On Wednesday, Judicial Watch released FBI documents confirming that former FBI Director James Comey kept classified information in his notes about meetings with President Donald Trump. He brought the files home with him after his firing, and leaked them to the press. Judicial Watch discovered this in a new FBI document dump.
“These extraordinary FBI docs further confirm that James Comey should never have had FBI files on President Trump at his home and that the FBI failed to secure and protect these private and classified files,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “Mr. Comey’s illegal leaking these FBI files as part of his vendetta against President Trump (directly resulting in the corrupt appointment of Robert Mueller) ought to be the subject of a criminal investigation.”
Trump fired Comey on May 9, 2017. The FBI came to Comey’s house and retrieved classified memos on June 7, a month later. The memos are dated February 14, 2017; March 30, 2017; April 11, 2017; and “last night at 6:30 p.m.” The documents also revealed the Comey recalled writing two other memos after conversations with Trump that he claimed were “missing.”
On June 8, the day after the FBI seized the memos, Comey admitted leaking the memos in testimony to Congress. He justified the leaks “because [he] thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.”
“More than half of the memos former FBI Director James Comey wrote as personal recollections of his conversations with President Trump about the Russia investigation have been determined to contain classified information, according to interviews with officials familiar with the documents,” The Hill reported on July 9, 2017.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton infamously kept classified information on her private, unsecured, “home-brew” server — a scandal that launched the FBI inquiry and James Comey public statements that some blame for her 2016 election loss.
Follow Tyler O’Neil, the author of this article, on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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