Anderson Cooper Grills Comey on Memo ‘Leaks’: ‘Shouldn’t You be Nailed to the Door?’

On Wednesday, CNN held a Town Hall with fired FBI Director James Comey, in which the topic quickly turned to his memos and whether or not Comey broke the law by releasing them.

“Do you think there is any credence to the president’s claims that you broke the law when you released memos?” host Anderson Cooper asked.

Comey replied that he did not.

“I see no credible claim by any serious person that I violated the law,” he said.

Yet, Cooper pressed on, pointing out that one memo was, in fact, retroactively classified.

“Is it okay for somebody at the FBI to leak something an internal document even if it is not classified?” Cooper pushed.

“There is a whole lot wrong with your question,” Comey replied. “I didn’t leak memos, I asked a friend to communicate the substance one unclassified memo to the media and I was a private citizen.”

Cooper then turned Comey’s own words on “unauthorized disclosures” against him.

“Shouldn’t you be nailed to the door then? Aren’t you a leaker?” Cooper said, grilling the former FBI Director. “You gave up a document that was released to the New York Times!”

He further demanded: “I am surprised that you only think that leaks officially are somebody that is classified.”

“I totally get it,” Comey said. “I intentionally gave this information to a friend, intending that it be out in the media. I wanted it to get out in the media. As a private citizen, I could do that and did do that just as I wrote about it in my book.”

Watch above, via CNN.

[image via screengrab]