FBI Loses Fight to Keep Portions of Comey-Trump Memos Secret

(Bloomberg) -- A federal judge ordered the FBI to make public some blacked-out portions of memos written by James Comey, the agency’s former director, about his dealings with President Donald Trump.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington refused a request by CNN to remove redactions from the parts of the memos that the Federal Bureau of Investigation said reveal its investigative methods and practices. But the judge rejected most of the redactions that the FBI made on the grounds of national security.

In one of the memos at issue, Comey recounted how the president was upset with his national security adviser at the time, Michael Flynn, for failing to tell him about some of the congratulatory phone calls he got from foreign leaders after his election.

The names of the leaders were redacted by the FBI. But the judge ordered all but one of them to be un-redacted, saying that he couldn’t see how the release of those names could harm national security.

The one name he allowed to remain blacked out was of an apparent world leader whom Trump disparaged, saying, according to Comey, that, unlike the other foreign leaders, he wasn’t worth a call back.

To contact the reporter on this story: Robert Burnson in San Francisco at rburnson@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Peter Blumberg

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