- The FBI will not expedite the release of documents about secret meetings between Comey and Obama.
- Comey held a secret Oval Office meeting with Obama on Jan. 5, 2017.
- TheDCNF requested records of all meetings between the two.
The
FBI states it will not expedite the release of documents about secret
meetings between FBI Director James Comey and former President Barack
Obama, according to a letter the bureau sent to The Daily Caller News
Foundation.
Such information is not “a matter of widespread and
exceptional media interest in which there exists possible questions
about the government’s integrity which affects public confidence,” David
Hardy, the section chief for the bureau’s Record/Information
Dissemination Section, told TheDCNF in a Feb. 26 letter.
TheDCNF,
under the Freedom of Information Act, requested records of all meetings
between Comey and Obama and sought an “expedited process” as provided
under the act when issues are of great interest to the media and the
records address issues pertaining to government integrity. TheDCNF FOIA
request was filed Feb. 16, 2018. The issue prompting the FOIA request
was the disclosure Comey held a secret Oval Office meeting with Obama on
Jan. 5, 2017. Comey never divulged the meeting to Congress.
Susan
Rice, Obama’s national security adviser, former Deputy Attorney General
Sally Yates, and former Vice President Joe Biden also attended the
meeting.
The National Archives revealed the existence of the
meeting and released a declassified version of an email Rice sent to the
Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Rice wrote an email to herself about
the secret Jan. 5 meeting with Comey on Inauguration Day Jan. 20, 2017,
as President Donald Trump was being sworn into office. The email
suggested Comey may have misled Congress and was attempting to cover up
the extent of his relationship with Obama.
Christopher Bedford, TheDCNF’s editor in chief, called the FBI denial “shameful.”
“The
FBI just told us that Director James Comey potentially lying to
Congress should not be of interest to us, that it doesn’t speak to their
‘integrity,’ and that it shouldn’t impact America’s ‘confidence’ in
them,” Bedford said. “They said this with a straight face. We disagree,
we think the American people disagree, and we think it’s absolutely
shameful.”
Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley, chairman of
the Senate Judiciary Committee and subcommittee chairman, and Lindsey
Graham released the Rice email after they received it from the National
Archives.
“President Obama had a brief follow-on conversation
with FBI Director Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in the
Oval Office,” Rice stated in the email on Jan. 5.
The
president urged Comey to proceed “by the book” on the Russian
investigation, according to Rice. Grassley of Iowa and Graham of South
Carolina wrote to Rice in a Feb. 8 letter saying the email seemed “odd” to them.
“It strikes us as odd that, among your activities in the final moments on the final day of the Obama administration, you would feel the need to send yourself such an unusual email purporting to document a conversation involving President Obama,” the two wrote. “Despite your claim that President Obama repeatedly told Mr. Comey to proceed ‘by the book,’ substantial questions have arisen about whether officials at the FBI, as well as at the Justice Department and the State Department, actually did proceed ‘by the book,’” the two senators continued.
Comey
claimed in June 8, 2017, testimony before the Senate Select Committee
on Intelligence he had only two face-to-face meetings with the president
in which they were alone.
“I spoke alone with President Obama
twice in person (and never on the phone) – once in 2015 to discuss law
enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly, for him to say
goodbye in late 2016,” Comey’s opening statement read.
The qualifier that he had meetings with Obama “alone” permitted the
former director to suggest he only met with the former president on two
occasions.
The DCNF filed its FOIA request before the bureau
“seeking records that identify and describe all meetings between former
FBI Director James Comey and President Barack Obama. This
records request is for all meetings with Obama alone or with meetings
with the president in the company of other administration officials.”
The DCNF requested records to include all Comey “logs, director
appointment schedules, emails and memos outlining the meetings with the
former President along with administration officials,” adding, the
records “should list the date of the meeting, location, topic
and meeting participants.” TheDCNF stated it sought an “expedited
request” for producing the records.
“The issue of Director
Comey’s meetings with President Obama is a key troubling issue for
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley,” TheDCNF wrote in its
application for the expedited processing. TheDCNF attached to
Grassly-Graham letter to Rice in the FOIA request for expediting
handling.
Hardy said The DCNF failed to meet its standards for expedited processing as provided under 28 CFR 16.5 (e)(1)(iv).
“You have not provided enough information concerning the statutory requirements permitting expedition: therefore your request is denied,” he told TheDCNF.
A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.