The Washington Post

Aaron Blake
8 hrs ago
AdChoices

SHARE SHARE TWEET SHARE EMAIL

1 2 3 4 5
New special counsel Man who predicted Putin paid Trump? Cavs blew out Celtics ABC responds after
Robert Mueller has memos thinks Republicans think in Game 1, and Tim Allen's

Analysis | The guy who predicted Comeys memos

thinks the former FBI director may be trying to take
down Trump

News broke Tuesday evening that then-FBI Director James B. Comey had
2 / 20

Miller, it was as predicted.

Five days before the New York Times broke that

story, the former top Justice
Departmentspokesman tweeted this:

Matthew Miller Follow

@matthewamiller

One thing I learned at DOJ about Comey: he leaves a protective

paper trail whenever he deems something inappropriate
happened. Stay tuned. twitter.com/jonathanvswan/
10:59 AM - 12 May 2017

14,333 27,005
Given that foresight and Miller's experience in the DOJ during the Obama
administration I thought it worthwhile to find out what else he saw coming down the
pike. As you'll see below, he thinks that this is the tip of the spear and that Comey's actions
suggest he may have been building a legal case against the president of the United States.

Below is our conversation, edited lightly for clarity and length.

The Washington Post
Q: Aaron
You wereBlake
pretty prescient in noting that the Comey memos would come back to bite
Trump
8 hrs ago saying stay tuned. How widely known are Comeys note-keeping habits? Is it

exceptional in some way?

SHARE SHARE TWEET SHARE EMAIL
MILLER: I dont think its exceptional either for an FBI director or for anyone at the FBI or at
the Justice Department. If they have a conversationwith someone where the other person
raises something inappropriate, its a pretty standard practice to then write a memo to the
file, basically, putting that down. There were times when I was at Justice when I got phone
calls from people that would make inappropriate requests of me, and I would usually tell
them, Thats an inappropriate request; I cant do that. And then I would send an email to
my deputy after the conversation describing it, so if anyone ever asked about it, there was a
record of exactly what happened and that I didnt do anything wrong.

Q: And so you would generally not only write the memo, but you would talk to
somebody about it in real time?

Q: What kinds of things are usually in these notes? Is it a pretty straight recounting of
the conversation, or will they also include things like, Well, I think this may have been
illegal?

MILLER: I think it completely depends on the conversation and the person youre having it
with. Its a very different thing if someone outside the Justice Department calls you and asks
you to find out the status of an investigation, and you tell them no. Thats one thing
versus the president of the United States telling you to quash an investigation. In the orders
of magnitude of wrongdoing and impact, theyre two very different things.

I guess my point is, theres not a great parallel between conversations with the president
and anything else mostly because its pretty infrequent that the FBI director would be
having one-on-one conversations with the president. Something thats important here is
that it was inappropriate for Trump to have any conversations with Comey about the status
of this case let alone to make the kind of request that we now know he did.

Q: So that would definitely raise a red flag for Comey.

MILLER: Yeah. And Comey he might have had two motives here. One is, when youre put
in this situation, you want to make a record, so if the other side ever tells their story, you
can pretty clearly demonstrate with contemporaneous records that you acted appropriately.

I keep wondering something in the back of my head keeps saying to me maybe

Comey was actually trying to build an obstruction-of-justice case against the president
here. You know what I mean? Because Comey could handle this one of two ways: The
The Washington Post
president makes this request, and the first time Comey might say to him, You know, Mr.
Aaron Blake
8 hrs ago
President, its inappropriate for us to have this conversation, and I would appreciate if you
would not make a request like this to me again. Thats a way to handle it that says very
SHARE SHARE TWEET SHARE EMAIL
clearly to the president that this should never be repeated.

But if youre trying to build an obstruction-of-justice case, you might want the president to
keep talking, because everything he does is digging a deeper legal hole for himself.

Q: And that would be, ostensibly, a reason for him not to resign after that first
conversation, as some people have suggested he should have.

MILLER: Thats exactly right. You have to remember, the president in that letter firing Comey
said, 'You told me three times I wasnt under investigation.' We have no idea if thats true or
not. But I think its also a little bit of a red herring, because the presidents campaign is
under investigation. He is obviously the head of his own campaign, and when the Justice

So in that particular circumstance, Comey might have wanted him to keep talking to see
what he says.
 REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque FBI Director James Comey prepares to testify before a Senate Judiciary
Committee earlier this month.

Q: A lot of this could come down to how much Comey wants to fight this battle with the
president. Is there anything in his past that leads you to believe he would willingly and
The Washington Post
proactively
Aaron Blake want that fight?
8 hrs ago

MILLER: Yes. Look, theres one thing I agree with the president on: That Comey is a
SHARE You just look
showboat. SHARE
at his actions TWEET
in the SHARE
[Hillary] Clinton case, where hemade
EMAILhimself

the central player when there was no reason for him to be the central player. That aside, his
entire history shows that he likes to be at the center of attention. You look at the Ashcroft
bedside incident where that unfolded in one of the most dramatic congressional hearings in
history. And it was pretty clear at the time that that hearing had been pretty well planned
by Comey and by Preet Bharara to uncover real wrongdoing by the Bush administration
but also to present Comey in a very favorable light.

