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Comey Breaks His Silence
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Yesterday saw the much-anticipated public testimony of ex-FBI Director James Comey in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. You can find a transcript of his testimony here and video of it here.
So what did he say? Well, first, he didn’t read his prepared remarks, which were released Wednesday. (You can find them here.) Instead he jumped right into it. Comey was clearly upset about the way he was fired and was sure to make an issue of it.
“[A]lthough the law required no reason at all to fire an FBI director,” he said, “the administration … chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple. And I am so sorry that the FBI workforce had to hear them, and I’m so sorry that the American people were told them.”
He was asked extensively about the so-called Comey memos, a series of memoranda written after his one-on-one conversations with Donald Trump. When asked why he felt the need for a written record, Comey cited a combination of factors: “the circumstances, the subject matter, and the person I was interacting with.” Specifically Comey said it had to do with “the nature of the person” he was dealing with and, “I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting so I thought it important to document.”
How did those memos make their way to the public? Comey admitted that, after the President publicly threatened him on Twitter, he was the one who leaked them, by way of a friend of his, Columbia Law School professor Dan Richman. (Although Comey didn’t mention Richman by name during the testimony.) Comey said he leaked the memos in the hope that a special counsel would be appointed to investigate things.
That’s kind of the big deal. Comey claimed that, since he had written them, they were his own personal documents, not government documents, to be shared as he saw fit. “I understood this to be my recollection recorded of my conversation with the President. As a private citizen, I thought it important to get it out.” They may come back to bite him and questions are already being raised about whether he broke any laws.
The other big revelation that came out of the hearing is that last year, AG Loretta Lynch ordered Comey to refer to the investigation into Clinton’s email server as “a matter,” instead of an investigation, which matched the Clinton campaign’s own rhetoric. Comey said that he didn’t consider it a hill worth dying on and followed orders. (And it ended up not mattering, since it was reported as an investigation anyway.)
There you have it. Comey testified for just under three hours, starting at 10 am and wrapping up a little before 1 pm. Then in the afternoon, there was a closed-door session where Comey presumably answered all the questions that he couldn’t answer in the open session. (Sorry. We don’t have transcripts or video since it was in camera. Although we wish we did. That would be awesome.)
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Published in Law, Politics
That was fun. Now, can we all ignore the nth scoundrel who will never be prosecuted and focus on legislation or something? This is just a typical dog-and-pony show.
That was a lie. The records show the NYT quoted them before Trumps tweet.
When was that? Do you have a link?
Because the timeline looks like this:
5/9 Trump fires Comey
5/12 Trump publicly threatens Comey
5/16 Existence of memos are first reported
But do you have a link of them being quoted earlier than 5/16?
Comey also related that a major NYT piece linking the Trump campaign to Russia was almost entirely false
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-08/comey-obliterates-ny-times-fake-news-story-was-almost-entirely-wrong
Fred: On style, I think that it’s overly partisan to describe the 5-12-17 tweet with “Trump publicly threatens Comey.” The tweet was: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”
On the substance:
Here is a 5-11-2017 NYT article on the Trump-Comey discussions. It does not mention any Comey memos.
Trump’s personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, made a statement yesterday (6-8-2017, reported in this LA Times article), stating: “Although Mr. Comey testified he only leaked the memos in response to a tweet, the public record reveals that the New York Times was quoting from these memos the day before the referenced tweet.” I assume that this is a reference to the 5-11-2017 NYT article cited above.
As noted by Fred, 5-12-2017 was the date of the subject Trump tweet.
Here is a 5-16-2017 NYT article explicitly discussing the Comey memo(s) (it appears to discuss only one memo). This article states: “Mr. Comey shared the existence of the memo with senior F.B.I. officials and close associates. The New York Times has not viewed a copy of the memo, which is unclassified, but one of Mr. Comey’s associates read parts of it to a Times reporter.” It does not disclose the date on which Comey disclosed the memo to the “close associates” referenced in the article.
