By Byron Tau and Aruna Viswanatha
The
Justice Department inspector general is conducting an investigation into
classification issues related to memos written by former FBI director James
Comey. PHOTO: RALPH ALSWANG/ABC/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Former FBI director has said he
considered the memos, which he gave to a friend to release to media, personal
documents
WASHINGTON—At least two of the
memos that former FBI Director James Comey gave to a friend outside of the
government contained information that officials now consider classified,
according to people familiar with the matter, prompting a review by the Justice
Department’s internal watchdog.
Of those two memos, Mr. Comey
himself redacted elements of one that he knew to be classified to protect
secrets before he handed the documents over to his friend.
He determined at the
time that another memo contained no classified information, but after he left
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, bureau officials upgraded it to “confidential,”
the lowest level of classification.
The Justice Department
inspector general is now conducting an investigation into classification issues
related to the Comey memos, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Mr.
Comey has said he considered the memos personal rather than government
documents. He has told Congress that he wrote them and authorized their release
to the media “as a private citizen.”
Mr. Comey gave four total memos
to his friend Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor who is now a
professor at Columbia Law School, people familiar with the matter said. Three
were considered unclassified at the time and one was classified.
As FBI director, Mr. Comey had
the legal authority to determine what bureau information was classified and
what wasn’t. Once he left government, however, the determination fell to other
officials.
President Donald Trump has
repeatedly accused Mr. Comey of mishandling classified information in a bid to
discredit the former FBI director, who he fired last year. The public feud
between the two men has intensified this week, as Mr. Comey has granted several
interviews while promoting a memoir that is highly critical of Mr. Trump.
“James Comey Memos just out and
show clearly that there was NO COLLUSION and NO OBSTRUCTION. Also, he leaked
classified information. WOW! Will the Witch Hunt continue?” Mr. Trump wrote on
Twitter Friday.
In interviews, Mr. Comey has
called Mr. Trump “morally unfit” to serve in the White House. He and Mr.
Richman didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
“A person who sees moral
equivalence in Charlottesville, who talks about and treats women like they’re
pieces of meat, who lies constantly about matters big and small and insists the
American people believe it, that person’s not fit to be president of the United
States, on moral grounds,” Mr. Comey told ABC News this month.
The situation around Mr.
Comey’s handling of his memos is analogous to the investigation the FBI under
his leadership conducted of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in
2016.
While serving as secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton used a personal email
server rather than a government account. After leaving government, thousands of
her emails were determined to have contained classified information.
Mrs. Clinton’s defense was that
they weren’t classified at the time she circulated them and were only upgraded
to classified later. A small number of her emails were determined to have been
classified at the time they were sent. Mr. Comey’s handling of the Clinton investigation
drew criticism from both Republicans and Democrats.
Republicans said Mrs. Clinton
should have been charged, while Democrats said the investigation was without
legal basis and was mishandled—particularly Mr. Comey’s decision to announce
shortly before Election Day that he was reopening the probe. Mrs. Clinton lost
the election to Mr. Trump.
No charges were ever filed
against Mrs. Clinton or her aides and Mr. Comey said that his investigation
found no evidence of intent to violate the laws governing the handling of
classified information.
Mr. Comey’s memos were written
contemporaneously to create a record of his interactions with Mr. Trump. He
told Congress last year he hadn’t kept written records of his interactions with
previous presidents but decided to do so with Mr. Trump because of the “nature
of the person.”
Mr. Comey has said he intended
to get the information to the public through the media by giving the memos to
Mr. Richman—in part to prompt the appointment of a special prosecutor designed
to continue the FBI’s investigation without political inference.
“My judgment was, I need to get
that out into the public square,” Mr. Comey told Congress last year. “I asked a
friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. Didn’t do it
myself for a variety of reasons. I asked him to because I thought that might
prompt the appointment of a special counsel.”
Those memos formed the basis
for Mr. Comey’s testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee last
year, in which he accused the president of trying to shut down an investigation
into purported Russian interference in the 2016 election. The president has
denied trying to thwart the probe.
Mr. Comey’s tactics were
successful—special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed shortly after he was
fired as FBI director. Mr. Comey’s memos are now part of the wide-ranging probe
being conducted by Mr. Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 election,
as well into whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice when he fired Mr. Comey last
year, allegations that Mr. Trump denies. Russia has denied interfering in the
election.
“I was honestly concerned he
might lie about the nature of our meeting so I thought it important to
document. That combination of things I had never experienced before, but had led
me to believe I got to write it down and write it down in a very detailed way,”
Mr. Comey told the committee.
The memos were given to
Congress this week. They were reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and other
media outlets. Much of the material in the memos has been previously disclosed
in congressional testimony and Mr. Comey’s book.
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A
READEAR’S COMMENTS:
Paul Kriegh: Now that the democrats have been caught trying to overthrow a sitting president. The DNC has just filed a lawsuit suing the trump campaign. They are backpedaling because they know there charade of trumps conspiracy has been found out to be them instead.
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Rudy Giuliani to join Trump’s legal team
Former New York City mayor and U.S. attorney Rudy
Giuliani is joining President Trump’s legal team, Fox News confirmed on
Thursday.
Giuliani, who has been close friends with Trump for years
and reportedly
was under consideration for a cabinet post, told The Washington Post that he joined the team with the
intent of bringing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe to a conclusion.
“I’m doing it because I hope we can negotiate an end to
this for the good of the country and because I have high regard for the
president and for Bob Mueller,” Giuliani told the outlet.
Mueller, Giuliani told The Post, should be left to
complete his investigation. "My advice on Mueller has been this: He should
be allowed to do his job, he’s entitled to do his job.”
Before he was the mayor of New York City from 1994 to
2001, Giuliani served as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York
from 1983 to 1999.
"The President said, ‘Rudy is great. He has
been my friend for a long time and wants to get this matter quickly resolved
for the good of the country,’" Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow said in a
statement.
"I have had the privilege of working with Mayor
Giuliani for many years, and we welcome his expertise," Sekulow added.
"Mayor Giuliani expressed his deep appreciation to the President for
allowing him to assist in this important matter.
In a statement, Mayor Giuliani
said, ‘It is an honor to be a part of such an important legal team, and I look
forward to not only working with the President but with Jay, Ty, and their
colleagues.’"
Giuliani made the decision to join Trump's legal team in
the past few days following a dinner with the president ealier this month at
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, the Post reported.
The former mayor, a vocal advocate for Trump during the
2016 presidential campaign, was reportedly being considered for secretary of
state following Trump's victory. Giuliani, at the time, said he wasn't
interested in becoming Trump's attorney general.
Ultimately, the president
picked Rex Tillerson for the State Department and Jeff Sessions for attorney
general.
Fox News' John Roberts contributed to this
report.
