FBI to Hand Comey Memos on Trump Over to Judge Weighing Release
FBI to Hand Comey Memos on Trump Over to Judge Weighing Release
(Bloomberg) -- The FBI was ordered to let a judge review copies of former director James Comey’s memos about his interactions with President Donald Trump before he was fired to determine whether to release them, as media organizations seek to make the documents public.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington on Thursday ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation to submit both clean and redacted versions of the documents by April 1 as part of a Freedom of Information Act case brought by CNN and other organizations, including USA Today and the conservative activist group Judicial Watch Inc.
The public should be permitted to see the memos because Trump and Comey have accused each other “of grave breaches of the public trust,” and the documents include crucial “contemporaneous records of disputed conversations,” CNN argued in a January filing.
On March 1, the FBI wrote to the judge saying the files that are still redacted are classified and should remain secret to avoid interfering with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. That probe ended on March 22.
Boasberg didn’t say when he’d decide whether to release the documents.
To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Heather Smith
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