Comey Boomerang: Ex-director confronted with personal emails, notes after playing victim card

James Comey played the victim card in fighting his indictment on charges of misleading Congress, but that strategy boomeranged when prosecutors and his old agency released an avalanche of new evidence showing the ex-FBI director hoped to please Hillary Clinton, cheered on media leaks he claimed he did not sanction, and wrote emails and notes that directly conflict with his past congressional testimony.

Part of that unflattering portrait of Comey, prosecutors revealed Monday, came from long-hidden files that the new FBI Director Kash Patel found in burn bags and secret storage rooms at the bureau's headquarters.

The evidence included proof that Comey used a private email account to conduct FBI matters -- including media strategy with a top lieutenant  -- at the same time his agency probed Clinton for improperly using her own private email for government business.

"Perhaps you can make him smarter,” Comey wrote in one such email to FBI special government employee Daniel Richman in which the two discussed trying to influence a New York Times reporter about his coverage of the Clinton email scandal.

Prosecutors made clear such evidence will be used to try to show at trial that Comey misled Congress when he denied authorizing staff to anonymously leak or talk to reporters.

"Consistent with the above-described correspondence, Richman corresponded extensively with members of the media regarding or on behalf of the defendant, including in an anonymous capacity," the Justice Department filing argued.

Comey did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent to him through his lawyers.

Comey's politicization executed to get in Hillary's good graces

Federal prosecutors said in court filings that they have unearthed a trove of personal emails showing that Comey openly talked in the days before the 2016 election that he expected to be working soon for President-elect Hillary Clinton and that he was being kept apprised by his friend Richman on apparent efforts to anonymously provide information to the news media.

The DOJ also showed on Monday that, despite Comey telling Congress he didn’t recall it, he had taken handwritten notes in September 2016 indicating he had been briefed on the so-called Clinton Plan Intelligence indicating Clinton’s 2016 campaign planned to tie Trump to Russia.

Comey’s lawyers in late October filed briefs to persuade a judge to dismiss the charges against their client, who has pleaded not guilty, by claiming that he was being "selectively and vindictively" prosecuted.

“The government has singled out Mr. Comey for prosecution because of his protected speech and because of President Trump’s personal animus toward Mr. Comey,” Comey’s lawyers told the judge in court filings last month. “Such a vindictive and selective prosecution violates the First Amendment, Due Process Clause, and equal protection principles. The proper remedy for this unconstitutional prosecution is dismissal with prejudice. Any lesser remedy would be insufficient in light of the government’s flagrant misconduct and the need to deter the government from bringing further unconstitutional prosecutions.”

DOJ: "A duly constituted grand jury found probable cause that he committed the indicted offenses"

The Justice Department fired back in a Monday court filing signed by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Tyler Lemons and Gabriel Diaz.

“The prosecution is not vindictive. The defendant has not produced ‘direct evidence’ of a vindictive motive. And he has not shown that the prosecutor pursued this case ‘solely to punish’ him for exercising his First Amendment rights. So he has not carried his heavy burden of establishing vindictive prosecution,” the DOJ lawyers said Monday. “The prosecution is also not selective. The defendant has not identified similarly situated individuals who were not prosecuted. And he has not provided evidence that the decision to prosecute him was made because of his protected activities. He has not produced the ‘clear evidence’ required for dismissing an indictment based on selective prosecution.”

The DOJ court filing added: “A duly appointed and unbiased prosecutor presented the indictment. And a duly constituted grand jury found probable cause that he committed the indicted offenses. The motion to dismiss and request for discovery should be denied, and the case should proceed to trial.”

Comey used a personal and anonymous email account to associate/leaker

Comey, fired as FBI director in 2017 by President Donald Trump, oversaw both the politicized investigation into Hillary Clinton's illicit use of a private email server to send classified information and the baseless Trump-Russia collusion inquiry.

Despite investigating Clinton for her improper use of a private email server, Comey himself was using a personal and anonymous Gmail account to discuss FBI matters with Richman.

Comey made a public speech exonerating Clinton of criminality in July 2016, but alerted Congress in October 2016 that further Clinton emails had been found after the FBI searched a laptop belonging to disgraced former Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner, then the husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

"Some day they will figure it out. And as [Individual 1 and Individual 2] point out, my decision will be one a president-elect Clinton will be very grateful for (although that wasn’t why I did it)," Comey wrote Richman in one newly-released email in late October 2016.

