Justice Dept. won’t charge Comey over handling of Trump memos

WASHINGTON — Senior Justice Department officials have concluded that former FBI Director James Comey should not be charged for his handling of memos documenting conversations with President Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.

The determination comes amid ongoing internal reviews focused on federal authorities’ investigation of Russia’s election interference and Trump’s 2016 campaign. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who is conducting one of the reviews, has not produced a final report on that subject and is unlikely to do so for at least a month, but one aspect of his work is largely complete, these people say: Comey’s handling of the memos.

Deciding not to charge the former FBI director, who has become an outspoken critic of Trump since the president fired him in May 2017, was “not a close call,” said one person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.

A lawyer for Comey declined to comment, as did a spokesman for the inspector general’s office.

Comey kept the memos in his home and later told an associate to share some of the contents with a journalist.

One was written in February 2017 following a private White House meeting with Trump in which Comey said the president mentioned the FBI investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn and said he hoped Comey could “let this go.”

Another described a March 30, 2017, phone call the president placed to Comey, in which Trump complained about the Russia investigation and, according to Comey, asked what the FBI director could do to “lift the cloud” hanging over his administration.

FBI agents collected the memos from Comey’s home in June 2017. A day later he appeared before Congress and told lawmakers that he had asked a friend to share the contents of one memo with a journalist, hopeful the information would spur the appointment of a special counsel to continue the Russia investigation.

After an FBI review, some material in two of the memos was determined to be confidential — the lowest level of classification. That raised questions about whether the information had been properly handled.