took those memos that recounted his conversations with the president and gave them to professor dan richman at columbia university, that was an illegal leak, especially since he knew richman was going to give to the press. >> are notes about a conversation with the president taken by a private citizen, are they classified? >> they may or may not be. in fact, when the administration, or congress release those, some versions of those memos come out some more blacked out. i think james comey actually is in a pretty vulnerable position. just because something is not marked classified doesn't mean that after the fact it couldn't be retroactively designated classified. i think comey may really have a problem there. >> sean: may have a problem. potential legal jeopardy not stopping comey from living it up, cashing in on his newfound fame and fortune, the truncating former fbi director threw himself a big party at washington, d.c., an appropriate venue considering many of the guests were from the mainstream media. let's hope james comey made a good impression. we know their book tour in the media b

and yet now we have got the leaker, dan richman, who is now the lawyer, they are playing the hillarynton game where cheryl mills is the suspect and she is a lawyer and that keeps everything on lockdown. >> yeah. i think, you know, the collusion here, judge jeanine, there was collusion. if you look at the report. there was collusion. and it was between clapper, comey, mccabe, all of these players. colluding against the incoming president of the united states president trump. we have seen how they tried to massage this and manage this. they believed none of this boo come out. first of all they thought hillary clinton would win. when she didn't win, they went one step further and they moved into plan b. and now everything is being exposed. now they are eating each other up. we see mccabe and comey both saying that each other's stories don't match up. and i think what we're going to eventually find out is that a lot more people were leaking. a lot more people in the fbi are going to be in trouble and a lot more people in the intelligence community. >> judge: matt, the whole idea of they

this guy, dan richman, a friend from columbia, columbia law school, he gives him the special status, special government employee. i want to know, was he fingerprinted? photograph? was there any lie detector? a background check? a guy who leaks stuff and then was leaking stuff other people? what's your take? >> they special government employees, a legitimate way to get someone into government. a quick way, and sometimes a temporary way. what i think james comey had up his sleeve the whole time, sara is right. when i left the white house, i could not take paper with meax because it belonged to the tax payers. james comey wrote these memos and colluded with his law professor friend because they were written so they can be given to "the new york times" and the liberal media to prosecute the case against donald trump no matter what form, with a special council, on the front pages of these newspapers. it was all done because james comey was a never trump her. he doesn't think he is a character to be president and he wants to h get him out of the office. >> judge jeanine: the amazing part o

and yet now we have got the leaker, dan richman, who is now the lawyer, they are playing the hillarynton game where cheryl mills is the suspect and she is a lawyer and that keeps everything on lockdown. >> yeah. i think, you know, the collusion here, judge jeanine, there was collusion. if you look at the report. there was collusion. and it was between clapper, comey, mccabe, all of these players. colluding against the incoming president of the united states president trump. we have seen how they tried to massage this and manage this. they believed none of this boo come out. first of all they thought hillary clinton would win. when she didn't win, they went one step further and they moved into plan b. and now everything is being exposed. now they are eating each other up. we see mccabe and comey both saying that each other's stories don't match up. and i think what we're going to eventually find out is that a lot more people were leaking. a lot more people in the fbi are going to be in trouble and a lot more people in the intelligence community. >> judge: matt, the whole idea of they

david kelly and dan richman. >> bret: you said in the memos i said i don't do sneaky things, i don't leak. i don't do weasel moves. we can argue what a leak is but that's a leak, isn't it? >> it's not. >> bret: okay. here's what you told chuck grassley about leaking. >> director comey, have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the trump investigation or the clinton investigation? >> never. >> has any classified information relating to president trump or his association -- associates been declassified and shared with the media? >> not to my knowledge. >> bret: so at what point were you made aware that some of the information was classified by the fbi? >> which information? >> bret: in the memos? >> oh, yeah. i don't know, some time after i was fired the fbi apparently made a decision that there were some words in at least two of the memos, maybe one, i think two, that were diplomatically sensitive. and so my lawyers returned them to the fbi. but my testimony was truthful and i stand by it i was hoping you were going to ask me that. >> bret: i am.

he believes -- he's said several times that he didn't leak when he gave this memo to dan richman for the purpose of richman telling the "new york times" about it. comey maintains that this was not a leak. he also said it couldn't have been a leak because he left the fbi and was no longer a government employee. >> george stephanopoulos wrote a book about conversations with bill clinton. scott mcclelland broke a book -- >> after they were out of office. >> that's the case. that comey was out of office and he was no more of a leaker than george stephanopoulos or mcclelland was. >> the justice department kept them as if they were state secrets. few members were allowed to see them. you had do have an fbi minder with them. no notes, no copies. >> laura: it's contrary to justice department regulations -- >> nobody on capitol hill believes this is the only leak that james comey did there richman. i many guess is there were tons. he had employees with the sge status. i'm guessing he did lots of leaks. >> laura: ask him that. >> no, there's attorney client privilege. can't bring him in. pheno

> after i was fired from i put together a legal team of three people, one of whom was professor dan richman at columbia university. after i had asked him to give this information to the media. i separately gave my legal team four memos which were unclassified. they included the ones that he had gone to give the substance of it to "the new york times." the bottom line is i see no credible claim by any serious person that that violated the law. >> laura: scott, no problem? a couple memos were confidential. four of them were not. >> absolutely, and because they were not confidential or seen as sacred and what have you, no problem. i guarantee you this. under the trump administration, if they really thought he had leaked secret documents are classified documents, he would be prosecuted right now. what is the delay? you yelled and screamed about this for months about him leaking but what about the substance of those documents, which is the real issue. and why hasn't he been prosecuted if he has broken the law with the republican administration that he is at war with right now? why not? >> laura:

[laughter] the memos that i gave to my legal team after the unclassified memo to dan richman went nowhere, too. one of the questions for him and some of the audience actually from anderson cooper, he asked him a question he goes i can't answer that i have to go to my attorney. he goes are you lawyering up? he says i guess i am. one of his attorneys is patrick fitzgerald if there is nothing to worry about. did nothing wrong is he taking precautions. steve: three members of his legal team one of them is the professor as well. isn't that interesting? ainsley: interview will be tonight at 6:00. you need to watch. bret is going to ask him very tough questions and i think james comey is trying to soften the blow. because i'm sure is he a little nervous saying they hate me. they want me in jail. brian: i don't think he had any idea that this story would accelerate like it did with andy mccabe getting criminal referral and discounting what he said. they both can't be telling the same story. with all his memos are now released thanks to republicans forcing the justice department to act he is going