As Kate covered, the Inspector General released a scathing report on Thursday regarding former FBI Director James Comey's actions during his interactions with President Donald J. Trump:
Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz released an 83-page long report Thursday morning. It details misconduct by fired FBI Director James Comey and his handling of memos he wrote to memorialize conversations with President Trump. This report is separate from the highly anticipated IG report about the origins of the Russia investigation and FISA abuse.
A key portion of this report stated that Comey improperly mishandled memos, which he claimed were his:
"Comey's characterization of the Memos as personal records finds no support in the law and is wholly incompatible with the plain language of the statutes, regulations, and policies defining Federal records, and the terms of Comey's FBI Employment Agreement. By definition, Federal records include “all recorded information, regardless of form or characteristics, made or received by a Federal agency."
As Katie said, "In other words, the memos Comey claimed were his were not, they were FBI property and written on an FBI computer. Further, when he was fired he had no authority to keep them and they were classified."
But, the IG also found that Comey's actions set forth "a dangerous example" for the entire FBI.
The report states:
The responsibility to protect sensitive law enforcement information falls in large part to the employees of the FBI who have access to it through their daily duties...They may even, in some situations, distrust the legitimacy of those supervisory, prosecutorial, or judicial decisions. But even when these employees believe that their most strongly-held personal convictions might be served by an unauthorized disclosure, the FBI depends on them not to disclose sensitive information.
Because of this standard, the DOJ says that Comey "failed to live up to this responsibility."
"By not safeguarding sensitive information obtained during the course of his FBI employment, and by using it to create public pressure for official action, Comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees—and the many thousands more former FBI employees—who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information."
Comey, for his part, is claiming that the IG report vindicates his actions. "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 tweeted.
DOJ IG "found no evidence that Comey or his attorneys released any of the classified information contained in any of the memos to members of the media." 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.
— James Comey (@Comey) August 29, 2019
"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," 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.
— James Comey (@Comey) August 29, 2019
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