(Note: Bharara was then counsel to Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). Earlier this
year,Trumpfired him as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, after Bharara
declined Trump's request to resign by saying Trump had promised to keep him in the job.)

hes going to enjoy the spotlight of a congressional hearing when he inevitably testifies.

We have no idea who made the decision to leak this, whether it was Comey himself or it
was people at the FBI. And we dont know what their complete strategic goals are. But if
you were really looking to damage the president, you wouldnt leak the most damaging
memo first. So who knows what comes next?

Q: Are there other instances in recent years, whether with Comey or anybody else, where
these contemporary notes were really important?

MILLER: Theres one involving Comey that I actually had in mind when I sent that tweet last
week. In 2005, the Bush administration was authorizing or reauthorizing
waterboarding and other torture tactics. And Comey had signed off on it as a deputy
attorney general. But in addition to signing off on it, he had a meeting with Attorney
General [Alberto R.] Gonzales and laid out why he thought it was a bad idea for the
government to torture people and how it would make the government look bad and call
into question the credibility of everyone involved. And not only did he have the meeting,
but he memorialized it in a meeting with his chief of staff, where he said exactly what he
had laid out to the attorney general.

We know this because in 2009, when the Office of Professional Responsibility at the DOJ
was investigating this issue and the New York Times wrote a story about it, magically
Comeys email to his chief of staff appeared in that story and made its way to OPR. I was
atThe
DOJ at the time, and what it told me was Comey had the presence of mind to write the
Washington Post
email
Aaron inBlake
the first place, print a copy of it when he left the department, sit on it for four years
8 hrs ago
and be ready to give it to a reporter when someone questioned why he had signed off on
torture. I remember watching it and thinking, "This is very instructive of how Comey
SHARE SHARE TWEET SHARE EMAIL
operates inside a bureaucracy."

Q: Whatreason might these notes or memos not become public?

MILLER: One of the tests of the next few days is whether DOJ will try and block the FBI from
turning these over to Congress. I think we can guess that the FBI, left to its own devices, is
going to want to turn them over, but Sessions and [Assistant Attorney General Rod J.]
Rosenstein may try to block that. They could cite a number of privileges.

They could cite the fact that this is an ongoing investigation, and so they wont turn them
over. That would be the argument that the underlying investigation into Russia is an
ongoing investigation. They could also cite executive privilege that these are

SPONSORED TOPICS

Life Insurance for Seniors in 2017 Pre Owned Luxury Cars Best Anti-Ransomware Software

MORE FOR YOU Promoted Links by Taboola

John Travolta & 12 Other Celebs Who Only Fly Private

ZestVIP
These Dangerous Dogs Definitely Aren't Man's Best Friend
PressRoomVIP

Born Before 1980? You Would Love This Strategy Game

Throne: Free Online Game
The Washington Post
Aaron Blake
8 hrs ago
Kellyanne Conway Fires Back at Morning Joe Hosts: Their
Insults and Insinuations Are Absurd
SHARE SHARE
Insults and Insinuations Are Absurd
TWEET SHARE EMAIL
Variety on MSN

Report: Amid Backlash Over Comey, Trump Could Let Sean Spicer Go Next
GeoBeats on MSN

Spicer: Trump Stands By View That Obama Is A Bad Or Evil Guy

GeoBeats on MSN

Tiny Device Allows You To Track Anything (it's Genius!)

TrackR Bravo

Travel Site That Just Kills it

Then And Now: Same Persons Photographed As Young People And 100 Year Olds
fannntastic-woman

White House: Comey 'Went Around The Chain Of Command'

GeoBeats on MSN

Betting Sites Have Raised The Odds Of A Trump Impeachment After Comey Firing
GeoBeats on MSN

No charges for white Nashville officer in black man's death

Associated Press on MSN

End Your Nightly Snoring Nightmare With This Simple Solution

My Snoring Solution

Save Money On Website Hosting And Design

Web Hosting Sponsored Ads

TheGoodbye
Say Washington Post
To Snoring, Say Hello to Sleep
Aaron Blake
My Snoring Solution
8 hrs ago

SHARE SHARE TWEET SHARE EMAIL

Ann Coulter Says Trump's Presidency Has Been A 'Disaster'
GeoBeats on MSN

Harvard Law Professor Wants A Trump Impeachment Investigation

GeoBeats on MSN

Sally Yates Fires Back At Ted Cruz Over Legal Argument For Trump's Travel Ban
GeoBeats on MSN

Conway inspires epic Anderson Cooper eye roll

Sean Spicer's role in the shadows after Comey's firing

CBS News on MSN

Kellyanne Conway Calls That Viral Eye Roll Sexist

Cosmopolitan on MSN

PREVIOUS NEXT

Go to MSN Home Go to MSN News

 JOIN THE CONVERSATION

The Washington Post

Aaron Blake
8 hrs ago

SHARE SHARE TWEET SHARE EMAIL