So, there are the links. If anyone has a link to the actual Comey memo(s), we could check the accuracy of Kasowitz’s claim that the NYT was quoting from one of them on 5-11-2017. If true, this would certainly indicate that Comey leaked at least one memo before Trump’s 5-12-2017 tweet.
Based on the information thus far, I am inclined to believe Kasowitz. It seems to me that it would be very unwise for him to claim that the NYT was quoting from a memo on 5-11-2017, if that were not the case.
What a sleaze he is. I’m not a fan of the president, but I really don’t like Comey and the way he has conducted himself. What makes him think it’s his place to leak documents to the press in order to force the appointment of a special prosecutor? Comey is on a high horse, has an inflated sense of his own importance, and possesses an ego that matches Trump’s.
This is what happens when two unsavory characters interact. The American people want the government to govern – and they don’t care for insubordination, peeing matches, and the blood sport that Washington politics has become.
Drain the swamp!
(Hint to Trump: “I hope you can let Flynn go” is not a swamp-draining thing to do. In fact, it is rather swampy.)
Thank you for linking us to the NYT article.
Okay, the article mentions two associates confirmed the story and says
Okay, so that’s consistent with Comey’s testimony. Strictly speaking, Kasowitz is incorrect in his timeline. The NYT wasn’t quoting from the memos, they were quoting sources who had heard it from Comey. If they knew about memos, I’d bet they’d mention them, because it’s a paper trail.
And according to Comey in his testimony, he did tell other people:
Don’t cry for me, Jimmy Comey.
To say that an organization is in disarray, is poorly led, and has a workforce that has lost confidence is not a “lie.” It is a matter of opinion.
So much for Comey’s self-portrayal as a man of integrity above the fray of politics. Wow, give that man a Profile In Courage award.
Actually, at this point, it’s likely that he will receive that partisan, Kennedy family pat on the back. Past winners include Ted Kennedy (imagine that!) and Barack Obama (for the ACA). It was once given to a Republican – George H.W. Bush. For raising taxes (I kid you not).
According to Comey, he thought it wasn’t worth fighting for because the press would report it as an investigation anyway. And sure enough, they did.
Fred, I don’t think that we know this yet. It does appear from the 5-11-2017 NYT article that they were quoting at least one unnamed source with information from Comey, but we don’t know whether or not those that source was quoting a Comey memo or not. It is possible, of course, for a source to quote a memo from Comey without telling the NYT reporter that the source was doing so. If this is the case, then it is clear that Comey “leaked” the memo — at least to the source — before the Trump tweet on 5-12-2017.
FYI, I’m a litigation lawyer, so I actually do have substantial professional experience on this. Tracking down who said what, to whom, and when, and whether such communications were oral or written, can be tricky.
My final comment — not just to you, Fred, but to everybody — is to avoid the temptation to claim that somebody “lied.” Remembering the exact sequence of events, after several busy weeks, can be very difficult. There may be legitimate lapses of memory.
There is a possibility that, in a relevant sense, everybody is telling the truth. For example:
In this scenario, did Comey “leak” the memo before Trump’s 5-12-2017 tweet? Well, Comey could legitimately assert that he did not, as he did not actually turn over a copy of the memo to his associate until after the tweet. On the other hand, Trump (and his lawyer) could legitimately assert that he did, because Comey disclosed the substance of the memo to the associate, who passed it along to the NYT before the tweet.
Well, kudos to him for being clairvoyant. But isn’t it reasonable to assume that the press would take Dem talking points and run with them?
Right, so the outside associate was Dan Richman. Comey passed the memos to Richman. Richman read them to the NYT.
The NYT story quotes two associates familiar with the conversation. I took that to mean ppl within the FBI who Comey had briefed. Which wouldn’t be “leaking” the memo, because leaking is an unauthorized disclosure.
What I’m saying is that I think the individuals quoted by the NYT on 5/11 were different individuals from Dan Richman, who Comey leaked the memo to five days later.
You may be right. My point is to wait and see.
My bigger point is that this is a tempest in a teapot, on which I suspect that we agree. It does make for entertaining political theater.