BREAKING: Memos Reveal Comey Cleared Clinton BEFORE Interviewing Her & 17 Other Key Witnesses

Washington, DC – In what can be described as nothing less than a bombshell revelation, memos from former FBI director James Comey, obtained by the Senate Judiciary Committee investigating his firing by President Trump, reveal that the bureau chief began writing drafts of a statement clearing Hillary Clinton of criminal wrongdoing prior to at least key 17 witnesses being interviewed by the FBI – including Clinton herself.

These newly discovered facts raise the question; how can someone be exonerated of a crime before the investigation has been completed?

During a press conference, on July 5, 2016, former FBI director Comey stated that he would not recommend charges to the U.S. Department of Justice, and noted that despite her mishandling of classified information on a private email server, there was no intent to subvert the law.

The incriminating revelations, that Comey began drafting memos of an exoneration letter, come from transcripts of interviews given by two FBI official, according to the Daily Caller.

According to the Daily Caller:

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James Rybicki, Comey’s chief of staff, and Trisha Anderson, the principal deputy general counsel of national security and cyberlaw at the FBI, gave the interviews as part of an investigation conducted by the Office of Special Counsel into the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email investigation.

While the transcripts of those interviews are heavily redacted, they indicate that Comey started working on an announcement clearing Clinton in April or May of last year, before the FBI interviewed 17 witnesses in the case, including Clinton and some of her top aides.

Let that sink in for a moment.

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Comey actually began penning a letter exonerating Clinton in April or May of 2016, but Clinton wasn’t even interviewed until July 2 – only three days prior to Comey’s public announcement.

It seems logical that the only way Comey could have decided that Clinton was innocent prior to her and numerous witnesses being interviewed is if the facts of the case were not connected to her exoneration – or more succinctly – the investigation was simply political theater for the masses, and more importantly, rigged from the start.

Two U.S. Senators, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, sent a letter to the FBI, which specifically noted that Comey’s draft was prepared well before two Clinton aides, Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, were given what Republicans deemed a “highly unusual” immunity deal with the U.S. Justice Department.

The “highly unusual” limited immunity deal prohibited FBI agents and prosecutors from inquiring about conversations between Platte River Networks, the tech firm that managed Clinton’s private email server after she left the State Department, and Mills and Samuelson.

The Senators strongly questioned how Comey could have conducted a complete and impartial investigation if he had already drawn a conclusion about the outcome of the case prior to all of the interviews and evidence having been collected.

“Conclusion first, fact-gathering second — that’s no way to run an investigation,” Grassley and Graham wrote in the letter to the FBI. “The FBI should be held to a higher standard than that, especially in a matter of such great public interest and controversy.”

“The outcome of an investigation should not be prejudged while FBI agents are still hard at work trying to gather the facts,” they added.

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The facts speak for themselves, and as many people already suspected, there was no real investigation into the criminal actions of Hillary Clinton.

Instead, the American public was treated to a dog and pony show meant to look as if Clinton was being held to the same standards as any other citizen. However, the same rules that would apply to any other American were summarily dismissed in an effort to bolster the presidential candidacy of an extremely powerful political operator.

As the legendary George Carlin so eloquently proclaimed, “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it!”

Lawyer Who Leaked Comey Memos Speaks: "They Were Not Marked Classified"

One day after The Hill reported that "more than half" of Comey"s leaked memos of his conversations with Donald Trump contained classified information, the Columbia University Law School professor, confidant of former FBI Director James Comey, and ultimately leaker to the NYT has spoken up, and in taking another page out of Hillary Clinton"s playbook, countered the accusation that Comey violated FBI protocol because none of the memos were marked classified.

According to CNN, Daniel Richman, with whom Comey shared at least one memo the contents of which Richman shared with New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt, said President Trump was wrong in accusing Comey of sharing classified information with journalists.

"No memo was given to me that was marked "classified,"" Daniel Richman told CNN. "No memo was passed on to the Times."

Well, not quite: Richman did share the contents of one memo, he said, but "the substance of the memo passed on to the Times was not marked classified and to my knowledge remains unclassified."

Well, not quite again: During his June testimony Comey said he specifically wrote the memos to avoid including classified information to make them "easier to discuss."

