Thread by @JohnWHuber

Here is the proof that @Comey leaked CLASSIFIED information in violation of federal law (18 USC § 793) to his friend Daniel Richman - who then was an anonymous source to the @nytimes

CC:
@ChuckGrassley
@DevinNunes
@RepGoodlatte

Quick recap

It's long been publicly known that:

1. @Comey admitted to giving Richman FOUR of the SEVEN memos he wrote

2. FOUR of the SEVEN @Comey memos were also classified

3. Richman leaked the contents of *some* memos to the @nytimes

4. Richman had no security clearance

So basic logic means that if Richman had "four" memos, he must have had *at least one classified one* - as only 3 of them weren't classified

Richman had no security clearance, he was not authorised to receive classified information.

So, giving them to him was a crime

What wasn't known until the @Comey memos were released yesterday by Congress was this:

Exactly which classified memo did Comey leak to Richman of the four?

The answer: it was Comey's memo about his private dinner with Trump

Here's the proof:

First, the @nytimes story describes the dinner, the contents from the memo about two "loyalty" asks, and is sourced to only *one* of "Mr. Comey's associates"

That means Adam Richman. Why? Well, the other media buddy of @Comey, @benjaminwittes denied knowing about the dinner until it was first reported to the @nytimes

Second, the dinner memo is *Classified as Confidential/No Foreign Distribution*, and includes the two asks on "loyalty", EXACTLY as described to the @nytimes

Mystery solved @ChuckGrassley, feel free to make your criminal referral to the @TheJusticeDept

Oh, one more thing. Those leaks to the @nytimes were self serving and took the memos out of context

For example, today the @CNN main story on Comey's memos is about Trump wanting to "put reporters in jail". Of course the real story is Trump directing @Comey to actually investigate his campaign if they did anything wrong, and doing nothing to shut down the investigation

That reporters in jail thing is nothing new, Richman leaked it in the original @nytimes story!

Richman said Trump began talking about jailing reporters, THEN spoke about Mike Flynn. No reference to any @Comey response to Trump.

What actually happened, as we now know from looking at the @Comey memo for ourselves

Trump spoke about Flynn first

When Trump spoke about finding leakers - JAMES COMEY said there would be "value" in "putting a head on a pike as a message"!

And when Trump spoke about jailing reporters? JAMES COMEY LAUGHED

Richman: You deliberately left out important details from the @Comey memos, which ended up deceiving the American people

Comey: You broke the law taking classified information out of the FBI and leaking it to deliberately to advance your own political agenda

/END

SOURCES:

@Comey memos: documentcloud.org/documents/4442…

@nytimes article on memos with Richman as source: mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/us/…

Richman having 4/7 memos: grassley.senate.gov/news/news-rele…

@benjaminwittes on what @Comey told him: lawfareblog.com/what-james-com…

Federal law: law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18…