On July 5, 2016, FBI Director James Comey publicly explained why he didn’t assume Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump’s Democratic opponent in that 12 months’s presidential election, needs to be prosecuted for her “extraordinarily careless” dealing with of “very delicate, extremely categorized data” as secretary of state throughout the Obama administration. However 4 months later, simply 11 days earlier than the election, Comey informed Congress that the FBI had reopened its investigation of Clinton in gentle of lately found emails between her and her private assistant. Though the brand new proof didn’t change the FBI’s evaluation of Clinton’s conduct, Comey didn’t report that consequence to Congress till November 6, two days earlier than the election.
Comey took loads of flak from Democrats, who thought he had recklessly undermined their nominee’s prospects by revealing a renewed but in the end fruitless investigation so near the election. He responded by encouraging his “good pal” Daniel Richman, a Columbia legislation college professor, to defend him in interviews with reporters, which helped generate tales that summarized Comey’s perspective on the controversy. Typically Richman was quoted by identify, and typically he supplied data “on background.” Richman’s interactions with the press, it seems, are on the middle of the perjury and obstruction charges in opposition to Comey.
That time, which federal prosecutors first revealed to Comey’s attorneys on October 15 and fleshed out in a brief they filed on Monday, provides some much-needed readability to the obscure, skimpy indictment that Lindsey Halligan, the interim U.S. lawyer for the Japanese District of Virginia, obtained on September 25. On the similar time, it sheds gentle on the the reason why Halligan’s predecessor, whom Trump changed just some days earlier than the indictment, didn’t assume the case was price pursuing—an evaluation shared by profession prosecutors in his workplace.
Halligan says Comey lied throughout a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Could 3, 2017, lower than every week earlier than Trump fired him out of anger on the FBI’s investigation of alleged ties between his 2016 marketing campaign and the Russian authorities. Though the statute of limitations precludes charging Comey in reference to that listening to, Halligan alleges that he reiterated his lie when he reaffirmed his 2017 testimony throughout a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on September 30, 2020. Halligan managed, simply barely, to acquire an indictment inside 5 years of the latter listening to.
As related to the indictment, Comey answered “no” in 2017 when Sen. Charles Grassley (R–Iowa) requested whether or not he had “ever licensed another person on the FBI to be an nameless supply in information studies” about “the Clinton investigation.” On the 2020 listening to, Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Texas) famous the change with Grassley, and Comey stated “I stand by” that reply, including that his testimony “is identical in the present day.”
In sticking by his 2017 testimony, Halligan alleges, Comey “willfully and knowingly” made “a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent assertion” to Congress, a felony punishable by as much as 5 years in jail underneath 18 USC 1001(a)(2). Comey’s assertion was false, the indictment says, as a result of he “then and there knew” that he “the truth is had licensed PERSON 3 [Richman] to function an nameless supply in information studies concerning an FBI investigation of PERSON 1 [Clinton].” Halligan says Richman certified as “another person on the FBI” as a result of, along with his full-time, paying gig at Columbia, he served the company as an unpaid “particular authorities worker” throughout Comey’s tenure there.
There are a number of issues with Halligan’s interpretation of Comey’s change with Cruz, starting with the truth that the senator’s questioning targeted on a dispute between Comey and Andrew McCabe, his former deputy, concerning the discharge of details about a distinct FBI investigation. Comey’s attorneys argue that “when Senator Cruz referenced Senator Grassley’s query about whether or not Mr. Comey licensed ‘another person on the FBI’ to function nameless supply, there was no cause to imagine that he was referring to anybody however full-time staff like Mr. McCabe—who have been stationed on the FBI—versus somebody like Mr. Richman, who was a Particular Authorities Worker dwelling fulltime in New York.”
In gentle of Comey’s shut, longstanding friendship with Richman, it’s particularly believable that he didn’t consider him as “another person on the FBI.” Richman repeatedly defended Comey’s dealing with of the Clinton investigation, each on and off the report, in conversations with journalists—to the purpose {that a} sympathetic 2017 article in The New Yorker described Richman as “a detailed pal of Comey who has served as his unofficial media surrogate.” Provided that background, it appears unlikely that Comey, in his responses to Grassley and Cruz, was making an attempt to cowl up Richman’s position in getting him good press.
That’s however what federal prosecutors counsel of their November 3 brief. Formally, it’s a response to Comey’s argument that the indictment needs to be dismissed as a result of his prosecution is vindictive and selective, pushed by Trump’s private grudge in opposition to him. However in rebutting that declare, the temporary affords a story that was conspicuously lacking from the indictment, which Halligan rushed to acquire earlier than a statutory deadline that will have missed by the top of September.
Notably, the indictment was signed by Halligan alone, which appeared to replicate inner skepticism in regards to the costs. However the response to Comey’s declare of vindictive and selective prosecution is signed by two assistant U.S. attorneys: N. Tyler Lemons and Gabriel J. Diaz, each of whom have been reassigned to Halligan’s workplace from the Japanese District of North Carolina in October.
Lemons and Diaz cite emails between Comey and Richman that illustrate their collaboration in producing tales that mirrored Comey’s protection of the best way he dealt with the Clinton investigation. On November 1, 2016, for instance, Comey expressed his dissatisfaction with protection of the controversy in The New York Instances.
“Once I learn the [Times] protection involving [reporter Michael Schmidt], I’m left with the sense that they do not perceive the importance of my having spoke[n] in regards to the case in July,” Comey wrote. “It modifications your complete evaluation. Maybe you may make [Schmidt] smarter.”
Comey was alluding to his argument that he had an obligation to replace Congress in regards to the Clinton investigation in gentle of his earlier announcement. “Why is that this so onerous for them to understand?” he questioned. “All of the stuff about how we have been allegedly cautious to not take actions on circumstances involving different allegations about which now we have by no means spoken is irrelevant. I like our observe of being inactive close to elections. However inactivity was not an choice right here. The alternatives have been act to disclose or act to hide.”
Richman replied the following day, assuring Comey that he was working onerous to advertise his perspective: “That is exactly the case I made to them and thought they understood. I used to be fairly improper. Certainly I went additional and stated senseless allegiance to the coverage (and recognition that extra proof may are available in) would have endorsed silence in [J]uly to let [Clinton] twist within the wind.”
Later that day, Richman told Comey he had tried once more, this time with extra success: “Simply obtained the purpose dwelling to [Schmidt]. In all probability was rougher than u would have been.”
That very same day, the Instances ran a flow-chart-style article by Matt Apuzzo and Sergio Pecanha underneath the headline “These Are the Dangerous (and Worse) Choices James Comey Confronted.” Comey deemed that article “fairly good,” including, “Somebody confirmed some logic. I might paint the cons extra darkly however not unhealthy.” Richman replied, “See I *can* educate.” Comey expressed his gratitude: “Properly executed my pal.”
On February 11, 2017, Richman emailed Chuck Rosenberg, who was then appearing head of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Rosenberg had beforehand held numerous FBI and Justice Division positions, together with chief of employees for Comey when he was deputy lawyer basic throughout George W. Bush’s administration.
“My pal on the NYT, Mike Schmidt, is (together with [Matt] Apuzzo, [Adam] Goldman, and (gag me) [Eric] Lichtblau)…doing an enormous piece on the [Clinton] emails,” Richman wrote. “He is had a ton of background conversations with gamers and non-players (like me). Mike would very very like to speak to you solely on background as he tries to [understand] Jim’s decisionmaking to the extent potential. Mike requested me to achieve out to you. Therefore this e-mail. Would you be keen to speak with him?” Rosenberg stated he would “attain out” to Schmidt.
The “big piece” to which Richman referred evidently was a story by Apuzzo, Schmidt, Goldman, and Lichtblau that the Instances ran on April 22, 2017, underneath the headline “Comey Tried to Protect the F.B.I. From Politics. Then He Formed an Election.” The story quoted Richman by identify, describing him as “a longtime confidant and pal of Mr. Comey’s.” Comey was once more happy. “I learn the piece,” he wrote to Richman the following day. “Thanks a lot on your phrases and inform [Schmidt] he did job. Could be completely different if I wrote it however it’s by and enormous truthful.”
Richman replied: “You are ever so welcome. And can do re Mike. Any badly or under-developed factors for me to work on with the New Yorker? Or simply the standard.”
Richman apparently was referring to a flattering article by Peter Elkind that would seem within the Could 11, 2017, situation of The New Yorker, titled “James Comey’s Conspicuous Independence.” Just like the April 22 Instances story, it quoted Richman by identify, describing him as “a Columbia legislation professor and shut pal of Comey who has served as his unofficial media surrogate.”
The proof cited by the federal government, briefly, doesn’t do rather more than verify Richman’s well-known position as Comey’s champion. It establishes that Richman, with Comey’s encouragement, typically overtly defended his pal and typically labored behind the scenes to affect press protection.
Given the latter method, it’s correct to say that Comey “licensed” Richman to “function an nameless supply in information studies” in regards to the Clinton investigation. However the assertion that Comey lied about that hinges on two questionable assumptions.
Halligan assumes that Comey, when he was questioned by Grassley and Cruz, would have considered Richman as “another person on the FBI” somewhat than his “longtime confidant and pal.” She additionally assumes that Comey was intentionally making an attempt to mislead the senators about his well-established relationship with Richman, at the least to the extent that it included “background” discussions with reporters.
To convict Comey, prosecutors must persuade a jury that there isn’t any affordable doubt about both of these propositions. It’s due to this fact not stunning that Erik Siebert, Halligan’s predecessor, was not eager to pursue this case, or that Trump managed to get what he wished solely by intervening on the final minute. He changed Siebert with Halligan, a neophyte prosecutor whose major qualification was her willingness to miss the weaknesses that had deterred her predecessor, and he publicly ordered Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi to prosecute Comey earlier than it was too late.
“We won’t delay any longer,” Trump instructed Bondi. “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” 5 days later, Siebert delivered the indictment that Trump had demanded, though it was such a hasty job that the small print of the allegations in opposition to Comey are solely now coming into focus. These particulars reinforce the impression that Trump was determined to get Comey a method or one other, whatever the legislation or the proof.
