Ex-FBI director James Comey used his private Gmail account to send and receive scores of emails involving government emails, according to a new report.
The New York Post has exclusively obtained 156 of 1,200 pages of messages sent between Comey and his chief of staff, in which they discussed government business while Comey was using his personal Gmail address.
The Department of Justice turned over the 156 pages to the newspaper in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, but kept back seven messages that the DOJ believed would ‘disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions.’
The Department of Justice reveled there are 1,200 pages of messages involving FBI business that ex-FBI director James Comey sent and received using his personal Gmail account
An additional 363 pages of those messages were withheld due to personal privacy concerns or privileged agency communications, the NY Post said.
Despite the DOJ’s reasons for withholding the emails, it’s said that Comey’s claims that he only used his private Gmail account for ‘incidental’ purposes, not sending classified information, appear to be true.
Among the reasons Comey used his personal Gmail account, according to the messages that were obtained, were the fact that his work email on his presumably government-issued smartphone wasn’t functioning and that he’d left the same phone at the office.
In October 2015, shortly before having give testimony to the Senate, Comey complained that his government-issued phone ‘is not sending emails’ and asked an aide to send to the testimony to his private Gmail account.
The need to resort to his private account while investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, Comey wrote, was ‘Embarrassing for us.’
Comey even used his Gmail account while investigating Hillary Clinton for using a private email server while she was Secretary of State. Comey’s claims that he did not use Gmail to send classified information appears to continue to be true, however
The DOJ-released messages also showed Comey using his Gmail account to send links to media stories involving the controversy over Russian hackers trying to get access to Clinton’s email servers.
In September 2015, Comey sent his then-chief of staff, James Rybicki, a link to a Fox News article about Russian hackers and Clinton’s servers, and added: ‘Need to be sure our colleagues across the street don’t think I actually said most of the stuff they attribute to me.’
And, in July 2016, Comey sent Rybicki a Lawfare article speculating about what the government knew about the DNC hack and Russia, writing, ‘I suspect there will be more of these kinds of stories.’
Other Gmail emails Comey sent involved seemingly routine business such as speeches and public statements, but there were also emails about a threatened Chicago school mass shooting in May 2016, as well as talk of his protection detail changes and assisting American teachers with the visa process.
Watchdog groups were quick to criticize Comey for using Gmail to conduct FBI business, no matter how general or insignificant the contents of the messages were.
‘Using private email to conduct official government business endangers transparency and accountability, and that is why we sued the Department of Justice,’ conservative watchdog group Cause of Action CEO John Vecchione told the New York Post.
Cause of Action also questioned the FBI’s decision to hold back emails for law enforcement sensitivity reasons.
‘This runs counter to Comey’s statements that his use of email was incidental and never involved any sensitive matters,’ Vecchione said.
‘He can’t have it both ways,’ nonpartisan coalition Open the Government executive director Lisa Rosenberg said.
‘Either he used his personal email for things that were public or would be in the public domain, or he used it to discuss internal policies, investigations, etc. that might or might not be appropriately withheld under FOIA.’
Watchdogs also pointed to the apparent double standard involved in the notion of Comey using his Gmail account while investigating Clinton for using a private email server to conduct business while she was Secretary of State.
‘It’s just so transparently hypocritical to have one standard for a person you are investigating and an entirely different standard for yourself when you are the one who’s enforcing the law,’ Rosenberg said.
Comey has claimed that his using Gmail was ‘a totally different thing’ from Clinton’s private server use and has said that he forwarded his personal emails to FBI accounts to keep record of them.
A rep for Comey told the New York Post that Comey had no comment about the newly-released emails.
The 156 messages that were released to the newspaper were dated between 2013 and 2017 and were said to be heavily redacted. More messages are expected to be released soon.