Devin Nunes: James Comey having mismarked 'secret' memo at home was illegal
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Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said one particular memo that former FBI Director James Comey gave to agents one month after being fired should never have made it to his house. FBI documents unveiled this week show special agents arriving at Comey's home in June 2017 to collect his memos, which were largely contemporaneous notes on the former FBI director's interactions with President Trump during the transition period and early months of his administration.
This FBI log showed, "Comey observed that the second page of the memo dated March 30, 2017 , had the incorrect banner line classification of SECRET//NOFORN rather than UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO at the top and bottom of the second page." "NOFORN" means no foreign nationals are allowed to see the document's contents. "FOUO" stands for "For Official Use Only."
Despite the mislabel, Nunes said this memo should never have made its way out of a secure setting. "The whole idea that you can take something that is marked 'Secret//No Foreign' and then just decide on your own to take that out of the SCIF, so out of a controlled area and not handled properly and take to someone’s house, or a university or wherever these memos went to. You just can’t do that," the California Republican said on Fox News on Thursday. He echoed his former colleague, Jason Chaffetz, who said earlier in the program that Comey engaged in the same "sneaky" behavior as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in regards to handling classified information. Comey publicly recommended in 2016 that no charges be brought against Clinton, who was then a candidate for president, but admonished Clinton and her colleagues for being "extremely careless" in handling information that was classified retroactively.
"What Hillary Clinton did is she had a server in her house with classified information on it. That’s illegal. The same is true for a document," Nunes said. "If you — especially if you purposely take a document. It's one thing if you accidentally walk out with it. But to walk out with something that is clearly marked 'Secret//No Foreign.' I don't see, there's been people who have been busted for way less than that, I will tell you for sure. Rank-and-file military intelligence people would never get away with what Mr. Comey so far is getting away with," he added.
The notes show Comey, one month after he was fired by Trump in May 2017, handed over four memos to the FBI agents and said to the best of his recollection two might be missing. This FBI log was obtained by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The March 30 memo has already been disclosed to the public and shows the proper "UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO" header.
The Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz sent a referral to the Justice Department about memos Comey leaked, which he testified was done in the hopes they would spark a special counsel investigation. Although prosecutors found the watchdog's findings compelling, they decided against prosecution under classified information protection laws because of there being too much uncertainty surrounding Comey's intent. Comey has denied leaking classified information in his memos. Two of Comey's memos were deemed confidential, the lowest form of classification, after an FBI review.
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