A U.S. District Judge has rejected the DOJ and FBI motion to block the release of the Archey Declarations (descriptions of Comey memos). [Background Here]
In a strongly worded ruling (full pdf below) released moments ago, Federal Judge James Boasberg blasted the DOJ and FBI for attempting to change their filings, claim national security “sources and methods”, and block his prior court ruling – which instructed the DOJ to release the “Archey Declarations”. The judge is obviously angry:
It must strike readers as erroneous “with the force of a five-week-old, unrefrigerated dead fish.”…
[Backstory for those unfamilar] In the background of what was The Mueller Investigation, there was a FOIA case where the FBI was fighting to stop the release of the Comey memos. Within that courtroom fight Mueller’s lead FBI agent David Archey wrote a series of declarations to the court describing the content of the memos and arguing why they should be kept classified.
The FOIA fight shifted; and the plaintiff, CNN, argued for public release of the content of the FBI agent’s descriptions, now known as the “Archey Declarations”.
After a lengthy back-and-forth legal contest, on June 7th Judge James E Boasberg agreed to allow the FBI to keep the Comey memo content hidden, but instructed the DOJ/FBI to release the content of the Archey Declarations. On August 2nd the DOJ/FBI changed their position and claimed national security, “sources and methods” would be compromised by the release of the Archey Declarations.
Today Judge Boasberg completely rejected their argument:
Here’s the ruling:
Must read, it’s a thing of beauty.
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OK, so what does this mean? Well, assuming the DOJ and FBI don’t try to appeal to a higher court…. it means we will get to see the Archey Declarations unredacted. It also means pressure on the inspector general to release the IG report on James Comey.
The issue at hand is tangentially related to the current Inspector General carve-out report, through the aspect of the Comey Memos. We are currently anticipating a report from the OIG related to former FBI Director James Comey, his writing of the memos, and the leaking of some of those memos to the media via his friend Daniel Richman. {LINK}
No-one knows the number of memos that James Comey has written. [We may get that answer in the IG report.] There are nine memos written by James Comey surrounding contact and conversations with President-elect and then President Trump (2016/2017).
However, based on the court declarations by Mueller’s former lead FBI investigator David Archey, it sounds like there are many more memos than anyone currently understands; including memos about the investigation of candidate Trump, that were written during the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation 2016 and 2017, that describe investigative details, sources, operations and code-names of intelligence assets used in the investigation.
The Comey memos are not just about his contact with Donald Trump as a candidate, president-elect or president. The media keeps downplaying the memos as a few notes taken by the former FBI director, but all of the background information suggest assembled writing is something more akin to a personal diary.
My strongly researched suspicion is that James Comey kept detailed private notes of what was happening during the operation(s) against Donald Trump and his campaign team, both during the campaign and after the election when President Trump took office. Just take a look at how David Archey described the content and you can see those notes, now called memos, were in addition to FD 302 reports being filed by FBI officials.
One wonders why Nadler is not clamoring to have THIS information made public. What’s the matter… does it not fit the narrative?
@Big Flats: adios, mo fo.