President Trump's Lawyers To File Complaint Against James Comey: Reports

WASHINGTON, DC — President Trump's lawyer is preparing to file a formal complaint against former FBI Director James Comey following his Thursday testimony, according to multiple outlets, including CNN and the Wall Street Journal. Attorney Marc Kasowitz's criticism of Comey, which has been picked up by many Republicans, finds fault with the former director's admission that he made notes of his conversations with the president available to the press through a friend.

Comey revealed during his testimony that he passed his memos along to a law professor who read the contents to the New York Times, which reported that Trump had tried to get Comey to end the investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Comey said he took this step because he thought it would result in the appointment of a special counsel; shortly thereafter, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein picked Comey's friend Robert Mueller to be the special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation. (For more information on this and other political stories, subscribe to the White House Patch for daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

Comey also noted Thursday that Mueller will be responsible to investigate if Trump potentially obstructed justice in this case.

But did Comey actually break any law by sharing information about his conversations with the president? Comey said nothing he shared was classified; the memos were simply his own personal notes. So despite the way this action has been talked about, it's a bit misleading to call Comey's actions a "leak," which typically refers to classified information.

However, Trump's lawyers called Comey's "leak" an "unauthorized disclosure of privileged information," which invokes a legal concept distinct from that of classification.

The nature of executive privilege is somewhat obscure and ad hoc, as the concept is not explicitly spelled out in law or in the constitution. As Peter Shane, a the chair in law at Ohio State University, explains on the law blog Take Care, executive privilege has historically covered conversations and deliberation that the administration decides to keep secret when Congress requests or subpoenas testimony or evidence from the executive branch.

It's very difficult to see how this could apply to the conversations the president has that were shared willingly by a terminated employee.

"There is no law prohibiting someone in conversation with the President from revealing that conversation to third parties without the President's consent," he writes. "Of course, one could well imagine that the unauthorized disclosure of a confidential presidential conversation would be a fireable offense if committed by any federal officer serving at the pleasure of the President. Unfortunately for the President, he had fired Mr. Comey before the unauthorized disclosure."

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