White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Wednesday accused former FBI Director James Comey of “clear” violations of “federal laws,” but stopped just short of urging the Department of Justice to prosecute him over her allegations.
During her daily briefing, a reporter pressed Sanders to expand on her suggestion Tuesday that the Department of Justice “should certainly look at” investigating Comey.
“The memos that Comey leaked were created on an FBI computer while he was the director,” Sanders said. “He claims they were private property, but they clearly follow the protocol of an official FBI document.”
She said that leaking bureau memos “on a sensitive case regardless of classification violates federal laws including the Privacy Act, standard FBI employment agreement and nondisclosure agreement all personnel must sign.”
“I think that’s pretty clean and clear that that would be a violation,” Sanders said.
“So what do you want to see happen?” a reporter pressed.
“That’s not up to me to decide,” Sanders replied. “I’m certainly not an attorney, but I think that the facts of the case are very clear.”
She said the Department of Justice “has to look into any allegations of whether or not something is illegal or not” and further accused Comey of “questionable statements under oath” and “politicizing an investigation.”
“Those are real reasons for why he was fired,” Sanders said, once again defending President Donald Trump’s decision to abruptly terminate Comey, a move that special counsel Robert Mueller may be investigating as part of his probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
