Months after he refused to charge Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election for using a private, unauthorized server to transmit classified information, then-FBI Director James Comey’s inner circle used personal email accounts to further a plan to make an “unauthorized disclosure” to journalists, newly declassified memos reveal.
When investigators in a criminal probe codenamed “TROPIC VORTEX” sought permission in 2019 to gain access to those private emails, federal prosecutors turned them down, according to the memos recently uncovered by current FBI Director Kash Patel and declassified for release to Congress by Attorney General Pam Bondi.
James Rybicki forwarded a communication to his private email address in furtherance of an unauthorized disclosure of classified information to journalists. (Credit: Minnesota Lawyer)
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington DC “issued a prosecutorial declination decision for TROPIC VORTEX,” the FBI memo shutting down the probe stated.
The memos are the latest evidence that FBI agents on the front lines had serious concerns about illegal leaks and abuses of classified information allegedly involving major figures in Washington like Comey, now Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Clinton. The efforts at investigating were repeatedly thwarted.
Just the News reported last week that agents gathered eyewitness evidence from Comey’s top lieutenants, including former chief of staff James Rybicki and ex-FBI General Counsel James Baker, that the former FBI chief authorized the leak of classified information to reporters just before the 2016 election. No charges were ever filed.
(…) The newest declassified memos detail evidence alleging that in March 2017, Rybicki forwarded a communication to his private email address in furtherance of an unauthorized disclosure of classified information to journalists directed by Comey.
Federal prosecutors originally issued a preservation order for the private email account based on the findings by the FBI’s Washington Field Office that the communication was in furtherance of a media leak. Ultimately, though, the prosecutors decided against pursuing “additional legal process” because the communication was itself not classified.
(…) You can read the memo below: