Former FBI chief James Comey not only hired a law professor crony from his U.S. attorney days to dispense pro-Comey information to the hate-Trump media, notably The New York Times, but also instructed the FBI’s public affairs office to help the Times.
Newly declassified documents from an FBI probe into leaked classified information, first disclosed by Just the News, show that Comey hired Columbia University law professor Daniel Richman to peddle the pro-Comey material. As well, the documents show that Comey ordered the bureau’s “official assistance” to the newspaper.
The revelations follow a previous report about far-left Democratic U.S. Senator Adam Schiff. When he was ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, he OK’d leaking classified information to wreck President Trump’s first term, a Democrat committee whistleblower told the FBI.
The classified leaks probe in 2017 involved four articles in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and the Times, including one from April 22, 2017, “Comey Tried to Shield the F.B.I. From Politics. Then He Shaped an Election.”
Comey’s purpose in hiring Richman, whom he knew when they were U.S attorneys in New York’s southern district, was to help spin the news coverage of Comey after published reports disclosed the FBI probe of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s illegal use of a private e-mail server to send and receive classified information. That probe was called the MidYear Exam.
In 2015, Comey ordered the bureau “to hire Richman as a Special Government Employee (“SGE”) and to grant him a Top Secret clearance with access to Sensitive Compartmented Information (“SCI”),” the documents reveal:
FBI records indicated Richman was hired to work on “Going Dark” matters. The investigation revealed Comey also hired Richman so Comey could discuss sensitive matters, including classified information, with someone outside of the FBI’s regular leadership. Comey also used Richman as a liaison to the media. On several occasions, Richman spoke with the media without consultation with FBI or [Justice Department’s] Offices of Public Affairs. Richman contacted journalists to correct stories critical of Comey, the FBI and to shape future press coverage….
The investigation revealed Richman had been a source for Michael Schmidt, one of the reporters credited with writing the article at issue, and the New York Times since at least 2008. Richman
first spoke with Schmidt regarding an investigation into illegal activity in sports. Prior to Richman becoming an SGE, Schmidt visited Richman’s house numerous times. The New York Times quoted Richman several times, both on the record and on background, in stories regarding Jim Comey.
After he was terminated by President Trump, Comey used Richman as a conduit to convey to the media memoranda of his meetings with President Trump.
An obvious question is whether Richman disclosed classified information to Schmidt for the article for the April 22, 2017 article. He answered cryptically, the documents show.
EMBED Discount
In 2019, during an interview with the FBI, Richman revealed that he met with Comey in January 2017, and during “private conversation” in Comey’s office, the FBI chief gave him classified information relative to the Clinton probe.
“He and Schmidt had a conversation shortly after the meeting with Comey in or around January 2017,” the FBI documents report:
Richman claimed Schmidt brought up the Classified Information and knew more about it than he did. Richman was pretty sure he did not confirm the Classified Information. However, Richman told the interviewing agents he was sure “with a discount” that he did not tell Schmidt about the Classified Information. Richman did not know who gave Schmidt the Classified Information. Richman acknowledged he had many discussions with Schmidt about the article as an SGE and even after he resigned as an SGE. Richman acknowledged he contributed more to the article than what was attributed to him by name.
Again, the Times published the article piece in question that April. How much classified information, if any, Richman might have revealed to the Times is unclear.
Perfectly clear is another of Comey’s moves to polish his image. He ordered FBI officials to cooperate with the Times. Two of them were disgraced, hate-Trump FBI man Peter Strzok and his paramour, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, major players in the Russia Collusion Hoax. They called Trump loathsome, awful, and an idiot, the Durham Report showed, and Strzok vowed to stop Trump from becoming president in 2016.
“Investigators learned that FBI Office of Public Affairs (“OPA”) was told to assist the New York Times with the April 2017 article,” the documents say:
According to interviews with FBI employees, Comey either directed or otherwise authorized FBI’s official assistance to the New York Times. FBI OPA did not coordinate or brief DOJ leadership or DOJ OPA about this decision, even though … DOJ regulations called for DOJ OPA coordination in cases of media contact with the New York Times. As part of the FBI’s assistance, FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were interviewed by the New York Times concerning this article in the presence of DOJ OPA officials.
Strzok told investigators that he briefed the Times three times. The Times told the two it possessed classified information.
As with the Schiff, federal prosecutors didn’t pursue the leaks.
As The New American reported yesterday, citing FBI documents revealed by Just the News, a Democratic House Intelligence Committee staffer told the FBI that in 2017, then-ranking member Schiff approved leaking classified information. During a meeting with staff members, the whistleblower revealed, Schiff said the committee would leak classified information that “was derogatory” to President Trump and “would be used to indict” him.
The reason? Schiff thought he would be the next CIA director.
“Schiff was particularly upset, as he believed he would have been appointed as the director of the CIA had candidate Hillary Clinton won the election,” the whistleblower told the FBI:
The HPSCI minority viewed the election and its aftermath as a constitutional crisis, and, by February 2017, [the whistleblower] stated, all hell broke loose. During a meeting on 13 February 2017, [redacted] instructed the staff that he wanted to drive the “Russian involvement” issue in a joint inquiry, similar to the 9/11 commission.
The statute of limitations on most federal crimes, including leaking classified information, is five years.