"My thinking was, if I write it in such a way that I don"t include anything that would trigger a classification, that"ll make it easier for us to discuss, within the FBI and the government, and to -- to hold on to it in a way that makes it accessible to us," Comey told senators.

And here, as in the case of Hillary Clinton, is where the problem emerges, because what Comey considered not confidential - just like Clinton - has differed from others" opinion. As The Hill reported late on Sunday, "more than half of the memos former FBI Director James Comey wrote as personal recollections of his conversations with President Trump about the Russia investigation have been determined to contain classified information, according to interviews with officials familiar with the documents."

In other words, whether he wrote or rewrote the memos to make the leak "easier" - which also begs the question what else was redacted or added to the original content - the confidential information remained.

As we discussed yesterday, the first similarity with the Clinton case is that according to The HIll"s original report, by leaking confidential information, Comey likely "broke his own agency"s rules and ignored the same security protocol" that Comey criticized Hillary Clinton for disregarding.

As CNN adds, in yet another similarity with the Clinton email server case, some of the info in the memos may not have been deemed classified - supposedly by Comey who was the only one to have access to his own creations - but have since been upgraded to classified, although that does not answer who would have done that, considering the only person to have possession of said memos is Special Prosecutor Mueller who, as his recent interactions with the president suggest, is not exactly a fan of Trump.

"Tick, Tick, Tick" Comey Ally Hints That Next NYT Bombshell Is In The Works

It’s been a couple of weeks since the New York Times, Washington Post or CNN have published an anonymously sourced bombshell with more salacious details about the ongoing feud between former FBI Director James Comey and President Donald Trump. But the next salvo could arrive soon – possibly as soon as Monday, if a longtime Comey confidant is to be believed.

Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, posted an ominous message on Twitter on Friday: “TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK.”  Wittes’s tweets may verge on ridiculous, but they should be taken seriously: As the Daily Caller pointed out, his tweets of “tick tick tick” have in the recent past preceded major NYT bombshells, including the May 16 report about the Comey memo and its contents. He tweeted a similar message two days later, before the NYT published a report about Comey wanting to keep his distance from Trump.

Wittes did it again shortly before the Times published a story alleging Comey asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to leave him in the room alone with Trump on June 6. Wittes says he has reviewed Comey-related stories before, and was an on-the-record source for the May 18 piece reported by the NYT’s Michael Schmidt, where he recounted to the NYT reporter that Comey had told him at a lunch meeting that he sought to distance himself from Trump. Comey felt that Trump was attempting to cozy up to Comey in hopes of quashing the ongoing Russia probe.

tick tick tick tick tick tick

— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) May 16, 2017

By the twitching of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.

tick tick tick tick tick tick tick

— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) May 18, 2017

Now please don"t read anything into this, but

tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick pic.twitter.com/fc0By0CWqK

— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) June 6, 2017

In his latest tweet, he claimed the “fuse length” on the next story is uncertain, and that it could drop as soon as Monday, or some time after.

To be clear, fuse length on this one is uncertain. Could be today. Could be Monday.

— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) June 23, 2017

While Wittes has said that he and Comey have discussed how the White House handled the Russia investigation, he claims they did not discuss the particulars of the investigation, which is looking into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to influence the election.

Comey began instructing his friends to leak damaging stories about Trump to the Times shortly after he was fired by the president on May 9. During testimony earlier this month, Comey admitted he was angered by Trump’s remarks criticizing his management of the FBI, suggesting that his motives for leaking the stories weren’t exactly altruistic.

Wittes was not the source of the Comey memo, as the Daily Caller recollects. Columbia law school professor Daniel Richman, another friend of Comey’s, shared the document with The Times after being provided a copy by the former FBI chief.

The timing of Wittes message is notable: It follows President Donald Trump’s admission that he was bluffing when he said he might have recorded his conversation with Comey, and Comey"s appearance at The New York Times" offices...

Comey, disguised behind dark sunglasses stared straight ahead as entered the Times Square office building, accompanied by his wife Patrice Failor.