Richman previously admitted to agents in interviews that he routinely communicated on behalf of Comey, his longtime friend, with New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt, whose work was among the newspaper's 2018 Pulitzer-winning stories on Russian election interference. The goal, Richman told the FBI, was "to correct stories critical of Comey, the FBI and to shape future press coverage" outside the bureau's official press office, according to internal FBI memos.

"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," one FBI memo recounted.

Emails indicate clear intention, collaboration between Comey and leaker Richman

“Make sure you keep your eyes shut. The country can’t seem to handle your finding stuff,” Richman wrote to Comey on Oct. 29, 2016. Comey replied: “Thanks for the battling you have done against unreason. This is a strange time. B[u]t we press on.”

The next day, Richman sent Comey an email about an opinion piece he had been asked to write for The New York Times about Comey’s letter to Congress. Richman stated that he was “not inclined” to “write something” but that he would “do it” if Comey thought it would “help things to explain that [Comey] owed [C]ong[ress] absolute candor” and that Comey’s “credibility w[ith] [C]ong[ress] w[ould] be particularly important in the coming years of threatened [c]ong[ressional] investigations.”

“No need. At this point it would [be] shouting into the wind. Some day they will figure it out. And as [Individual 1 and Individual 2] point out, my decision will be one a president-elect Clinton will be very grateful for (although that wasn’t why I did it),” Comey said in his Oct. 30, 2016 response back.

The DOJ said Monday that Comey “appears to have reconsidered that view shortly thereafter” and pointed to Comey’s lengthy email to Richman the next day.

“When I read the times [New York Times] coverage involving [Reporter 1], I am left with the sense that they don’t understand the significance of my having spoke about the case in July [2016]. It changes the entire analysis. Perhaps you can make him smarter,” Comey told Richman on Nov. 1, 2016.

Richman responded the next day, saying: “This is precisely the case I made to them and thought they understood. I was quite wrong. Indeed I went further and said mindless allegiance to the policy (and recognition that more evidence could come in) would have counseled silence in july to let hrc [Hillary Clinton] twist in the wind.”

Richman soon added, “Just got the point home to [Reporter 1]. Probably was rougher than u would have been.”

Comey then emailed Richman shortly thereafter, saying “pretty good” and sending a link to a New York Times piece about Comey’s alleged options in late October 2016 concerning the Clinton email investigation. Comey told Richman, “Someone showed some logic. I would paint the cons more darkly but not bad.” Richman then responded: “See I *can* teach.”

The DOJ’s indictment against Comey, approved by a federal grand jury in September, stems from allegations that Comey misled the Senate during his testimony in late September 2020, when he reiterated his May 2017 denial that he had ever authorized a leak of information to the media about the Trump-Russia investigation or Clinton-related investigations. The indictment also alleged that Comey had obstructed Congress by lying to the Senate. 

“After the defendant sent the October 2016 letter the defendant emailed extensively with Daniel Richman,” the DOJ said in its Monday court filing. “Much of the correspondence occurred via the defendant’s use of a personal email account and Mr. Richman’s use of an email account associated with Columbia University.”

The DOJ on Monday also said that, in the spring of this year, “a team of FBI investigators was assembled to examine possible reform of policies, procedures, compliance, and culture at the FBI” and that “FBI investigators were alerted to a seemingly unused SCIF in FBI headquarters (Room 9582) containing a random collection of classified documents.”

DOJ: "Comey's prosecution" implicates societal interests of the highest order”

“A large majority of the documents were on the floor in five burn bags. Room 9582 was then subject to an inventory for the documents that were located inside. Investigators located hundreds of pages relating to Crossfire Hurricane … and the then-classified appendix to the 2016 Durham Special Counsel Report (now partially declassified),” the DOJ said. “Additionally, inside a locked safe within Room 9582, investigators located copies of handwritten notes of the defendant when he was the Director of the FBI.”

The DOJ said that Comey’s handwritten notes “were not known to any prior investigative teams.”

The DOJ lawyers insisted in their Monday court filing that “there is a history of prosecuting high-level Executive Branch officials who have lied to Congress about their official actions” and that “it is hardly surprising that the Executive would prioritize the prosecution of high-level agency officials who have lied to Congressional investigators about their official actions.”

“The societal interests in this prosecution are readily apparent and overwhelming,” the DOJ added of its charges against Comey. “The defendant is a former FBI Director who lied to Congress about his conduct while at the helm of the Nation’s primary federal law-enforcement agency. His prosecution implicates societal interests of the highest order.”