do with as he saw fit. Solomon reports, however, that the FBI does not agree: “[W]hen the seven memos Comey wrote regarding his nine conversations with Trump about Russia earlier this year were shown to Congress in recent days, the FBI claimed all were, in fact, deemed to be government documents.”

Solomon raises additional issues regarding Comey’s treatment of the memo in his story. Comey must take comfort from the fact that his close friend Robert Mueller is Special Counsel in the investigation to which his memos are relevant.

What does the FBI say for public consumption? A spokesman for the FBI declined to comment.

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