President Trump’s lawyer counterattacked against James Comey, Tuesday, suggesting the sacked FBI Director be investigated for leaking privileged information about his conversations at the White House.
In a dramatic statement in the wake of Comey’s blockbuster testimony on Capitol Hill, attorney Marc Kasowitz told a crowded press conference, “Of course, the office of the president is entitled to expect loyalty from those who are serving in an administration, and, from before this president took office to this day, it is overwhelmingly clear that there have been and continue to be those in government who are actively attempting to undermine this administration with selective and illegal leaks of classified information and privileged communications. Mr. Comey has now admitted that he is one of these leakers.”
Kasowitz added: “We will leave it the appropriate authorities to determine whether this leak should be investigated along with all those others being investigated.”
During the hearing, Comey said he asked a friend — a professor of law at Columbia University — to leak the details of a memo he wrote. It was that memo, reported on in a New York Time story, where Comey said Trump encouraged him to stop investigating former national security adviser Mike Flynn.
“I asked him to, because I thought, that might prompt the appointment of the special counsel,” Comey said during the hearing.
Responding to that, Kasowitz said: “Today, Mr. Comey admitted that he unilaterally and surreptitiously made unauthorized disclosures to the press of privileged communications with the president.”
Kasowitz also argued that the pattern of leaks about Comey’s encounters with the president did not match the former FBI director’s testimony. Comey told lawmakers he directed a friend to describe his memos to the media after Trump tweeted that he “better hope” there were not “tapes” of their private conversations.
“Although Mr. Comey testified he only leaked the memos in response to a tweet, the public record reveals that the New York Times was quoting from these memos the day before the referenced tweet, which belies Mr. Comey’s excuse for this unauthorized disclosure of privileged information and appears to entirely retaliatory,” Kasowitz said.
The New York Times published a report, on May 11, that first exposed the alleged “loyalty pledge” Trump requested Comey make to him at a Jan. 27 dinner. The report cited “two people who have heard [Comey’s] account of the dinner.”
The article also largely supports testimony Comey delivered Thursday about how he handled the request for loyalty pledge at the time: by describing it to his staff, recording it in a memo, then deciding to sit on the information until he decided what to do with it.
“Mr. Comey described details of his refusal to pledge his loyalty to Mr. Trump to several people close to him on the condition that they not discuss it publicly while he was F.B.I. director. But now that Mr. Comey has been fired, they felt free to discuss it on the condition of anonymity,” the Times story noted.
Trump tweeted his warning to Comey about the possible existence of “tapes” on the morning of May 12, and many perceived the barb as a response to the leak published the previous evening. The first mention of the memos Comey compiled came in a subsequent Times article published on May 16. That story, which alleged that the president asked Comey to drop the FBI investigation into Gen. Mike Flynn, was written by the same reporter as the May 11 article and also cited Comey’s “close associates,” one of whom read portions of the memo.
Kasowitz, in his statement, denied pressuring Comey to stop his investigation into Flynn, saying “the president never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone, including suggesting that that Mr. Comey ‘let Flynn go.'”
The attorney also denied “in form or substance” that Trump told Comey, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.”
“Contrary to numerous false press accounts leading up to today’s hearing, Mr. Comey has now finally confirmed publicly what he repeatedly told the president privately: The president was not under investigation as part of any probe into Russian interference. He also admitted that there is no evidence that a single vote changed as a result of any Russian interference,” Kasowitz said.
Comey’s testimony, who testified about his past conversations with the president, was the first since Trump fired him last month.
The former FBI director said during the hearing he believes Trump ousted him because of displeasure over how the Russia investigation casting a cloud over his presidency. Comey also said he told Trump he personally wasn’t under federal investigation and criticized media outlets for inaccurately reporting stories.
Trump has not commented on the testimony. He hasn’t tweeted since Wednesday. He also didn’t mention the hearing in a Thursday afternoon speech to the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Conference in Washington as Comey was still testifying on Capitol Hill.
