James Comey
© AP Photo/ Carolyn Kaster
Former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey could legally be jailed for up to 35 years for admitting in a congressional testimony last week that he had deliberately leaked a confidential conversation with President Donald Trump, ex-National Security Agency (NSA) senior analyst and whistleblower William Binney told Sputnik.
"That's something that whistleblowers are in jail for between five and 35 years,"
Binney noted about Comey's testimony last week to the US Senate Intelligence Committee in which he admitted to leaking a memo of his conversation with Trump.

William Binney worked for the NSA for 36 years, retiring in 2001 as the technical director of world military and geopolitical analysis and reporting; he created many of the collection systems still used by NSA.

Binney pointed out that Comey had been unable in his extended testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee to point out a single case where he could identify Trump as asking him to perform any illegal act.
"I have heard nothing from Comey that indicates President did anything wrong," the veteran NSA analyst said.
However, Comey's past actions revealed a long record of improper behavior and acts for which he could be prosecuted, Binney pointed out.
"But that's not the only crime Comey has done," he said, but did not elaborate further.
However, retired FBI Special Agent and whistleblower Colleen Rowley in published interviews recalled that when Comey was deputy attorney general, he had signed off on highly illegal programs, including warrantless surveillance of Americans and torture of captives.

As a top law enforcement official of the George W. Bush administration, Comey presided over post-September 11 cover-ups and secret abuses of the US Constitution, including fabrications used to launch wrongful wars, and exhibited plain incompetence, Rowley has stated.

William Binney is a cryptanalyst and mathematician and for 30 years he was a senior analyst at the NSA. He exposed the agency's history before he exposed major aspects of its blanket surveillance programs.