In Sharing Memos, Comey Did Nothing Wrong as a Former Official and Everything Right as a Whistleblow

[Madam45for2923]

In Sharing Memos, Comey Did Nothing Wrong as a Former Official and Everything Right as a Whistleblower



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The notion that Comey confessed to something untoward yesterday by acknowledging that he shared memos with a confidant and directed their disclosure to press sources is getting quite a bit of traction, particularly in conservative media. Trump’s personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, accused Comey of “leaks of [] privileged information” and went so far as to suggest that “the appropriate authorities” might determine there was criminal conduct worthy of investigation. Kasowitz has now indicated that he plans to file a complaint with the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General on Comey’s disclosure of the memo. (It’s not clear what the result of such an investigation would be given that Comey is no longer a government official.)


There’s just one problem with this line of critique: Comey didn’t actually do anything wrong. In fact, there is nothing to suggest his actions were illegal, unethical, immoral, or otherwise inappropriate.

Let’s start with a bit of background. On February 14—the day after National Security Advisor Michael Flynn had been forced to resign—President Trump had a disturbing, and possibly criminal, conversation with the FBI Director. After pointedly dismissing other advisors and senior officials from the Oval Office, Trump told Comey, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” Comey told the committee that he “took [this comment] as a direction” to drop the investigation into Flynn and memorialized his alarming conversation with Trump in an unclassified memo, sharing the details with FBI senior leadership. The group was “shocked” and “troubled” but, without any way to corroborate the one-on-one conversation, they struggled with what to do about it.


Article continues: https://lawfareblog.com/sharing-memos-comey-did-nothing-wrong-former-official-and-everything-right-whistleblower

[janx]

1. Thank you. Well written for a lay (non legal) audience.

Great educational material.

[trof]

2. It was not a 'leak'. Period.

In order to counter lies that tRump was telling, and to hopefully trigger the appointment of a special counsel, he GAVE his personal, unclassified notes on meetings with tRump to a colleague to GIVE to the media.

To me, that's not a leak.
He was very up front about it.