Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff. 

By Britt Nelson

That leaked ‘memo’ — supposedly written by former FBI Director James Comey to himself concerning a meeting he had with President Donald Trump in which the subject of fired former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn came up — may or may not even exist, but everybody is buying into it as if it was real, but so far where is the ‘memo’? As of Wednesday night no news agency has reported actually seeing this Comey ’memo’ nor have they produced a copy of it.

Then later Wednesday national ‘breaking news’ reported Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — who oversees the FBI at the U.S. Department of Justice – announced the naming of former veteran FBI Director Robert Mueller, 72, as special counselor to lead the FBI’s ongoing investigation into Russia-Trump campaign connections and other “related matters.” Apparently Mueller was brought on board mostly due to the absence of a permanent FBI director.

According to news reports, the Comey ‘memo’ was read over the phone to a drooling New York Times reporter who claims to have inside connections with the FBI and CIA, but no actual sources were named and no actual ’memo’ was produced by the NYT.

Today’s brand of so-called ‘journalism’ is on full display.

If this Comey ‘memo’ is real and it says what the NYT claims, then the FBI has far bigger problems than this ‘memo.’ Who is getting into Comey’s private papers within the FBI and leaking them to the press? Are FBI staffers rooting around Comey’s old office and getting into the file cabinets? Did Comey leak this ‘memo’ himself? This matter involves a former director of the FBI — the nation’s premier law enforcement agency — and Comey is not ‘small potatoes.’ No matter what you believe about this ‘memo’ this entire matter stinks to high heaven.

Comey has yet to confirm the ‘memo’ as being accurate in his reported description that President Trump asked Comey to lay off the Flynn investigation into Flynn’s alleged connections with Russia during Trump’s campaign for president. This Trump/Comey meeting took place in the Oval Office in February; the day after Flynn resigned having served as the president’s National Security Advisor for only 24 days.

On Wednesday morning, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said on national news that Comey, as required by law, apparently did not report any such alleged intimidation about an on-going investigation or suspected obstruction of justice to the U.S. Department of Justice. Comey’s failure to report suspected obstruction of justice, even by a president of the United States, would result in criminal charges against Comey (see 18 USC 4 and 28 USC 1361), which is being reported by some news agencies, but not main stream media. Ryan is absolutely right to question this time lapse between the Trump/Comey meeting and now — three months later. But Comey has reported nothing to DOJ – not then or now.

The White House, meanwhile, has flatly denied any intimidation of Comey took place. Calls for Comey to appear before Congressional Oversight committees are growing for him to answer questions about his phantom ‘memo’ under oath publicly, not behind closed doors.

Even CNN reported Wednesday that they had not seen the ‘memo’ but their news anchors are reporting about it nonstop in some sort of a ‘foaming-at-the-mouth’ festival continuing their relentless undermining of this presidency right along with most of main stream media. Also Wednesday, FOX News reported they had verified the contents of the ‘memo’ but offered no evidence. So another unnamed source read the ‘memo’ over the phone to someone at Fox News.

What is known is that Comey reported nothing as required by law. This law is neither right nor wrong – it’s just the law – something Comey took an oath to follow and enforce. He did nothing.

Perhaps, this whole Comey uproar over this dubious ‘memo’ is a ploy to trick the White House into admitting that President Trump may be recording everything said in his Oval Office by whoever says it. President Trump — in a Tweet he made before Comey’s alleged ‘memo’ surfaced and after Comey was fired — seemed to warn Comey that he’d better be careful about leaks because there may be “tapes” to prove him wrong.

Of course the Democrats went ballistic when they heard the word “tapes” coming from President Trump. They are already demanding that any and all Oval Office “tapes” be surrendered to Congress and the ‘snowflakes’ out on the streets are screaming “impeach Trump.” Under existing law it is legal for President Trump to tape record conversations in the Oval Office without anyone’s consent or knowledge.

The bottom line to this ‘memo’ is Comey reported nothing to the DOJ which makes the actual existence of the ‘memo’ — he wrote to himself — unimportant.

President Trump’s first road trip to a foreign land on Friday cannot come soon enough. It’s time to get out of steamy Washington for a few days and check out the inviting sand dunes of Saudi Arabia.

About the Author

Britt Nelson relocated to Costa Rica in 2011 from Florida, where he served as news editor for the Palatka Daily News, a newspaper owned by the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group (NYT-RNG) for 20 years.

Nelson served the NYT-RNG for 18 years in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida as a correspondent, reporter, staff writer, senior staff writer training new reporters, copy editor, page designer, editorial writer, editorial page editor and editorial board member.