‘Needed’ to spill

G-man hoped chat leak would lead to special prober

COMEY HIGHLIGHTS I was weary the media was camping at the end of my driveway … I worried it would be feeding seagulls at the beach, if it was I who gave it to the media. I asked my friend, make sure this gets out.

AMID THE bombshells former FBI Director James Comey dropped on Thursday was one about himself — he admitted he leaked information about President Trump in hopes it would lead to a special prosecutor in the Russia probe.

Comey revealed in his Senate Intelligence Committee testimony that he asked a friend at Columbia University to leak one of the memos he kept about his conversations with Trump after he was abruptly canned by the President.

He said he was pushed to act after Trump tweeted an apparent threat about releasing “tapes” of their talks.

“My judgment was that I needed to get that out into the public square,” Comey said, because he was concerned Trump was trying to impede the wide-ranging probe into his campaign’s alleged ties to Russia.

He said he thought that leaking out the information would “prompt the appointment of a special counsel.”

Columbia Law School Prof. Daniel Richman confirmed to The Washington Post during the hearing that he is the friend-turned-leaker. He made no further comment.

Richman (photo) is a former federal prosecutor whose Columbia profile notes that he is “an adviser to FBI Director James B. Comey.” He has frequently spoken to the press about Comey and was quoted in a New York Times article about him less than a month ago.

Comey revealed in his testimony that he kept written records of his nine interactions with Trump because he worried the President “might lie” about their meetings. Details from some of those memos have been leaked to the press since Trump fired Comey in early May. Comey confessed that, through Richman, he leaked one memo revealing that Trump pressured him to drop the federal investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. “I hope you can let this go,” Trump told Comey, according to the memo, which The New York Times obtained. Soon after Comey’s firing, a special counsel, Robert Mueller, did indeed take over the TrumpRussia criminal probe.

Trump lawyer Marc Kasowitz called the leak an “unauthorized disclosure of privileged information” and hinted that authorities might investigate.

Kasowitz’s statement incorrectly claimed Comey leaked the memo before Trump’s “tapes” tweet, although it said nothing about the supposed tapes themselves.

Comey said he intentionally avoided putting classified information in his memos, making it unlikely he could face any legal troubles for the leak.

It was unclear if Comey was behind any other recent leaks. He said he has been hesitant to give info to media because it would be “like feeding seagulls at the beach.”

Also unclear was whether the “tapes” Trump tweeted about even exist.

Comey said he no longer has the memos because he handed them all over to Mueller. Asked if his designated leaker might have copies of some of them, Comey said he might — making it likely that Richman might soon be hauled before the committee himself.

Richman did not respond to requests for comment.