Fired FBI Director James Comey often is portrayed by establishment media as the "last honest man in Washington."
But he had a part in the controversy over the FBI's securing of a warrant from a top-secret court to spy on the Trump campaign, notes the Federalist.
He also admitted leaking a memo of his conversations with President Trump to trigger the appointment of a special counsel to look into allegations of Trump campaign collusion with Russia.
Now, Judicial Watch, the Washington government watchdog, has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Justice Department regarding FBI records related to Comey's coming book.
He signed a contract in August to write it, receiving an advance of more than $2 million, and it's to be released in April.
The suit also seeks records of communications between Comey and the FBI prior to and regarding Comey's controversial June 2017 testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The lawsuit, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, along with communications between the FBI and Comey relating to the coming book, wants to see the forms completed by Comey related to the requirement for prepublication review by the FBI.
When former FBI officials or agents intend to write books about their service, they "are customarily required to submit the entire transcript for pre-publication review," Judicial Watch noted.
"Mr. Comey seems to have protected status for any misconduct, and we want to know if he had a special deal for his book from his friends in the FBI," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "The deep state is in cover-up mode. The FBI, DOJ, and the special counsel are stonewalling our requests for Comey documents."
Judicial Watch noted it was a month after President Trump fired Comey on May 9, 2017, that the former FBI director "provided highly controversial testimony before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about the circumstances that led to his dismissal, the ongoing investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s illicit email server. "
"During that testimony, Comey admitted he leaked information about his conversations with President Donald Trump in order to get a special prosecutor appointed."
The DOJ already has tried to have the legal actions over Comey's records dismissed, but the petition was rejected by U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg.
John Daniel Davidson wrote at The Federalist that Comey had run an anonymous Twitter account that featured mostly nature photos, but also "displayed a weird and disconcerting side of his personality."
"He has a penchant for posting sentimental platitudes along with awkward pictures of himself – not selfies, mind you, he actually asks someone to take the shots."
He also featured one of himself with a Christmas tree and one in an Iowa cornfield.
Davidson commented: "It's easy to scoff at this treacly stuff, but what's really unsettling is the disconnect between Comey’s carefully crafted public image of an upright public servant and the details now emerging from the ongoing congressional investigation of surveillance abuse at the FBI and Department of Justice.
"Ever since President Trump fired Comey last spring, the mainstream media have been at pains to assure us that the former FBI director is the last honest man in Washington – a leader dearly beloved by the FBI’s rank-and-file and a paragon of ethical leadership. He’s the good guy, Trump’s the bad guy. Of course, this has never really been true. Comey’s been around a while, and has a long history of questionable obstruction of justice cases among other instances of prosecutorial excess. This is also not the first time he’s been in the middle of partisan attempt to oust a top Republican."
One problem, Davidson said, was Comey's decision to seek a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to spy on Carter Page, a Trump campaign volunteer, using "uncorroborated information bought and paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee – a detail that was never shared with the FISA court."
"In light of all this, questions about Comey and the FBI under his leadership are stacking up. Why did Comey rely on an uncorroborated partisan dossier to get a warrant to monitor Page? Why didn’t Comey tell the FISA court that the Steele dossier was political opposition research compiled by Fusion GPS at the behest of the Clinton campaign and the DNC? Why didn’t he tell the FISA court that Steele, a supposedly reliable source, had been meeting with the press behind the FBI’s back and that the agency had cut him loose?" he wrote.
Strangely, Davidson wrote, when Comey discussed the dossier with Trump, Trump wanted the FBI to look into the origins, but Comey "counseled Trump against it even though Comey already knew where the dossier came from and that its claims were uncorroborated."