DOJ watchdog releases report on James Comey's leaks of Trump meeting memos
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By David Shortell and Katelyn Polantz, CNN
Updated 10:03 AM ET, Thu August 29, 2019
Washington (CNN)The Justice Department's inspector general on Thursday released a long-awaited report on former FBI Director James Comey's handling of memos he took of meetings with President Donald Trump early in 2017.
The inspector general was looking into whether Comey improperly shared classified information when he sent some parts of the memos to a friend of his who shared the information with the press in the days after Trump fired him.
The inspector general's office had referred Comey for potential prosecution earlier this summer based on his handling of them, CNN previously reported. The Justice Department declined to bring a case, in part because prosecutors didn't believe there was evidence to show Comey knew and intended to violate laws on dealing with classified information, a person familiar with the referral said.
The seven memos, which offer up stark examples of Trump's early attempts to disrupt a federal probe into his inner circle, became a catalyst for the special counsel investigation when the contents of one first appeared in The New York Times. Comey testified in a 2017 Senate hearing that he had sent documents to a friend, Columbia University law school professor Daniel Richman, and directed him to share the substance with a reporter. Trump has blasted Comey as a "leaker" for Comey's actions.
In one of the most consequential memos -- the one which Comey asked Richman to detail to a reporter -- Comey described a one-on-one meeting he had with Trump in the Oval Office where the President suggested he scuttle the federal investigation into Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser.
"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go," Comey recalled Trump saying, according to a copy of the memo.
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