So, what will this next bombshell allege? Has Comey somehow found the smoking gun that will finally prove unequivocally that Trump colluded with the Russians? Maybe he’s been keeping it in his back pocket, refusing to share it with the world because he doesn"t want to unleash another wave of anti-Russia hysteria.

Stay tuned to find out.

Did James Comey's Document Leaks Violate The FBI Employment Agreement?

Former FBI director James Comey"s decision to leak FBI documents to a friend may have violated the FBI"s employment agreement regarding unauthorized leaks.

During his testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, former FBI director James Comey revealed that he was the source of leaked memos about his conversations with Donald Trump surrounding the Russia investigation. Comey explained that he shared the memos with his friend, a professor at Columbia University, who then shared them with the New York Times, actions that may violate the FBI’s own employee agreement.

“My judgment was I needed to get [the memos] out into the public square,” Comey said.

“So I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. I didn’t do it myself for a variety of reasons, but I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.”

By his own account, it seems that Comey may not have followed the agency’s employee agreement, which places numerous restrictions on the use of information or documents acquired during an individual’s employment by the FBI. Paragraphs 2, 3, and 4 of the FBI employment agreement appear to cover Comey’s distribution of content he says he created on government property in his capacity as a government official:

Paragraph 2 states that all materials acquired in connection with an employee’s official duties are property of the U.S. government and that such materials must be surrendered to the FBI upon an employee’s separation from the agency. Paragraph 3 states that employees are prohibited from releasing “any information acquired by virtue of my official employment” to “unauthorized individual[s] without prior official written authorization by the FBI.” Paragraph 4 of the agreement requires FBI employees, prior to disclosing or publishing information acquired during their employment, to submit the information to FBI authorities for review to determine whether it is authorized for public release.

So if Comey followed protocol and surrendered all government property, including the memos he produced in his capacity as an FBI employee, it would have been impossible for him to provide the memos to his friend. The fact that he was able to provide hard copies of the memos to both his friend and special counsel Robert Mueller suggests that Comey did not surrender them to authorities as required by the FBI employment agreement.

Page two of the agreement lists the types of information disclosures which are strictly prohibited. Included in the list of information that may not be released without prior written approval by the FBI is “information that relates to any sensitive operational details or the substantive merits of any ongoing or open investigation or case.” While the agreement states that unauthorized disclosure of classified information is a violation of the contract, information does not have to be classified in order to be prohibited from unauthorized disclosure. Comey claims that his memos were unclassified.

Comey’s claim that it would not have been proper to publicly disclose that Trump was not a target of any FBI investigation because the investigation was ongoing and facts could change flies in the face of his decision to provide to his friends records of his meetings about the investigation with the president. If he could not publicly note that Trump was not a target of an ongoing investigation, then why was he able to release FBI records related to that investigation to his friends for the purpose of having those details leaked to the public via the news media? In light of the FBI’s prohibition on publicly sharing documents or information related to ongoing investigations absent prior written authorization, Comey’s dual explanations make little sense.

The FBI employment agreement states that violating any of the included terms may result in termination, civil liability, revocation of security clearances, or even criminal sanctions.

Trump Will Not Invoke "Executive Privilege" To Block Comey Testimony

On Friday, media speculation emerged that the Trump administration may seek to block former FBI director James Comey"s testimony scheduled for next Thursday after White House officials said that they did not know yet whether President Donald Trump would seek to block Comey"s testimony, a move that would spark another huge political backlash against the president. Speaking to reporters, Sean Spicer said "I have not spoken to counsel yet. I don"t know how they"re going to respond."

As a reminder, the former FBI chief who was leading a probe into Russian meddling in last year"s presidential election and was fired by Trump last month, is due to testify on Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee as part of its own Russia-related investigation, and his remarks could "cause problems" for the Republican president per Reuters.

While invoking executive privilege can be a politically treacherous move, recalling past scandals like Watergate, in which Nixon asserted the power in efforts to block congressional investigations, it is worth recalling that in 2012 none other than former President Barack Obama used the legal authority once, during congressional inquiries into the "Fast and Furious" scandal, after weapons ended up in the possession of Mexican gun cartels. Obama was later sued by Congress for his decision to block lawmakers from viewing documents related to the gun-running scandal.

