Storing public records at home: James Comey is the dead-tree version of Hillary Clinton – Washington Examiner

James Comey in 2016 investigated Hillary Clinton for her violation of public records laws. Hillary, you may recall, conducted all her State Department business on a home-made email address on a private server, posing security risks and also allowing her to hide emails from the authorities, in violation of public records laws.

After Donald Trump became president, Comey in 2017 apparently did the exact same thing–except with paper records rather than emails–according to the report from the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General.

Comey made notes on his meetings with President Trump, and then brought them home, instead of leaving them at the FBI. The OIG reports: “Comey told the OIG that he considered Memos 2 through 7 to be his personal documents, rather than official FBI records…. Comey’s characterization of the Memos as personal records finds no support in the law and is wholly incompatible with the plain language of the statutes, regulations, and policies defining Federal records, and the terms of Comey’s FBI Employment Agreement….”

The OIG notes that all senior FBI officials agreed that his memos were official records.

Taking the analogy to Hillary’s emails further, when Comey got fired, he held onto these memos, and shared them as he pleased, rather than returning them to the FBI, as he should have done, the OIG says. And also like Hillary, Comey shared the memos with his own private attorneys instead of with the FBI authorities.

Apparently lots of people in Washington need this lesson: When you’re creating public records, they are not yours to do with as you please!

It’s got to be maddening to Hillary Clinton that the guy who bird-dogged her for her own illegal handling of public records seems to have been improperly handling public records himself.