Former FBI Director James Comey admits he is worried about the criminal inquiry into the Russia investigation.
The prominent Trump critic has been on a media blitz in the week since the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report on the Trump 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia and after U.S. Attorney John Durham got his first plea deal from a former FBI lawyer. While Comey described the charge as a serious ordeal, he also downplayed the significance of the ex-lawyer’s actions as being an inexplicable anomaly, at least in terms of what is out there in the public eye. He told CNN on Tuesday that he’s not concerned about what the federal prosecutor will uncover, but rather how the Justice Department might try to politicize the findings.
“Of course I worry about anything this administration is doing, especially this notion that they need to investigate the investigators after the investigators had been investigated by everybody already,” Comey told host Anderson Cooper.
“I don’t know what they’re doing, so it’s hard for me to say,” he added. “I hope, at some point, the American people get transparency into what John Durham is doing and what he’s found, and I’m confident he’ll find the work was done in a professional way, but I just don’t know. And I’m skeptical that they will be respectful of conducting themselves like professionals.”
Supporters of President Trump, who claim there was a government plot to sabotage his campaign and later his presidency, have started to fret about being disappointed with Durham’s work after former CIA Director John Brennan was interviewed Friday for eight hours by Durham’s team at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, after which his longtime aide said Brennan was told he is not a “subject or a target” of a criminal investigation. While there may not be any more criminal prosecutions, Durham is expected to release a report about his findings, which Democrats and some national security veterans warn Attorney General William Barr could twist into an “October surprise.”
Comey led the FBI when it opened a counterintelligence investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia in the summer of 2016 up until he was fired by Trump in May 2017. Durham, who was picked by Barr last year to review the origins of that inquiry, is looking into whether there was any misconduct by national security and intelligence officials. That includes scrutiny of the surveillance of former Trump campaign foreign adviser Carter Page under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which relied in part on the flawed anti-Trump dossier compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele and the 2017 Intelligence Community assessment on Russian interference in the election.
Comey’s actions as FBI director have been heavily criticized by the Justice Department inspector general, including for his handling of memos of conversations with Trump that he later admitted to have leaked to spark a special counsel investigation, and he was publicly chastised by a former superior earlier this month. Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates testified to Congress that she was angry when she learned that Comey had ordered incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn to be interviewed by investigators in 2017. “I was upset that Director Comey didn’t coordinate that with us and acted unilaterally,” she said. Yates also replied in the affirmative when asked if Comey went “rogue.”
Still, the former FBI director said over the weekend that he has had no contact with Durham’s criminal investigation. During a Sunday appearance on CBS News, Comey told Face the Nation he “can’t imagine” being a target of the prosecutor’s inquiry. In response to that interview, Page, who was never charged with any wrongdoing, said there are “a lot more questions that need to be answered.”
Before addressing the “Convention on Founding Principles” on Tuesday, Comey penned an op-ed published by the Washington Post that said Trump, with the help of Barr, “is leaving a legacy of damage to a vital American institution at the heart of the rule of law.” He also advocated for people to vote for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in the election that is less than 70 days away. Some Trump allies have argued that a Biden victory would mean Durham’s findings will get buried, should he not share them soon.
Kevin Clinesmith is the former FBI lawyer who pleaded guilty last week to one count of making a false statement by doctoring a CIA email during the process of the bureau seeking a court’s permission to renew an order to wiretap Page for the third and final time. In that email, Clinesmith, 38, wrote that Page was “not a source” for the CIA when the agency had actually told the FBI that Page was an operational contact for them. “At the time, I believed the information that I was providing in the email was accurate, but I am agreeing that the language that I entered into the email was not originally there and that I inserted that in there,” he said during his plea hearing.
Comey signed off on the original Page FISA warrant application and two renewals but not the third one, as he had been fired. He insisted to Cooper that he does not know Clinesmith.
“Maybe I was in a meeting with the guy,” he said. Comey also said the matter should be taken “seriously” but also downplayed Clinesmith’s significance by repeatedly calling him a “junior lawyer” and said he can’t understand why Clinesmith altered the email like he did, judging from the “public record.”
Though Durham’s investigation appears to be nearing an end, GOP investigators in Congress are ramping up their own inquiries.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, whose panel is investigating the early stages of the FBI’s Russia investigation, emphasized during a Fox News interview on Wednesday how he wants to call Comey in as a witness.
“I find it hard to believe that the director of the FBI did not know that in January and March of 2017, the Russian subsource disavowed the reliability of the dossier, which was critical to getting a warrant against Carter Page. So, you got a lot to say, James Comey. Come in under oath and say it,” the South Carolina Republican said.
In a tweet the day before, Graham advised Comey to keep his calendar open for Tuesdays or Wednesdays between Sept. 15 and Sept. 30. “The invitation is forthcoming,” he said.
