Press Releases

Press Releases | September 07, 2017

Judicial Watch Files Lawsuit on behalf of Daily Caller News Foundation for Comey Memos

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit on behalf of the Daily Caller News Foundation against the U.S. Department of Justice seeking memoranda allegedly written by former FBI Director James Comey regarding his discussions with President Donald Trump and Trump’s aides (Daily Caller News Foundation v. U.S. Department Justice (No. 1:17-cv-01830)).

The suit was filed after the Justice Department initially declined to respond to a June 9, 2017, FOIA request and then failed to respond to an administrative appeal. The request seeks: “All unclassified memoranda authored by former FBI Director James Comey that contemporaneously memorialized his discussions with President Donald Trump and his aides. The time frame for the request was from November 8, 2016 to May 9, 2017.”

Four of the seven memos that Comey wrote following his interactions with President Trump reportedly contained classified information.

“Americans have a right know the full facts about former FBI Director James Comey’s unclassified memos regarding his conversations with President Trump and his aides prior to his firing,” said Daily Caller News Foundation co-founder Neil Patel. “And the FBI must be required to honor the Freedom of Information Act.”

“Comey leaked information from these memos so that it could be picked up by the media. So it is a scandal that the FBI is hiding this information contrary to FOIA law,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Judicial Watch is separately pursuing a FOIA lawsuit against the 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 Department of Justice for the metadata of 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.

In August, Judicial Watch sued the Justice Department 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)).

Such records would include: