Former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey is pushing for the charges to be dropped because he answered “fundamentally ambiguous questions with literally truthful answers.”
Komi faces fees for lying to Congress during his September 2020 testimony, where he allegedly claimed that he did not “authorize anyone from the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports” regarding the investigation into Hillary Clinton, and for obstructing Congress' investigation.
“The indictment here conspicuously lacks the lengthy and intricate questions that prompted Mr. Comey to testify,” Comey said in the motion filed Thursday. (RELATED: James Comey Receives Complaint From Lawyer Over Alleged Obstruction of Congress)
Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz asked Comey during the aforementioned 2020 hearings about whether his previous testimony in 2017 was true, when he confirmed to Senator Chuck Grassley that he had never authorized anyone to be an anonymous source in news reporting, in light of his deputy Andrew McCabe's claim that he had leaked information to The Wall Street Journal with Comey's knowledge.
“Now what Mr. McCabe says and what you testified to this committee cannot both be true; one or the other is a lie,” Cruz asked Comey, according to the motion. “Who's telling the truth?”
Comey stood by his previous testimony.
“So your testimony is that you never gave permission to anyone to leak information,” Cruz continued. “And Mr. McCabe, if he says otherwise, is not telling the truth, is that correct?”
Comey responded that he “wouldn't characterize Andy's testimony, but mine today is the same.”
WASHINGTON, DC – SEPTEMBER 30: Former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey speaks via video conference during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, September 30, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (Photo by Stephanie Reynolds-Poole/Getty Images)
“Senator Cruz's questions are inherently ambiguous because people of ordinary intelligence should not understand that he meant to ask a broad question about Mr. Comey's interactions with anyone at the FBI, including Daniel Richman, during the conversation regarding Mr. McCabe,” Comey's lawyers argue in the motion. “Instead, a reasonable person would easily understand that Senator Cruz is asking only whether Mr. Comey allowed Mr. McCabe to be an anonymous source in news reports.”
Columbia University law professor Daniel Richman, who the indictment alleges leaked information about Comey, was hired by Comey as a “special government employee” and given a “top secret clearance.” according to internal memos released by the FBI in August. Comey also used Richman “as a liaison with the media,” according to the memos.
“Under this reasonable understanding, the indictment does not allege that Mr. Comey's responses were false: it never alleges that Mr. Comey made a false statement regarding Mr. McCabe,” Comey's motion. states. “To the contrary, the indictment omits Senator Cruz's statements about Mr. McCabe, obscuring the context necessary to understand both the questions themselves and Mr. Comey's answers.”
In a separate statement Thursday, Comey asked the government files an “indictment” explaining the indictment. He states that the government “provided no details about when or how Mr. Comey allegedly authorized Mr. Richman to act as an 'anonymous source' or for what news reports Mr. Richman was allegedly authorized to act as an 'anonymous source.'”
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