Former FBI Director James Comey’s decision to leak memos of his interactions with President Trump could come back to haunt him in a challenge to his New York bar membership.
Ty Clevenger, a lawyer who filed a grievance against Mr. Comey, said in a letter Friday to the New York lawyers’ disciplinary committee that if the fired director ended up leaking classified information it should bolster the case against him.
Earlier this week Sen. Charles E. Grassley revealed that Mr. Comey appears to have authored seven memos about his interactions with Mr. Trump. The government has deemed four of those seven memos to have classified information. Mr. Comey also leaked at least four memos to a law professor friend.
Mr. Grassley says according to that math, at least one of the memos Mr. Comey leaked must have had classified information.
Mr. Clevenger said that could run afoul of New York bar rules prohibiting a lawyer from engaging in “illegal conduct that adversely reflects on the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer.”
“If Mr. Comey deliberately leaked the documents, his breach of duty was analogous to willful breach of client confidentiality, and that reflects adversely on his ’honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer,’” Mr. Clevenger wrote.
He is also pursuing bar complaints against former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her top lawyers, arguing their handling of Mrs. Clinton’s secret emails breached standards for lawyers.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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