we find out it is daniel richmond. who is daniel richmond? guest: daniel richmond is a columbia university law professor that comey knows and --he explained, gave this contents of this memo to the new york times, which was published may 2017 in an article on the 11th shortly after comey was ousted. host: what could be the consequences for the forming -- former fbi director from this inspector general report? >> i talked to a couple legal experts about this yesterday and there really aren't any. the big consequence could have been the justice department deciding to prosecute him for some sort of violation of the law and attorney general barr decided not to do that. i spoke to a couple people and they said that was the big question weather or not they sawd press charges and we that and i spoke to one person that said he wasn't very surprised by this. i think from his perspective, people in the government often skirt policies with regards to keeping memos like this so it could spur more cases and it signals the justice department didn't really t

memo home with him after he left about his conversation with the president and he gave it to daniel richmond, his friend and law professor. it says after his removal as fbi director two months later, comey provided memo four, which the inspector general said he should not have had in his possession, comey had without authorization to richmond, the law professor i described, with the intent to share contents with a reporter from the "new york times." we can remember that day, hallie, when this came out in the "new york times," the headline said comey asked him to end the flint investigation. that set off fireworks and really was one of the things that ended up leading to the appointment of robert mueller. so they detail all of this. really to put this in comey's face, they quote him in a 2017 testimony where he says the fbi is very careful in how we handle information about our cases and people we're investigating. our ability to share details with congress and the american people is limited when those investigations are still open. we need to protect the people's privacy. in other words, he

we find out it is daniel richmond. who is daniel richmond?uest: daniel richmond is a columbia university law professor that comey knows and --he explained, gave this contents of this memo to the new york times, which was published may 2017 in an article on the 11th shortly after comey was ousted. host: what could be the consequences for the forming -- former fbi director from this inspector general report? >> i talked to a couple legal experts about this yesterday and there really aren't any. the big consequence could have been the justice department deciding to prosecute him for some sort of violation of the law and attorney general barr decided not to do that. i spoke to a couple people and they said that was the big question weather or not they sawd press charges and we that and i spoke to one person that said he wasn't very surprised by this. i think from his perspective, people in the government often skirt policies with regards to keeping memos like this so it could spur more cases and it signals the justice department didn't really thi

revealed new information about the michael flynn investigation when he gave that memo to his friend, daniel richmond to give to "the new york times." all comey said in that memo is that the president had tried to shut down essentially the investigation into flynn, which had been revealed earlier by sally yates, who was of course the deputy attorney general before she was fired back in january of 2017 during her congressional testimony. so there are a whole lot of things in here that don't make much sense that seem like they are purposefully designed in order to kind of throw this red meat at the people who wanted to see comey get in trouble. >> what is your judgment of the ig here, ben? i can sort of read the text. he has had a number of reports in the trump era. i know he is someone who generally seen as having integrity. i know there are many people of the obama years who have vouched for him. what is your assessment? >> well, you know, i guess what i would say is i don't -- i think he has a long-standing reputation. in both of the reports that he's done in this area, i think he's done a quite goo

several memos were sent to his personal lawyer, daniel richmond, who, then, at comey's behest, shared the contents of at least two of them with the news media. why? to spark the appointment of a special counsel to investigate possible trump-russia collusion. butle the president smelled a r. he confronted and ultimately fired comey over the leaks to the media, which, of course comey vociferously denied. >> i don't consider mr. richmond a leak, i told him of an unclassified conversation with the m president. >> one month after firing comey and now reaction to the former fbi director's capitol hill testimony, trump in a tweet wrote, despite so many false statements and lies, total and complete vindication, and, wow comey is a leaker. so is trump right? regarding the leaking. maybe comey never considered releasing his own memos leaking because his ultimate goal bringing down the president, was noble. he saw it as he was carrying out his civic duty. >> 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