From:
Johanna Persing
< jpersing@gop.com> Date: Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 11:41 AM Subject: Talking Points: James Comey Book Tour To:
Good morning, Please see the following talking points ahead of James Comey’s book tour. Let us know if you need any additional materials. Thank you. Johanna
James Comey has a long history of misstatements and misconduct:
During his tenure as FBI Director, James Comey was strongly criticized by members of both parties for his history of bizarre decisions, contradictory statements, and acting against Department of Justice and FBI protocol.
Comey’s misconduct damaged the FBI’s reputation and seriously called into question his credibility.
Comey is a consummate Washington insider who knows how to work the media to protect his flanks. Case in point was his decision to leak FBI documents to the press after being fired by the President.
Americans will remember that his attempts to smear the Trump administration are nothing more than retaliation by a disgraced former official.
Comey isn’t credible – just ask Democrats:
Democrats widely criticized Comey’s inappropriate conduct, and many of them publicly called for his resignation.
Now that they embrace Comey for criticizing President Trump, Democrats’ hypocrisy is on full display.
As they inevitably take to the airwaves to bash President Trump’s decision to fire Comey, Democrats should be forced to explain why they take that position now after saying in 2016 and 2017 Comey had damaged the institution of law enforcement and lost all credibility.
Background on Comey misconduct:
Comey’s contradictions:
Comey contradicted his own allegation that President Trump interfered in the Russia investigation in prior testimony to Congress.
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In June 2017, he testified that the President “direct[ed]” him to stop investigating former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
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However, one month earlier, Comey testified that the FBI had never been told to stop an investigation for political reasons.
Comey contradicted himself on his leaking of information about ongoing federal investigations.
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In May 2017, he testified that he had never leaked information as an anonymous source about the Trump or Clinton investigations.
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One month later, he admitted he had used a close friend to leak his memos to the press in order to prompt a special counsel investigation.
Comey presented gross inaccuracies during his congressional testimony, damaging his reputation.
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He told Congress that a top aide to Clinton had “sent hundreds of thousands of emails to her husband’s laptop” with classified information.
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In fact, only a “small number” of emails were sent to that laptop, and of those, only two contained classified information.
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According to The Washington Post, Comey’s reputation as nonpartisan was “severely damaged” by getting such important details wrong during testimony.
Comey’s bizarre decisions:
Comey repeatedly usurped the authority of then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch, in one case relying on unverified documents to justify closing the Clinton email investigation.
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In July 2016, he convened a press conference to declare the FBI was closing its investigation into the Clinton email server while admitting he had not coordinated his statement “in any way” with the Department of Justice or any other part of the government.
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This was because the FBI received a Russian intelligence document alleging a tacit understanding between the Clinton campaign and the Justice Department over a limited investigation.
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In May 2017, the Washington Post reported that the document, which Comey used to make his July decision without DOJ involvement, was considered within the FBI as “unreliable and possibly a fake.”
In January 2017, Comey presented unverified information to then President-elect Trump (which he either didn’t know or didn’t say was DNC/Clinton-funded opposition research) about his alleged ties to Russia, despite obvious indications the dossier was unreliable.
Comey wrongly testified in June 2017 that he had no outline of the parameters of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recusal from the Russia investigation, despite receiving the information that same day of the recusal.
Comey’s violation of DOJ protocol:
Comey broke longstanding FBI and DOJ protocol several times by publicly acknowledging the existence of ongoing FBI investigations.
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In October 2016, he publicly announced an investigation into new Clinton emails immediately before an election, despite having these “new emails” for at least three weeks.
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AG Lynch was “stunned and confused” when informed of Comey’s plan to reopen the investigation, and many Democrats called for his resignation.
Background on Democrats calling for resignation: