Chris Wallace says IG report is stain on James Comey's record
'Fox News Sunday' anchor Chris Wallace on fallout from the inspector general's scathing report on former FBI Director James Comey's handling of Trump memos.
Fired FBI Director James Comey’s record -- and potentially that of the whole department of the Federal Bureau of Investigations -- is clearly tarnished in the wake of the release of Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report, host of “Fox News Sunday” Chris Wallace argued Friday.
Appearing on “America’s Newsroom” with anchor Sandra Smith just a day after the release of the report, Wallace pointed out, “I think to a certain degree we’re going to have to wait and see what comes out in the report that’s being done by a U.S. attorney who is looking at the entire investigation, and also the inspector general who is looking at the FISA warrant.”
“You know, those could be very damaging and very damaging not just to Comey but to the entire department,” he said.
The more than 80-page document from the IG said Comey violated FBI policies in his handling of memos documenting private conversations with President Trump. In addition, it stated that Comey broke rules by giving a memo containing unclassified information to a friend with instructions to leak the contents to The New York Times.
JAMES COMEY VIOLATED FBI POLICIES WITH MEMOS ON TRUMP DISCUSSIONS, IG REPORT SAYS
"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 report read.
Still, the Department of Justice has already decided not to prosecute Comey over the matter.
Immediately following the report, Comey tweeted that the “DOJ IG ‘found no evidence that Comey or his attorneys released any of the classified information contained in any of the memos to members of the media.’”
“I don’t need a public apology from those who defamed me, but a quick message with a “sorry we lied about you” would be nice,” he wrote. “And to all those who’ve spent two years talking about me “going to jail” or being a “liar and a leaker”— ask yourselves why you still trust people who gave you bad info for so long, including the president.”
IG REPORT HIGHLIGHTS APPARENT INCONSISTENCIES IN COMEY'S TESTIMONY ABOUT TRUMP MEMOS
Reaction to the report and the department’s decision -- and Comey’s own commentary -- was notably partisan, Wallace said.
“If you like Donald Trump… and even I think some people in the middle will say at the very least that James Comey has once again shown that he goes beyond the normal bounds of a government official,” Wallace told Smith.
“Basically, it went well beyond government regulations: the way he handled the Clinton [email server] case, the way he now has handled the Trump case and that there seems to be a feeling of ‘Saint James.’ That he feels a certain sanctimony and that he knows better and he decides to do things whether those are within departmental guidelines or not.”
Wallace said the “bottom line” was that Comey is “seen as having done something ‘improper,’ but not something illegal.”
REPUBLICANS PREDICT IG'S COMEY REBUKE IS TIP OF THE ICEBERG FOR FBI, DOJ OVER ANTI-TRUMP 'BIASES'
“Clearly this is a stain on his record. The fact that both -- toward Democrats and Republicans -- he thought he knew better than departmental guidelines and went off and did his own thing,” Wallace said.
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