You just can’t make this stuff up. Yesterday it was revealed that several of fired FBI Director James Comey memos contained classified information:
(Via The Hill) 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.
This revelation raises the possibility that Comey broke his own agency’s rules and ignored the same security protocol that he publicly criticized Hillary Clinton over in the waning days of the 2016 presidential election. (link)
This latest report is contrary to James Comey’s prior assertion that he specifically wrote the memos about his contact and communication with President Trump to avoid containing classified information.
Today, the recipient of at least one of the leaked memos, Daniel Richman, claims the memo leaked to him by FBI Director Comey, with the specific intention to leak to the New York Times, did not contain markings designating the memo as “classified”:
(Via CNN) The Columbia University Law School professor and confidant of former FBI Director James Comey refuted a charge by President Donald Trump and his advocates in the media Monday: that Comey shared classified information with journalists.
Daniel Richman, with whom Comey shared at least one memo — the contents of which Richman shared with New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt — said President Trump was simply wrong.
“No memo was given to me that was marked ‘classified,'” Daniel Richman told CNN. “No memo was passed on to the Times.” Richman did share the contents of one memo, he said, but “the substance of the memo passed on to the Times was not marked classified and to my knowledge remains unclassified.” (link)
This Comey defense strategy is the same pattern used in the initial claims by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she attempted to defend herself against accusations the content of her unsecured email set-up did not contain documents marked “classified”. A defense later proven to be entirely false by…. wait for it… yup, James Comey.
You just can’t make this stuff up.
