Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey is under indictment for making false statements to Congress and obstructing congressional proceedings regarding the Russia collusion hoax. In order to defend him in court, Comey hired as a lawyer none other than one of the people he leaked to, private attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.
Comey has said his leak recipients are his lawyers in the past, ostensibly in order to keep them from testifying against him and hide their communications during the information discovery phases of the legal proceedings.
“Comey, who is under federal indictment for criminal leaking, leaked classified memos to Fitzgerald in 2017. Fitzgerald is a fact witness in this trial, as are a number of other Comey attorneys,” The Federalist CEO Sean Davis said. “This is a long-time tactic of Comey’s: he hires attorneys he leaks to, then pretends they can’t be questioned because of attorney-client privilege. He did the same illegal arrangement with Daniel Richman.”
As Davis noted further, Comey leaked memos to at least two other attorneys, David Kelley and Columbia Law professor Daniel Richman, both of whom Comey has also claimed to be his attorneys. Kelley, like Fitzgerald, is also representing Comey in his criminal case despite both being “witnesses to his behavior as well as co-conspirators, making them obvious prosecution witnesses.”
If Comey is able to keep his current representation, not only will his lawyers not be required to testify against him, but the communications between Comey and his lawyers that could prove wrongdoing would likely be protected under attorney-client privilege during any discovery phase of the proceedings.
An August 2019 Department of Justice Inspector General (IG) report shows that Fitzgerald received detailed memos documenting Comey’s private meetings with President Donald Trump about the Russia collusion probe, with at least one containing classified information. Richman received memos as well.
Right now, federal prosecutors are attempting to oust Fitzgerald for the obvious conflict of interest, citing in part Comey’s leaks to Fitzgerald.
“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 IG report states.
Prosecutors said that “fact raises a question of conflict and disqualification for current lead defense counsel [Fitzgerald],” and added further that there is some potentially protected material shared between Comey and Fitzgerald that the government is unable to access, but “could contain exculpatory or inculpatory evidence relevant to the defense and the government.”
That makes the case lopsided in Comey’s favor as well, as “a party to some of the communications contained in the potentially protected material, the defense necessarily has awareness.”
Fitzgerald has claimed that prosecutors’ attempts to get him kicked off the case is mean to “defame” him, saying, “There was no ‘leaking’ of classified information to the press by either Mr. Comey or his counsel. Full stop,” in a response filed with the court.
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