House GOP leaders demand documents related to Comey friend Daniel Richman who helped leak classified memos to media
05/02/2018 / By JD Heyes
The Republican chairmen of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees are demanding that the Justice Department turn over all documents pertaining to the law professor friend of James Comey who last year leaked the fired FBI director’s memos to the media — memos since determined to contain classified information.
As reported by Fox News, House Judiciary Committee chair Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chair Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., have made their request to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as well as Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
“The committees are aware James Comey, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), shared or instructed staff to share at least some portion of the memos he drafted memorializing his conversations with President Donald J. Trump (the Comey Memos) to an individual named Daniel Richman,” the letter said.
Last week reports revealed that Richman, who is employed by Columbia University, had previously worked as a “special government employee” (SGE) for Comey on an unpaid basis while Comey was still leading the FBI. Now, both chairmen say they need additional information that likely includes details about the arrangement and what, precisely, Richman did for Comey.
“To assist the committees in their oversight of this matter, please provide a copy of any nondisclosure agreement(s) signed by Richman with FBI, DOJ or any other entity of the federal government,” Gowdy and Goodlatte said.
As Fox News further reported:
Richman emerged last year as the former FBI director’s contact for leaking memos documenting his private discussions with Trump – memos that are now the subject of an inspector general review over the presence of classified material.
Sources familiar with Richman’s status at the FBI told Fox News that he was assigned to “special projects” by Comey, and had a security clearance as well as badge access to the building. Richman’s status was the subject of a memorandum of understanding.
It’s believed that Richman may have had access to classified information on FBI databases as well.
Richman was reported to have had authorization to view encrypted communications by terrorist suspects. But sources told Fox News that he was also given talking points about how the FBI handled the investigation — such as it was — into Hillary Clinton’s criminal misuse of classified information via her unsecured home-brew email server. (Related: Documents: At time of firing, Comey was being investigated for political interference.)
The talking points attempted to “compare and contrast Clinton’s use” of her private server exclusively for government business with the case of retired Army Gen. David Petraeus, who shared classified data with biographer and mistress Paula Broadwell, as well as an espionage case previously brought against former Clinton administration official Sandy Berger.
Berger, President Bill Clinton’s national security advisor, was fined $50,000 and sentenced to 100 hours of community service for removing highly classified documents from the National Archives and intentionally destroying some of them. He also got two years’ worth of probation. It wasn’t clear what information the destroyed documents contained.
Fox News reported that the Office of Government Ethics defines a special government employee as “an officer or employee who is retained, designated, appointed or employed to perform temporary duties, with or without compensation, for not more than 130 days during any period of 365 consecutive days.”
What’s also not clear is whether Comey told anyone he had retained Richman as an SGE and for what purposes, but it doesn’t appear as though congressional committees constitutionally charged with overseeing elements of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence services were aware of the arrangement.
Comey, who is currently on a book tour, has been heavily critical of President Donald J. Trump in recent months. But if some reporting is accurate, Trump will have the last laugh: Comey is believed to have committed criminal espionage for releasing memos detailed conversations with the president, which are automatically classified.
See more stories on political corruption at Corruption.news.
J.D. Heyes is also editor-in-chief of The National Sentinel.
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Tagged Under: bob goodlatte, classified, Daniel Richman, deep state, House Judiciary Committee, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, James Comey, leaks, memos, scandal, Trey Gowdy
