Comey Violated FBI Policies, Set 'Dangerous Example,' Says DOJ Watchdog

The Justice Department’s Inspector General released a scathing report Thursday which stated that former FBI Director James Comey violated the agency's policies when he retained and leaked memos that documented the conversations that he had with President Donald Trump.

The watchdog said that Comey broke the agency rules and the employment agreement by failing to notify the FBI that he had retained some of the memos even after being fired.

“We conclude that Comey’s retention, handling, and dissemination of certain Memos violated Department and FBI policies, and his FBI Employment Agreement,” the report by the Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz states. It also says that Comey set a “dangerous example” for FBI employees in a bid for “a personally desired outcome."

Horowitz however did not make any recommendations about charging the former FBI chief. He also disproved Comey’s claims about the memos being personal recollections and not FBI records, by stating that the FBI director was then acting in official capacity.

“By not safeguarding sensitive information obtained during the course of his FBI employment, and by using it to create public pressure for official action, Comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees—and the many thousands more former FBI employees—who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information,” the 83-page report said.

Comey wrote the memos about a series of conversations he had with Trump, which would later become the catalyst for triggering the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Trump campaign’s ties with Russia.

One of the memos that appeared in the media details a meeting Comey had with Trump, where the President asked him to interfere and stop the federal investigation into Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Comey had testified that he sent over the documents to a friend in Columbia University, which had unclassified information, asking him to share it with reporters. Trump has branded him a “leaker” in response to his actions.

Comey had kept the memos at a safe in his house and failed to inform the FBI of them after he was fired. This was a violation of department policies which state “employees may not, without agency permission, remove records from the Department -- either during or after employment," the report said.

He turned them over to the special counsel in June 2017 as part of the investigation.

Thought the report concluded that Comey was guilty of breaking FBI rules, the DOJ officials have declined to prosecute Comey on these charges.

In response to the report Comey tweeted, "And to all those who’ve spent two years talking about me “going to jail” or being a “liar and a leaker”—ask yourselves why you still trust people who gave you bad info for so long, including the president."

A report on the origins of Russia investigation is also expected to be released soon by the DOJ inspector general.