This is the break that the Corey Lewandowski campaign is looking for!
I’m holding out for the Barr summary. Sometime next month, right?
This doesn’t come as a surprise to me. I thought Comey’s handling of the issues was terrible, both in relation to Clinton’s e-mail and leaking his Trump conversations memos. Bad judgment all round on his part.
At last! An ex post facto rationalization for Trump to fire him!
From the report linked to, in the “Terms of Comey’s FBI Employment Agreement” section:
Given the first quote, and others you can see in the report, it is clear that Comey violated the terms of the agreement. I haven’t given this a lot of thought, but would say that clearly when you are employed by the FBI, you should never reveal such any info. However, if after you have resigned or been fired, it comes down to whether or not it is more important to continue to uphold the terms, or violate them for the greater good. If Comey had not gone to the media, how would the information have come out? I hardly think he would have been granted “official written authorization by the FBI” if he had asked. If Comey thought the info was vital to the public to know what was happening under the Trump admin, I’d make the argument that he was right in doing what he did. I suppose I could be convinced otherwise, as again this is kind of off the top of my head. And to be clear, I don’t mean that Comey or anyone else would be justified in leaking just any info. Here I’m talking about the info regarding the request by Trump to let Flynn off, as that is what I remember the most about the info Comey had released.
Based on the synopses, I’m not particularly interested in reading the actual report. But here’s a positive endorsement of the report:
And a negative (i.e. a defense of Comey):
On the whole, I’d say that the defense has it. Wittes goes a bit too far in pleading that the “one confidential word” should be ignored - confidential is confidential - but his larger point that Comey’s actions were reasonable at all steps of the way and within the bounds of a reasonable understanding of procedure and took reasonable steps to address the revisioning of the security level of the documents. It’s nitpicking to fault him for his choices and there’s zero chance that the DOJ would have been able to get a conviction for anything.
And, in terms of whether he was justified in releasing this information to the public, over his “NDA”, fundamentally the American public is his boss, not the Executive branch, even when you work for the Executive branch. Whistleblowing is both a crime and a duty, depending circumstance. Given that it’s reasonable to say that he couldn’t be convicted of a crime and that he was releasing information about corruption in office, not releasing national security secrets, it falls into the “duty” bucket so far as I’m concerned. NDAs are moot in the face of whistleblowing on criminal activities. That goes for the government, too.
Yes, the OIG report finds no justification for whistleblowing on corruption (in essence). It’s a very ‘you must never criticize the Dear Leader’ sort of position to take–and as such will be greeted with delight by the authoritarian-minded.
The first sentence of the Lawfare article is admirably to-the-point:
Just shut up and take it!–admonishes the Inspector General. Authority must never be questioned!
I’m pretty far from being a fan of Comey. But we need whistleblowing in the face of corruption, and that’s what Comey did by disclosing the ‘please pardon Flynn’ stuff. For that he deserves our thanks–not the pissy ‘the state must never be embarrassed’ scoldings of DoJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz.
A summation of Benjamin Wittes’ article on Lawfare about this:
I hear a great any people talking about this as if it’s moot - because he is retired now. But no, they are trying to take his retirement benefits. It matters.
It is the opinion of the OP that this thing happened, and we have multiple sources to verify that, yes, indeed, the IG did release a report about Comey. I concur without reservation, that this thing actually happened.
Who within the FBI is authorized to grant such “official written authorization”?
If he broke the rules, the rules are wrong. If we don’t allow people that witness criminal behavior to make it public, then criminal behavior is encouraged. Not that Comey is a saint. The cancer in the White House was planted by him in his boneheaded decision to in effect say “OHMYGODHEREMAILS!!!” ten days out from the election, in addition to his earlier chastising of her when saying he could not prosecute her. So he broke some rules. BFD. So did Rosa Parks. So did the colonial patriots.
Well based on the precedent set by the Mueller Report, since no charges were filed this should be viewed as a complete exoneration of Comey.
Back on planet earth, however, I think this falls into the category of many other cases of government whistle blowing. The leak not being kosher according to the rules designed to protect the government, but being necessary to protect that country.
So, go ahead, break the law. Then stand before a jury of your fellow citizens and tell them why. There’s more than one way to serve your country.
Speaking of the Mueller report :rolleyes:
Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, Bill Cosby, Gen. Flynn, Michael Cohen, Tom Price, and Donald J. Trump