James Comey denies leaking memos, sees 'no credible claim' he broke law

While Comey acknowledged he gave one of his memos to a friend to then share with the New York Times, in his view, that doesn’t constitute a leak, and he claimed there is “no credible claim by any serious person” that he violated the law.

Last week, it was revealed the Justice Department’s inspector general opened an investigation into whether Comey leaked classified information when he leaked the contents of those memos, which recall his conversations with Trump before being fired in May 2017.

Meanwhile, Trump has said he wants Comey, who is now in the middle of a book tour, jailed for allegedly leaking classified information.

During the town hall Wednesday, Evelyn Lawhorn, a senior at William & Mary, which is Comey’s alma mater and where the town hall was taking place, asked if he thought there was any “credence to Trump’s claims” that Comey broke the law.

“I don’t,” Comey said in reply. “In fact I think he’s just making stuff up,” he added. The same assertion was made days ago by Trump, who accused Comey of “totally” making up parts of his memos.

Comey went on to explain why he didn’t think the memos were improperly handled.

“The memos are actually two pieces, and the details matter because the facts matter and should matter even to the president. I sent one memo, unclassified then — still unclassified, and it’s recounted in my book — to my friend Dan Richman and asked him to get the substance of it, but not the memo out to the media,” Comey said.

In that memo, Comey recalls Trump asking him to back off the investigation into then-former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The memos, which the Justice Department sent to Congress last week, and were immediately given to the media, show this particular memo was marked unclassified as Comey has said.

Comey denied that he “leaked” the memos, an assertion that moderator Anderson Cooper challenged him on.

“It was a document you wrote while you were FBI director. If you tell somebody don’t give the document but give them the document, that is a leak no?” Cooper asked.

In his response, Comey said he thinks of a leak as “an unauthorized disclosure of classified information.”

Comey also commented how he “totally” gets the perception that he did leak documents due to a prevailing view of the term that has a wider scope — after all, Cooper said he was “surprised” by Comey’s definition of the term. Comey said his point of view was that of a lawyer and a director of the FBI. “I intentionally gave this information to a friend, intending that it be out in the media. I wanted it to get out in the media. As a private citizen, I could do that and did that just as I’ve written about it in my book,” Comey said.

Comey’s claim Wednesday deviates from what he said during his first book tour interview on ABC earlier this month.

During his sit-down Comey did not push back when George Stephanopoulos asked about Trump’s tweets calling him a “leaker.”

When asked to respond, Comey replied: “Look, it’s true, I mean, I’m the one who testified about it, that’s how people know about it, that I gave that unclassified — this is a whole nother conversation about whether you can leak unclassified information, I don’t want to get involved in that. I gave that unclassified memo to my mind, who was also acting as my lawyer, but this wasn’t a lawyer task, and asked him to give it to a reporter. That is entirely appropriate.”

After the town hall Wednesday , White House counselor Kellyanne Conway participated in an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, and was asked if Comey gave a satisfactory explanation for why he didn’t think he leaked information.

Following a brief pause, Conway responded: “No, and you saw that he was squirming around, answering those tough questions.”

The CNN town hall follows an effort by 11 House Republicans calling on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to prosecute a handful of individuals, including Comey. They refer Comey and the others for “investigation of potential violation(s) of federal statutes.”

Comey also faces an forthcoming DOJ IG report about his handling of the FBI investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s unauthorized email server.

Comey is in the middle of a publicity tour for his best-selling new book, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership.