On May 16 the New York Times published a story citing memos belonging to former FBI Director James Comey. The paper reported the memos showed President Trump asked for the FBI investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn to be dropped during a private meeting at the White House before Comey was fired. The content of the memos was described in the reporting, but the memos were not published.
During testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday, Comey admitted he asked a friend to give his memos to a reporter. That friend was Columbia Law Professor Daniel Richman.
"I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night, because it didn't dawn on me originally, that there might be corroboration for our conversations, might be a tape, my judgement was that I needed to get that out into the public square and so I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter," Comey said. "I didn't do it myself for a variety of reasons, but asked him to, because I thought that it might prompt the appointment of a Special Counsel. I asked a close friend of mine to do that."
The memos have been turned over to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was appointed by Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein last month to lead an independent investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
According to George Washington Law Professor Jonathan Turley, the leak raises serious questions.
Comey admits that he leaked the internal memo through a Columbia law professor in order to force Special Counsel. Yet, that raises questions
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) June 8, 2017
The memos could be viewed as gov't material and potential evidence . Leaking to a friend for disclosure can raise serious questions.
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) June 8, 2017
Comey is doing well but leaking info runs against Comey's image, particularly in light of the leak controversy hoiunding the Administration
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) June 8, 2017