True Pundit - Mueller Yanks Comey’s Immunity Deal; Falling Out Between Former FBI Bosses Puts Come

originally posted by: introvert

originally posted by: GuidedKill
a reply to: introvert


Three posts above you literally admitted he committed crimes by leaking the classified FBI property (his memos) to the media but said he was smart for calling them his personal memories.


LOL


[snipped]

Very smart of him.

You can classify documents and such, but they cannot classify his personal recollections of events.

So by your interpretation you're saying someone like a military scientist who is working on a classified project is allowed to talk about the project publically just as long as it's only from their recollection of the project and not actual notes...


LMAO you know what, I think that's exactly how the laws dealing with disclosure classified material work..


Get out of here with that nonsense..

originally posted by: jadedANDcynical
a reply to: introvert

You can classify documents and such, but they cannot classify his personal recollections of events.

And once he writes them down they become...


...wait for it...


...documents.

Unclassified, yes.

originally posted by: jadedANDcynical
a reply to: introvert

You can classify documents and such, but they cannot classify his personal recollections of events.

And once he writes them down they become...


...wait for it...


...documents.

lol you don't think this obvious logic is going to explain this where introvert can understand do you?

a reply to: GuidedKill

So by your interpretation lets say a scientist who is working on a classified project is allowed to talk about the project publically just as long as its only from their recollection of the project and not actual notes...

As long as he does not reveal any classified info, I suppose they can.

Comey had said he made sure his recollections did not contain classified info.

LMAO you know what, I think that's exactly how the laws dealing with disclosure classified material work..

Get out of here with that nonsense..

Have you noticed that no one is talking about Comey breaking the law except for Right Wing nutters?

The rest of us can understand what he did and how he did it to cover his ass.

originally posted by: GuidedKill

originally posted by: jadedANDcynical
a reply to: introvert

You can classify documents and such, but they cannot classify his personal recollections of events.

And once he writes them down they become...


...wait for it...


...documents.

lol you don't think this obvious logic is going to explain this where introvert can understand do you?

I understand just fine.

Do you understand that he can talk about anything he damn well pleases as long as he doesn't reveal classified info?

originally posted by: introvert

originally posted by: jadedANDcynical
a reply to: introvert

You can classify documents and such, but they cannot classify his personal recollections of events.

And once he writes them down they become...


...wait for it...


...documents.

Unclassified, yes.

If they were unclassified why did he have to leak them?

originally posted by: Grambler

originally posted by: introvert

originally posted by: jadedANDcynical
a reply to: introvert

You can classify documents and such, but they cannot classify his personal recollections of events.

And once he writes them down they become...


...wait for it...


...documents.

Unclassified, yes.

If they were unclassified why do he have to leak them?

That is something Comey hinted at but never elaborated on.

It would be interesting to see if he ever does. All I know is that he said he wrote the memos specifically in a manner to not contain any classified info.

Edit:

I have read somewhere which discusses him leaking the memos through a friend so that it does not cause issues with his involvement in a potential special counsel investigation on the issue.

originally posted by: introvert

originally posted by: Grambler

originally posted by: introvert

originally posted by: jadedANDcynical
a reply to: introvert

You can classify documents and such, but they cannot classify his personal recollections of events.

And once he writes them down they become...


...wait for it...


...documents.

Unclassified, yes.

If they were unclassified why do he have to leak them?

That is something Comey hinted at but never elaborated on.

It would be interesting to see if he ever does. All I know is that he said he wrote the memos specifically in a manner to not contain any classified info.

I honestly don't know rather the material he leaked was legally done so or not.

It is worth investigating though.

I don't think it's as simple as you are implying though.

If I am a secret service person, and I divulge my recolection of the presidents conversations with former leaders, I don't think that is legal, despite the fact I released no classified documents.

I could be wrong though.

Oh and to address your edit,

If that is the reason comey gave, it makes no sense.

Given that he has admitted to being the source of those leals, why would this effect a special counsel investigation any differently?

If anything, it makes it worse by adding a third party without a clearance.

a reply to: Grambler

I don't think it's as simple as you are implying though.

It is, actually.

If I am a secret service person, and I divulge my recolection of the presidents conversations with former leaders, I don't think that is legal, despite the fact I released no classified documents.

Former SS agents talk all the time, unless they sign a NDA of some sort.

Remember, Comey was a former FBI director when all of this went down.

If that is the reason comey gave, it makes no sense.

