Report That Comey Wanted To Go Public in June On Russian Hacking Raises More Questions

Lost in the today’s revelation about the White House being the source of the information that Devin Nunes felt was so important he had to rush back to the White House to brief the President on what the White House officials could have given Trump directly was a report that James Comey wanted to go public with an op-ed piece that would outline the Russian attempts to influence the election last summer.

Comey apparently had a draft of the piece that he discussed in a meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch, NSA Susan Rice, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, Secretary of State John Kerry, and others in June of July of last summer.  But those administration officials apparently felt that an op-ed from a single source would not be the powerful message they felt was needed and wanted time to bring other agencies on board before releasing any statement on the issue. That combined statement from multiple agencies subsequently came out on October 7th.

I’ve heard commentators today say that this report shows that Comey will be fair and always seeks transparency. That seems to be a pretty kind reading of the situation. If, as it appears, Comey did not write the op-ed based on instructions from the Obama administration, then why did he have the unprecedented press conference in July about Hillary Clinton’s emails which was in violation of DOJ policies. I guess is it is possible that Loretta Lynch or the DOJ authorized that press conference but I doubt it. In addition, Comey definitely violated DOJ instructions and the wishes of his superiors with his letter about the Abedin emails that he had no idea were relevant or not. And, more importantly, Comey specifically refused to sign on to the October 7th statement. That hardly makes sense if he was really willing to write an op-ed about Russian hacking in June or July. And if he was so interested in transparency why did he continually refuse to comment on the FBI investigation of Russian hacking and possible collusion by the Trump campaign and transition.

This report looks suspiciously like a leak designed to make Comey look good, especially when the source denigrates the Obama administration for “doing nothing” when in fact they did release a strong statement in early October. In fact, this report just makes Comey look worse. If this report is true, rather than enhancing Comey’s “reputation” for transparency, it actually raises even more questions and concerns about his actions with regard to both Clinton’s emails and the Russian interference in our election.