Trump hints at jail time after Comey says ‘I was wrong’ about FISA process
Former FBI Director James Comey on Sunday said he was “wrong” about the bureau’s use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in the Russia investigation, prompting President Donald Trump to question whether jail time was warranted for the director he fired in 2017.
Last week, the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, released a report on the 2016 origins of the investigation and testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, detailing 17 significant errors and omissions in the FISA process as the FBI was filing its application for the surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
“He’s right, I was wrong,” Comey told host Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.” “I was overconfident in the procedures that the FBI and Justice had built over 20 years. I thought they were robust enough. It’s incredibly hard to get a FISA.”
“He’s right: There was real sloppiness,” Comey added.
A few hours later, Trump seized on those comments and said the former director had been “caught red handed.”
“So now Comey’s admitting he was wrong,” the president wrote on Twitter. “Wow, but he’s only doing so because he got caught red handed. He was actually caught a long time ago. So what are the consequences for his unlawful conduct. Could it be years in jail? Where are the apologies to me and others, Jim?”
Trump also went after Horowitz, who has served as inspector general since 2012.
“As bad as the I.G. Report is for the FBI and others, and it is really bad, remember that I.G. Horowitz was appointed by Obama,” Trump tweeted. “There was tremendous bias and guilt exposed, so obvious, but Horowitz couldn’t get himself to say it. Big credibility loss. Obama knew everything!”
In the Fox News interview, Wallace said Comey was behaving as if he were a bystander and witness to the investigation rather than the former director of the FBI. Comey took responsibility for the role he played in the FISA missteps and said he was in sync with the approach of the bureau’s current director, Christopher Wray.
“Sure, I’m responsible. That’s why I’m telling you I was wrong,” Comey said. “I was overconfident as director in our procedures, and it’s important that a leader be accountable and transparent. If I was still director, I’d be saying exactly the same thing Chris Wray is saying, which is, ‘Are we going to get to the bottom of this?’ Because the most important question is: is it systemic? Are their problems in other cases?”
Wallace further pressed Comey on his characterization of the role of the so-called Steele dossier, a collection of raw intelligence that a former British agent, Christopher Steele, collected on the Trump campaign in 2016. While Comey had previously said the dossier was just part of the larger puzzle, Horowitz argued that it played a central role.
“I’m not sure he and I are saying different things,” Comey told Wallace. “What his report says is that the FBI thought it was a close call until they got the Steele report, put that additional information in and that tipped it over to be probable cause. It’s a long FISA application and includes Steele material and a lot of other things. I don’t think we’re saying different things.”
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine