The FBI states it will not expedite the release of documents about secret meetings between FBI Director James Comey and former President Barack Obama. But why?
From Conservative Post:
Such information is not “a matter of widespread and exceptional media interest in which there exists possible questions about the government’s integrity which affects public confidence,” David Hardy, the Section Chief for the bureau’s Record/Information Dissemination Section, told TheDCNF in a Feb. 26 letter.
TheDCNF, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), requested records of all meetings between Comey and Obama and sought an “expedited process” as provided under the act when issues are of great interest to the media and the records address issues pertaining to government integrity. TheDCNF FOIA request was filed Feb. 16, 2018.
The issue prompting the FOIA request was the disclosure Comey held a secret Oval Office meeting with Obama on Jan. 5, 2017. Comey never divulged the meeting to Congress.
Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser, former deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and former Vice President Joe Biden also attended the meeting.
Christopher Bedford, TheDCNF’s editor-in-chief called the FBI denial “shameful.”
“The FBI just told us that Director James Comey potentially lying to Congress should not be of interest to us, that it doesn’t speak to their ‘integrity,’ and that it shouldn’t impact America’s ‘confidence’ in them,” Bedford said. “They said this with a straight face. We disagree, we think the American people disagree, and we think it’s absolutely shameful.”
Grassley of Iowa and Graham of South Carolina wrote to Rice in a Feb. 8 letter saying the email seemed “odd” to them.
“It strikes us as odd that, among your activities in the final moments on the final day of the Obama administration, you would feel the need to send yourself such an unusual email purporting to document a conversation involving President Obama,” the two wrote.
“Despite your claim that President Obama repeatedly told Mr. Comey to proceed ‘by the book,’ substantial questions have arisen about whether officials at the FBI, as well as at the Justice Department and the State Department, actually did proceed ‘by the book,’” the two senators continued.
Comey claimed in June 8, 2017, testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence he had only two face-to-face meetings with the president in which they were alone.
