In a long-awaited report released Thursday morning, the DOJ’s inspector general revealed that former FBI Director James Comey’s handling of the memos he took from meetings with President Trump before he was unceremoniously fired in early 2017 violated department policy and the law when he shared them with a longtime confidant, who then leaked their contents to the press.
“We conclude that Comey’s retention, handling, and dissemination of certain Memos violated Department and FBI policies, and his FBI Employment Agreement,” the Justice Department inspector general report states.
President Trump has taken a momentary break from helping Fla. Gov. Ron DeSantis batten down the hatches ahead of Hurricane Dorian’s weekend landfall – and from doing everything he can to pump the market – by taking a shot at disgraced former FBI director James Comey following the Thursday publication of the DoJ’s IG report, which confirmed that Comey violated both DoJ policy and the law, by leaking the contents of his memos to the press.
The Department of Justice Inspector General Report revealed what many of us suspected all along: James Comey was the Bad Guy in the ‘Russia Collusion’ story.
The New York Post's cover for Friday:
"LEAKER OF THE FREE WORLD"
cc: @Comey pic.twitter.com/wEq0wkxp0X
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) August 29, 2019
He lied to the President, lied about lying to the President, leaked government information to cover up his lying, and lied to the public about his lying.
But maybe, someday, he’ll at least acknowledge that he acted rashly – and put his subordinates in a very awkward position – by deciding to leak the memos as an unabashed strategy to try and undermine the newly inaugurated president of the country he claims to love so dearly. Comey tried to set up the President soon after he took office and failed, and covered up the attempt.
The IG Report on Director Comey is out:
"We conclude that Comey’s retention, handling, and dissemination of certain Memos violated Department and FBI policies, and his FBI Employment Agreement"
It says he "set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees"
Wow
— Mark Meadows (@RepMarkMeadows) August 29, 2019
Comey is revealed to be a completely manipulative bureaucratic infighter who maneuvered the government into a two-year Executive Branch paralysis in the form of the Mueller investigation, while falsely proclaiming himself the only holy player in the saga. His defense when unmasked in the IG Report is to crow that he wasn’t indicted.
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.
— James Comey (@Comey) August 29, 2019
Would any other FBI employee who did what James Comey did have escaped prosecution? Would James Comey have let James Comey off the hook? That DOJ declined prosecution is not a testament to Comey’s innocence, but to the reality that the James Comeys and Hillary Clintons are treated differently by the prosecutorial bureaucracy regardless of administration.
Trump responded in a later tweet, saying, “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!”
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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 29, 2019
Another reason Comey provided for taking notes on his conversation with Trump was 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.”
Right after his briefing with Trump, Comey immediately updated the FBI team probing Russia collusion claims about his private talk with the incoming president, the IG documented:
Comey told the OIG he began writing Memo 1 immediately following his meeting with Trump on January 6, 2017. Comey said he had a secure FBI laptop waiting for him in his FBI vehicle and that when he got into the vehicle, he was handed the laptop and “began typing [Memo 1] as the vehicle moved.” He said he continued working on Memo 1 until he arrived at the FBI’s New York field office, where Comey gave a “quick download” of his conversation with President-elect Trump to Rybicki, McCabe, Baker, and supervisors of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigative team via secure video teleconference (SVTC). Comey said he probably told the SVTC participants that he would send them his “detailed notes” of the interaction.
James Rybicki was Comey’s chief of staff; Andrew McCabe was FBI deputy director; and James Baker was FBI counsel.
A footnote in the report further relates:
On January 7, 2017, Comey wrote a classified email to the other Intelligence Community Directors to let them know that his “follow-up session with [the President-elect] went well” and provided them a brief summary of the conversation that was less detailed than Memo 1).
Besides failing to inform Trump that he would be taking notes on his private briefing or that he would pass those notes to the FBI team investigating the Russia claims, Comey also used the briefing to assure Trump that he was not a subject of the FBI probe.
In previous testimony, Comey admitted that he did not inform the incoming president about who financed the dossier. He also admitted in testimony that he was aware at the time that the dossier authored by former British spy Christopher Steele was financed by Democrats who opposed Trump. The dossier was paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Watch Jim Jordan blast Robert Mueller for dodging questions on witch hunt [VIDEO]
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