Justice Department: Comey mishandled memos

Former FBI Director James Comey broke agency policies by keeping and leaking information about private conversations with President Donald Trump, according to a U.S. Department of Justice report released Thursday.

What rules did Comey break? He took home memos detailing private meetings with the president and disclosed the contents to a friend to leak to the media. Comey admitted he hoped the leak would result in the appointment of a special counsel to look into whether Trump obstructed justice by attempting to shut down the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The Justice Department decided not to prosecute Comey, citing a lack of evidence that he “knew and intended to violate laws on handling classified information.”

Dig deeper: Read the Justice Department inspector general’s report on Comey’s handling of the memos.