As Reuters further adds, "presidents can assert executive privilege to prevent government employees from sharing information. However, legal experts say it is not clear whether certain conversations between Trump and Comey that the president has talked about publicly would be covered, and any effort to block Comey, who is now a private citizen, from testifying could be challenged in court." Furthermore,  Trump’s tweets about Mr. Comey would damage any claim of executive privilege.

“James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” Trump said in one post, shortly after The New York Times reported the request for the loyalty pledge.

However, the discussion now appears to be largely moot because as the NYT reported overnight, Trump does not plan to invoke executive privilege as a way to block Comey from testifying to Congress next week, the New York Times said on Friday citing two unnamed senior administration officials. 

One of the administration officials said Friday evening that Mr. Trump wanted Mr. Comey to testify because the president had nothing to hide and wanted Mr. Comey’s statements to be publicly aired. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing a decision that had not been announced.

That said, the NYT concedes that Trump could still move to block the testimony next week, "given his history of changing his mind at the last minute about major decisions." But legal experts have said that Mr. Trump has a weak case to invoke executive privilege because he has publicly addressed his conversations with Mr. Comey, and any such move could carry serious political risks.

As discussed previously, Comey is expected to testify about several conversations he had with the president, including one in which Mr. Trump encouraged him to stop investigating his former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, according to a memo by Comey. In another conversation during a one-on-one dinner at the White House, Trump asked Mr. Comey to pledge his loyalty, and Comey declined to do so, according to Mr. Comey’s associates. Comey, according to people close to him, recorded his discussions with Mr. Trump in memos he wrote shortly after each interaction. The memo has yet to be seen either in public, or in private.

FBI Withholds Russia Probe Docs Requested By House Intel Committee

House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said today that the FBI had decided to withhold documents, including memos, notes, summaries, and recordings, requested by his committee in regards to the ongoing Russia probe. This was revealed in a letter sent by Chaffetz to the FBI responding to the agency’s decision to withhold documents requested by the Committee on May 16, 2017.

The FBI"s denial to cooperate is presented below:

According to a statement by the Oversight Committee, "Chaffetz requested memos, notes, summaries, and recordings to assist in the Committee’s investigation of the FBI’s independence, and which are outside the scope of the Special Counsel’s investigation."

The documents are due June 8, 2017, but that may not happen as it appears the FBI is suddenly unwilling to cooperate.  

As Chaffetz elaborates, after a New York Times report that former Federal Bureau of  Investigation Director James Corney memorialized the content of phone calls and meetings with the President in a series of memoranda, he requested those memoranda and any related notes, summaries, and recordings. The FBI is withholding those documents, citing to the appointment of Robert Mueller as Special Prosecutor. According to a letter from your staff: "In light of this development and other considerations [the Bureau] is undertaking appropriate consultation to ensure all relevant interest implicated by your request are properly evaluated.

The letter states:

“The Committee has its own, Constitutionally-based prerogative to conduct investigations. But the Committee in no way wants to impede or interfere with the Special Counsel’s ability to conduct his investigation.  In fact, the Committee’s investigation will complement the work of the Special Counsel. Whereas the Special Counsel is conducting a criminal or counterintelligence investigation that will occur largely behind closed doors, the Committee’s work will shed light on matters of high public interest, regardless of whether there is evidence of criminal conduct.

“The focus of the Committee’s investigation is the independence of the FBI, including conversations between the President and Comey and the process by which Comey was removed from his role as director.  The records being withheld are central to those questions, even more so in light of Comey’s decision not to testify before the Committee at this time.”

“I am seeking to better understand Comey’s communications with the White House and Attorney General in such a way that does not implicate the Special Counsel’s work.”

As Chaffetz concludes, "Congress and the American public have a right and a duty to examine this issue independently of the Special Counsel"s investigation. I trust and hope you understand this and make the right decision-to produce these documents to the Committee immediately and on a voluntary basis."

The American public is certainly looking forward to the FBI"s release of the full content of the Comey"s memos, not only those relating to his meetings with Trump, but just as importantly, with Loretta Lynch, as well as Barack Obama and/or Hillary Clinton.

Full text of Chairman Chaffetz letter can be viewed here.
Full text of FBI letter can be viewed here.