Judicial Watch Sues Justice Department for Comey’s ‘Exit Records’

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Justice for all non-disclosure agreements pertaining to the handling, storage, protection, dissemination, and/or return of classified information that were signed by or on behalf of former FBI Director James Comey (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:17-cv-01624)).

The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Justice Department failed to respond to a June 13, 2017, FOIA request seeking “any and all non-disclosure agreements pertaining in full or in part to the handling, storage, protection, dissemination, and/or return of classified and/or sensitive information that were signed by or on behalf of former FBI Director James Comey.”  Such records would include:

• All SF-312 (Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement) forms
• All FD-857 (Sensitive Information Nondisclosure Agreement) forms
• All FD-597 (Receipt for Property Received/Returned/Released or Seized) forms
• All FD-291 (FBI Employment Agreement) forms
• All Case Briefing Acknowledgement forms

“How is it the FBI allowed Mr. Comey to walk out the door with sensitive documents about President Trump?” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.  “It is remarkable that we have to sue the FBI in federal court to get these answers about this scandal.”

In June, Judicial Watch sent the FBI a warning letter concerning the FBI’s legal responsibility under the Federal Records Act (FRA) to recover records, including memos Comey subsequently leaked to the media and unlawfully removed from the Bureau by former Director James Comey.

Judicial Watch later filed a FOIA lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for information about Comey’s memorandum written after his meeting with President Trump regarding potential interference by the Russians in the 2016 presidential election (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:17-cv-01189).

In July, Judicial Watch filed a FOIA lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for the metadata for the memoranda written by Comey memorializing his conversations with President Donald Trump as well as records about Comey’s FBI-issued laptop computer or other electronic devices and records about how Comey managed his records while he was FBI Director (Judicial Watch, Inc., v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 17-cv-01520)). The metadata information may include details about when the memos were created or edited and by whom.

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