“Why use an intermediary? To conceal the source of the leak. Not the thing you would expect from the FBI Director.”
Regardless of where you stand politically, what we saw from Mr. Comey was disappointing. The former FBI director displayed the appearance of a bitter and angry man who felt personally hurt and was determined to get his pound of flesh.
It was also evident that this was an honest man, but one who had made many decisions based on feelings and impressions rather than facts or events.
Mr. Comey repeatedly talked about his impression of what was meant in the conversations with the president, not what was actually said. He talked about his sense of what Attorney General Sessions was feeling and made decisions based not on what was said, but on what was not said. Here again, Mr. Comey filled in his own narrative.
When asked why he didn’t speak up when he thought things were improper, he offered, “Maybe if I were stronger, I would have.” At one point Mr. Comey said, “I don’t want to make it sound like I’m Captain Courageous.”
He certainly didn’t. He came off as someone who did not like his boss and was striking back after being fired.
During the hearing, former Director Comey stated nine times that he could be “wrong” on various matters, including central points in the probe of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. For the director of an agency that investigates and then arrests people for crimes, being wrong has very serious consequences. They are supposed to work on facts and not make mistakes that could have devastating effects, yet repeatedly during his sworn testimony, he said, “I could be wrong.”
Insurance
It is also evident that Comey was building an insurance policy of sorts to use at a later date. He said that he made a decision to document conversations in a way that would not trigger security classification, so his notes could later be shared with colleagues and government investigators. “My thinking was if I write in such a way that won’t include anything that trigger classification, which will make it easier to discuss within FBI and government,” said Comey.
The problem with this is that he didn’t share them with government investigators; he purposely leaked them, using an intermediary, to the press. Why use an intermediary? To conceal the source of the leak. Not the thing you would expect from the FBI Director.
There are several ongoing discussions concerning the leaks from Mr. Comey. Were his actions illegal? One contention is that because he is a private citizen rather than a government employee, he is in the clear. The issue here is that the memos were created while he was director, admittedly while he was in his government vehicle and on his government laptop. That would make those memos work product and government property. The question will now be if the information on the memos, not the physical memos, is also government property. There is little chance of a prosecution of Mr. Comey on this issue, but the ethical questions abound.
History of FBI Leakers
The FBI and its directors are no strangers to leaking information to the press. Although not valid, one of the biggest comparisons that are made is between President Trump and the Watergate scandal of President Nixon. Then, investigative coverage by The Washington Post dramatically increased publicity and the resulting political repercussions. Relying heavily upon anonymous sources, Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered information damaging to President Nixon.
Chief among the Post’s anonymous sources was an individual whom Woodward and Bernstein had nicknamed Deep Throat; 33 years later, in 2005, the informant was identified as William Mark Felt, Sr., deputy director of the FBI during that period of the 1970s, something Woodward later confirmed.
