The Department of Justice’s inspector general on Thursday issued a devastating report finding that former FBI Director James Comey violated department policy and “set a dangerous example” by leaking memos to the New York Times through an intermediary. The rebuke demonstrates once again how President Trump manages to bring out the worst in his opponents.
Trump, no doubt, often behaves outrageously and improperly. But the sense that he is an unprecedented threat to American democracy has also made his opponents feel justified in lowering their own standards to oppose him. Just this week, we’ve seen Trump opponents promote the presidential candidacy of recovering birther Joe Walsh. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Wednesday was forced to apologize for airing a thinly sourced report on Trump’s financial ties to Russia, acknowledging that it didn’t go through the normal standards of verification. And now, on Thursday, we get this OIG report.
[READ: The full DOJ inspector general report on James Comey]
The OIG recounts that Comey wrote seven memos about his interactions with Trump before Trump fired him, of which he took four with him when he left the FBI (one in redacted form). Eager to see a special counsel appointed, Comey shared the contents of one memo to Columbia Law School professor Daniel Richman with instructions that he share the substance of the memo with a specific New York Times reporter. The result was this May 16, 2017 story: “Comey Memo Says Trump Asked Him to End Flynn Investigation.” The next day, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel.
As part of his employment with the FBI, Comey signed an agreement that stipulated that all information and materials he acquired over the course of his official duties remained the property of the government, that he had to surrender all materials once he left the FBI, and that he could not reveal the information.
The OIG determined that the memos were FBI records and that Comey’s handling of them “violated Department [of Justice] and FBI policies concerning the retention, handling, and dissemination of FBI records and information, and violated the requirements of Comey’s FBI Employment Agreement.”
In its conclusion, the OIG notes that the FBI is given significant power to carry out investigations, but it’s important that proper procedures are followed to protect the dissemination of sensitive information.
“The responsibility to protect sensitive law enforcement information falls in large part to the employees of the FBI who have access to it through their daily duties,” the OIG wrote. The report determined, “Former Director Comey failed to live up to this responsibility. By not safeguarding sensitive information obtained during the course of his FBI employment, and by using it to create public pressure for official action, Comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees — and the many thousands more former FBI employees — who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information.”
But it’s clear that it was his feeling that disclosing information from the memos was borne out a patriotic duty to oppose Trump.
“Comey said he was compelled to take these actions “if I love this country … and I love the Department of Justice, and I love the FBI,'” the OIG notes. “However, were current or former FBI employees to follow the former Director’s example and disclose sensitive information in service of their own strongly held personal convictions, the FBI would be unable to dispatch its law enforcement duties properly, as Comey himself noted in his March 20, 2017 congressional testimony.”
The report ends with a salient point — that even if Comey perceived a unique threat, it was still important to uphold standards.
“In a country built on the rule of law, it is of utmost importance that all FBI employees adhere to Department and FBI policies, particularly when confronted by what appear to be extraordinary circumstances or compelling personal convictions,” the report concluded. “Comey had several other lawful options available to him to advocate for the appointment of a Special Counsel, which he told us was his goal in making the disclosure. What was not permitted was the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive investigative information, obtained during the course of FBI employment, in order to achieve a personally desired outcome.”
Those concerned with the destruction of norms in the Trump era need to consider the question in two ways. There is the threat of Trump’s actions eroding norms, but there is also the danger that his opponents take actions in opposing Trump that actually hasten the destruction of norms instead of preserving them.
