DOJ watchdog finds Comey violated policies with private memos about Trump

The Justice Department decided not to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey for retaining memos about interactions with the Trump White House and for disclosing one such memo to the media, the agency's internal watchdog said in a report released Thursday.

However, the withering new report from DOJ’s Office of Inspector General sharply criticizes Comey for violating FBI and Justice Department policies on handling information about sensitive law enforcement investigations. Notably, though, the document clears Comey of allegations that he leaked classified information.

The document — and DOJ's decision not to prosecute Comey — are sure to reignite the heated debate over Comey's behavior and President Donald Trump's actions leading up to his decision to fire Comey as FBI chief. Within minutes, Trump's allies were using the document as a cudgel to bash Comey, while others highlighted its finding that Comey had not leaked any classified details.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz said Comey’s stated goal in disclosing one of the memos — seeking to prompt the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Trump and his aides — did not justify departing from longstanding rules and norms involving FBI records.

“Comey had several other lawful options available to him to advocate for the appointment of a Special Counsel, which he told us was his goal in making the disclosure,” the report says. “What was not permitted was the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive investigative information, obtained during the course of FBI employment, in order to achieve a personally desired outcome.”

Moments after the report’s release, Comey took to Twitter to underscore the fact that the report cleared him of allegations that he illegally disclosed classified information. Trump has regularly leveled such accusations, often on Twitter, without offering any evidence.

The report said the IG found no such evidence “that Comey or his attorneys released any of the classified information contained in any of the memos to members of the media.”

On Twitter, Comey wrote: “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.”

He added: “And to all those who’ve spent two years talking about me ‘going to jail’ or being a ‘liar and a leaker’—ask yourselves why you still trust people who gave you bad info for so long, including the president.”

Trump on Thursday characteristically did not address his false accusations, and simply disparaged Comey over the report.

"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!"

The White House issued its own statement, saying the report illustrates that Comey's personal biases essentially generated special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into the Russian election interference.

"Because Comey shamefully leaked information to the press — in blatant violation of FBI policies— the Nation was forced to endure the baseless politically motivated, two-year witch hunt," said press secretary Stephanie Grisham. "Comey disgraced himself and his office to further a personal political agenda, and this report further confirms that fact.

A spokesman for Attorney General Bill Barr declined to comment on the report.

The report said Comey’s decision to leak the contents of one of the memos to The New York Times through a friend, Columbia Law professor Daniel Richman, violated his employment agreement with the FBI and ran afoul of the law enforcement agency’s policy requiring pre-publication review of disclosures of information about FBI work.

The seven memos in question memorialized meetings and phone calls Comey had with Trump between January and April 2017.

One memo detailed the much-scrutinized private dinner that Trump had with Comey at the White House, during which the president asked for loyalty from the FBI chief. Another recounted the briefing Comey gave to Trump before he entered the Oval Office, alerting the president-elect to the existence of a dossier detailing alleged links between Trump and Russia compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele.

Other memos described Trump’s controversial request that Comey “let go” of then-national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was under FBI investigation at the time, as well as brief phone call in which Trump asked Comey what could be done “to lift the cloud” of the Russia probe.

The 61-page report uses Comey’s own statements to skewer his conduct, noting that as FBI chief he publicly warned about the risks of wanton disclosures of investigative information.

It notes that in March 2017 congressional testimony he declared: “We just cannot do our work well or fairly if we start talking about it while we’re doing it.”

Comey told the IG investigators that he regarded disclosure of the memo to the Times as “something I [had] to do if I love this country ... and I love the Department of Justice, and I love the FBI.”

However, Horowitz concluded: “Comey’s own, personal conception of what was necessary was not an appropriate basis for ignoring the policies and agreements governing the use of FBI records, especially given the other lawful and appropriate actions he could have taken to achieve his desired end.”

Comey routinely described the memos as his personal, contemporaneous recollections of specific events and actions he took as FBI director. However, Horowitz disagreed and said Comey’s top lieutenants — many of whom have publicly defended Comey — did as well.

“None of the members of Comey's senior leadership team agreed with or defended Comey's view that these Memos were personal in nature,” the IG report says.

For example, Andrew McCabe, who served as Comey’s deputy, said the memos were a “record of [Comey’s] official engagement with the president.”

The watchdog report notes that top aides to Comey at the FBI were taken aback by the step he took days after his firing by Trump in May 2017. “Members of Comey’s senior leadership team used the adjectives ‘surprised,’ ‘stunned,’ ‘shocked,’ and ‘disappointment' to describe their reactions to learning” about their former boss’ disclosure."

The IG report stated that Comey’s deputies didn’t know that he had shared his memos outside the FBI until Comey’s June 2017 testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. According to the report, FBI leaders knew that Comey was referring to Richman, and two other senior FBI officials “immediately called” Richman while Comey was still testifying to get a copy of the memo Comey shared with him.

It's the second time that Horowitz's office has faulted Comey for his behavior after an extensive review. In 2018, a 500-page examination of how the FBI handled the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server panned Comey for the news conference he held to announce the agency's findings, as well as for using a private Gmail account to conduct some agency business. But the report also found that political bias did not affect the Clinton probe.

Almost instantly after the report was released Thursday, Trump's allies in Congress started touting it as evidence of alleged abuses within the Obama-era DOJ.

"His actions were disgraceful and part of a wider effort within the Obama Justice Department to undermine President Trump," said Rep. Jim Jordan, a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus and the top House Oversight Republican.