It's not what Comey said. I said I read it somewhere, which was mere speculation.

If anything, it makes it worse by adding a third party without a clearance.

Why would they need a clearance if it was unclassified notes from the former director?

Just a question, who has the authority to classify the FBI directors notes?

Because his private conversations with the President are classified under executive privilege. Only Trump can clear him to speak about their private conversations.

originally posted by: Grimpachi
Just a question, who has the authority to classify the FBI directors notes?

The FBI director as OCI unless it falls under a different exception, like private communications with the President. Or if they are official notes created on FBI equipment on the clock.

originally posted by: Xcathdra
Because his private conversations with the President are classified under executive privilege. Only Trump can clear him to speak about their private conversations.

That's not how executive privilege works.

a reply to: introvert

He was former, but what he released was menos he typed as the acting fbi director.

It wasn't just his recolection after the fact, it was his actual memos written when he was director.

A ss member is not at liberty to divulge the details of private conversations of government officials to media members as far as I know.

originally posted by: Xcathdra
Because his private conversations with the President are classified under executive privilege. Only Trump can clear him to speak about their private conversations.

Actually, that isn't true.

Executive privilege is the power of the President of the United States and other members of the executive branch of the United States Government to resist certain subpoenas and other interventions by the legislative and judicial branches of government in pursuit of information or personnel relating to the executive.

originally posted by: introvert

originally posted by: Xcathdra
Because his private conversations with the President are classified under executive privilege. Only Trump can clear him to speak about their private conversations.

That's not how executive privilege works.

a reply to: Grimpachi


ok...

Executive privilege is the power of the President of the United States and other members of the executive branch of the United States Government to resist certain subpoenas and other interventions by the legislative and judicial branches of government in pursuit of information or personnel relating to the executive. The power of Congress or the federal courts to obtain such information is not mentioned explicitly in the United States Constitution, nor is there any explicit mention in the Constitution of an executive privilege to resist such requests from Congress or courts.[1] The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled this privilege may qualify as an element of the separation of powers doctrine, derived from the supremacy of the executive branch in its own area of Constitutional activity.[2]

The Supreme Court confirmed the legitimacy of this doctrine in United States v. Nixon in the context of a subpoena emanating from the judiciary, instead of emanating from Congress.[3] The Court held that there is a qualified privilege, which can be invoked and thereby creates a presumption of privilege, and the party seeking the documents must then make a "sufficient showing" that the "Presidential material" is "essential to the justice of the case" (418 U.S. at 713–14). Chief Justice Warren Burger further stated that executive privilege would most effectively apply when the oversight of the executive would impair that branch's national security concerns.[3] Regarding requests from Congress (instead of from courts) for executive branch information, as of a 2014 study by the Congressional Research Service,[4] only two federal court cases had addressed the merits of executive privilege in such a context, and neither of those cases reached the Supreme Court.[5]

In addition to which branch of government is requesting the information, another characteristic of executive privilege is whether it involves a "presidential communications privilege" or instead a "deliberative process privilege" or some other type of privilege.[4] The deliberative process privilege is often considered to be rooted in common law, whereas the presidential communications privilege is often considered to be rooted in separation of powers thus making the deliberative process privilege less difficult to overcome.[4][6] Generally speaking, presidents, congresses and courts have historically tended to sidestep open confrontations through compromise and mutual deference, in view of previous practice and precedents regarding the exercise of executive privilege.

Tell me again where the US Congress fits in when it comes to wanting testimony from a member of the executive branch about the private conversations with the President?

While your at it tell me how it applies when a member of the executive branch wants to release that information to the media without approval.

I'll wait...

Comey could be in big trouble again. He was apparently influenced by Peter Strzok to change his stance on Hillary. I get the feeling that Strzok character had way too much pull. Who is this guy?

a reply to: Grambler

He was former, but what he released was menos he typed as the acting fbi director.

As long as he didn't release them while in the position and they didn't contain classified info, what law was broken?

It wasn't just his recolection after the fact, it was his actual memos written when he was director.

Doesn't matter. He claimed them to be his personal recollections and they were released after he was out of the position.

That is all it takes.

A ss member is not at liberty to divulge the details of private conversations of government officials to media members as far as I know.

They write and sell books on such things.

a reply to: Xcathdra

I'm pretty certain executive privilege has to be asserted. It's not just a blanket "you talked to the President, you can't say anything unless he tells you he can" deal.

a reply to: introvert

Comey’s private memos on Trump conversations contained classified material

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.

This revelation raises the possibility that Comey broke his own agency’s rules and ignored the same security protocol that he publicly criticized Hillary Clinton over in the waning days of the 2016 presidential election.

Comey testified last month before the Senate Intelligence Committee that he considered the memos to be personal documents and that he shared at least one of them with a friend. He asked that friend, a law professor at Columbia University, to leak information from one memo to the news media in hopes of increasing pressure to get a special prosecutor named in the Russia case after Comey was fired as FBI director.

“So you didn’t consider your memo or your sense of that conversation to be a government document?” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) asked Comey on June 8. “You considered it to be, somehow, your own personal document that you could share to the media as you wanted through a friend?”

“Correct,” Comey answered. “I understood this to be my recollection recorded of my conversation with the president. As a private citizen, I thought it important to get it out.”

Comey insisted in his testimony he believed his personal memos were unclassified, though he hinted one or two documents he created might have been contained classified information.

“I immediately prepared an unclassified memo of the conversation about Flynn and discussed the matter with FBI senior leadership,” he testified about the one memo he later leaked about former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

He added, “My view was that the content of those unclassified memorialization of those conversations was my recollection recorded.”

But when the seven memos Comey wrote regarding his nine conversations with Trump about Russia earlier this year were shown to Congress in recent days, the FBI claimed all were, in fact, deemed to be government documents.

While the Comey memos have been previously reported, this is the first time there has been a number connected to the amount of memos the ex-FBI chief wrote.

Four of the memos had markings making clear they contained information classified at the secret or confidential level, according to officials directly familiar with the matter.

A spokesman for the FBI on Sunday declined to comment.

FBI policy forbids any agent from releasing classified information or any information from ongoing investigations or sensitive operations without prior written permission, and it mandates that all records created during official duties are considered to be government property.

“Unauthorized disclosure, misuse, or negligent handling of information contained in the files, electronic or paper, of the FBI or which I may acquire as an employee of the FBI could impair national security, place human life in jeopardy, result in the denial of due process, prevent the FBI from effectively discharging its responsibilities, or violate federal law,” states the agreement all FBI agents sign.

It adds that “all information acquired by me in connection with my official duties with the FBI and all official material to which I have access remain the property of the United States of America” and that an agent “will not reveal, by any means, any information or material from or related to FBI files or any other information acquired by virtue of my official employment to any unauthorized recipient without prior official written authorization by the FBI.”

Comey indicated in his testimony that the memos were in his possession when he left the bureau, leaving him in a position to leak one of them through his friend to the media. But he testified that he has since turned them over to Robert Mueller, a former FBI chief who is now spearheading the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the presidential race.

It is not clear whether Comey as director signed the same agreement as his agents, but the contract is considered the official policy of the bureau. It was also unclear when the documents were shown to Congress whether the information deemed secret or confidential was classified at the time Comey wrote the memos or determined so afterward, the sources said.

Congressional investigators had already begun examining whether Comey’s creation, storage and sharing of the memos violated FBI rules, but the revelation that four of the seven memos included some sort of classified information opens a new door of inquiry into whether classified information was mishandled, improperly stored or improperly shared.

That was the same issue for which the FBI investigated Clinton, a former secretary of State in the Obama administration, in 2015 and 2016 under Comey. Clinton used a private email server during her tenure that at times contained classified material.

Comey ultimately concluded in July 2016 that Clinton’s email practices were reckless, but that he could not recommend prosecution because FBI agents had failed to find enough evidence that she intended to violate felony statutes prohibiting the transmission of classified information through insecure practices. Clinton at the time was the Democratic nominee for president.

“Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of the classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information," he said in a decision panned by Republicans and embraced by Democrats.

Now, congressional investigators are likely to turn their attention to the same issues to determine if Comey mishandled any classified information in his personal memos.

In order to make an assessment, congressional investigators will have to tackle key questions, such as where and how the memos were created, including whether they were written on an insecure computer or notepad; where and how the memos were stored, such as inside Comey's home, in a briefcase or on an insecure laptop; whether any memos were shown to private individuals without a security clearance and whether those memos contained any classified information; and when was it determined by the government that the memos contained classified information — before Comey took them and shared one or after.

One avenue for answering those questions is for a panel like Senate Intelligence, House Intelligence or Senate Judiciary to refer the matter to the Justice Department’s internal watchdog, the inspector general, or to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and its inspector general, aides said.