© Associated Press/Carolyn KasterFormer FBI Director James Comey
The allegation came from the Steele dossier, the collection of unverified tales about Trump and Russia compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. The story was that in a Moscow hotel room in 2013, Trump had watched as prostitutes performed a kinky sex act — and Russian intelligence service cameras rolled. This is what the Steele dossier said:
TRUMP's (perverted) conduct in Moscow included hiring the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton Hotel, where he knew President and Mrs. OBAMA (whom he hated) had stayed on one of their official trips to Russia, and defiling the bed where they had slept by employing a number of prostitutes to perform a 'golden showers' (urination) show in front of him. The hotel was known to be under FSB control with microphones and concealed cameras in all the main rooms to record anything they wanted to.The new inspector general's report shows that Comey and other top officials placed great credibility in the allegation, which even Steele himself reportedly had grave doubts about.
On Friday, Jan. 6, 2017, Comey, along with CIA head John Brennan, national intelligence chief James Clapper, and NSA Director Mike Rogers, met with Trump in Trump Tower in New York. Together, they briefed the president-elect on the findings of the intelligence community investigation into Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election.
But the group, and especially Comey, had bigger plans than that. Before the meeting, they agreed that after briefing Trump on Russian efforts, the others would leave and Comey would stay to brief Trump alone about the Steele Moscow sex allegation.
Former CIA Director John Brennan, left, and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, right
The IG report says the group "agreed that the briefing needed to be one-on-one, so that Comey could present the 'salacious' information in the most discreet and least embarrassing way." But however it was presented, the FBI leaders worried that Trump might "perceive the one-on-one briefing as an effort to hold information over him like a 'Hoover-esque type of plot.'" That was a reference to the FBI's notorious founding director J. Edgar Hoover, who relished keeping (and using) embarrassing secrets on top political leaders.
The group discussed how Trump might react. In particular, they considered whether he would "make statements about or provide information of value to the pending Russia interference investigation" known as "Crossfire Hurricane."
Perhaps Trump would say something incriminating. The FBI officials made plans for Comey, immediately after leaving the meeting, to write down everything he could remember about whatever Trump said. Comey also wanted to discuss Trump's reactions with top aides immediately. Comey told the inspector general it was "important for FBI executive managers to be 'able to share in [Comey's] recall of the salient details of those conversations.'" Bureau officials also wanted to be able to respond if Trump publicly "misrepresent[ed] what happened in the encounter."
So, preparations were made. "Comey said he had a secure FBI laptop waiting for him in his FBI vehicle and that when he got into the vehicle, he was handed the laptop and 'began typing as the vehicle moved,'" the report says. He worked on his account as the FBI car took him to the New York field office, where aides had set up a secure video teleconference with Rybicki, McCabe, Baker, and the "Crossfire Hurricane" supervisors. Comey continued to work on his memo after that and sent the group a final version the next day, Saturday, Jan. 7.
In his memoir, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, Comey wrote that at the Trump Tower briefing he assured the president-elect, "We are not investigating you, sir." At the moment Comey said those words, he had the "Crossfire Hurricane" team ready for a secure video conference on Trump's response to the Steele dossier allegation.
Three days later, on Tuesday, Jan. 10, CNN viewers saw anchor Jake Tapper report this:
"We have a CNN exclusive for you now. CNN has learned that the nation's top intelligence officials provided information to President-elect Donald Trump and to President Barack Obama last week about claims of Russian efforts to compromise the president-elect."The report went on to say that the "compromising personal" information about Trump came from "a former British intelligence operative whose past work U.S. intelligence officials consider to be credible."
Of course, in this case, Steele's work was not at all credible. But the fact that the nation's intelligence chiefs considered it so important that Comey would brief the president-elect made it newsworthy. And not long after CNN reported on the briefing, BuzzFeed published the entire Steele dossier.
On Wednesday, Jan. 11, the day after the CNN report, Trump, still more than a week away from taking office, called Comey. The president-elect was concerned about the leak. From his perspective, Trump saw a top law enforcement official, Comey, brief him about a salacious and unsupported allegation, and then saw it all over the news in just a few days. Trump wanted to know what had happened. From the IG report: "Comey told the IG that he 'vividly' remembered the conversation, during which they discussed a media report that had disclosed the 'salacious' information, and Trump's concern about how that had been 'leaked.'"
Comey tried to talk Trump out of his suspicions. "Comey said that, among other things, he remembered telling Trump that the source of the information was 'not a government document, and it's not classified,'" the report said. "Comey also remembered telling Trump that to 'speak of it as a leak doesn't make sense' because 'a lot of people in Washington had [the information],' and Comey said he told Trump that he had previously warned Trump that it might soon be published by the media."
Comey's explanation was disingenuous at best. Leaked information could be terribly damaging whether or not it was classified. And yes, some media figures had the dossier — Steele had been desperately trying to get them to report it for months. But the media did not know that Comey had briefed Trump on the Moscow sex story. That was the leak that gave the media the go-ahead to report on the existence of the dossier and then for BuzzFeed to publish the whole thing. If it was important enough for the nation's top intel chiefs to brief the president-elect, wasn't it important enough for the public to know? It was the leak of the meeting that set off the chain of events surrounding the dossier and the Trump Tower briefing.
One last thing: Although Comey made it a point to memorialize his conversations with Trump, he did not write a memo about the Jan. 11 phone call in which he tried to convince the president-elect that a leak was not to blame for the Steele Moscow sex story suddenly dominating the news. In fact, a leak was very much to blame for the Steele Moscow sex story suddenly dominating the news.
The new IG report is devastating for Comey. His leak of other materials from his memos — sensitive law enforcement material from an ongoing investigation — violated Justice Department and FBI policies, as well as Comey's own FBI employment agreement, the inspector general wrote. More broadly, Comey set a "dangerous example" for all FBI employees. If other bureau officials acted similarly, the report said, "the FBI would be unable to dispatch its law enforcement duties properly."
So Comey did much more than just the "Hoover-esque" gambit of January 2017. He will certainly try to defend himself in the coming days. But the full story of his actions, even in this small part of the Trump-Russia affair, will cast a long shadow over his reputation.
Byron York is the chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner, a Fox News contributor and the author of The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy.
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