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

Let’s hope former FBI Director James Comey makes a lot of money off his tell-all book “A Higher Loyalty” because he going to need it to pay for his legal defense now that the U.S. Inspector General’s Office has opened a new investigation into Comey leaking seven memos he wrote concerning his private meetings with President Donald Trump that allegedly contain “classified information.”

Comey leaked the memos to a friend at Columbia University Law School who in turn gave them to the New York Times last year after President Trump fired Comey. IG investigators claim two of Comey’s memos contain information the FBI considers classified, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Comey’s second-in-command former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe has been referred to the U.S. Department of Justice by the IG for criminal charges involving his own leaking to the media and lying under oath during testimony before the U.S. Congress which led to his firing.

President Trump believes Comey’s memos contain classified information and he should be prosecuted right along with McCabe.

“James Comey’s Memos are Classified, I did not Declassify them. They belong to our government! Therefore, he broke the law,” President Trump tweeted late last week. “Additionally, he totally made up many of the things he said I said, and he is already a proven liar and leaker. Where are the Memos on Clinton, Lynch & others?”

The president continued on with — “James Comey illegally leaked classified documents to the press in order to generate a Special Counsel. Therefore, the Special Counsel was established based on an illegal act? Really, does anyone know what that means?”

The ongoing Special Counsel investigation under the direction of former FBI Director Robert Mueller looking into alleged Trump campaign collusion with Russians originated due to Comey’s leaked memos and the fake Trump dossier that was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign for president and the Democratic National Committee.

When Comey met privately with President Trump in January 2017 he informed the president about the existence of the dossier and what it contained, news reports say Comey knew the dossier was paid for by Clinton and the DNC but he failed to tell the president everything he knew about the dossier in what some news reports claim was an intentional “set up” of President Trump by Comey.

The good news in all of this turbulence is former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has joined President Trump’s legal defense team. Giuliani – a former U.S. Attorney — has known President Trump for 30 years and is one of his staunchest supporters.

“I’m going to join the legal team to try to bring this to a resolution,” Giuliani said in a New York Post story. “The country deserves it. I have great admiration for President Trump … I’ve had a long relationship with Bob Mueller. I have great respect for him. He’s done a good job.”

Not only are Comey and McCabe in legal jeopardy due to leaking and lying, so is former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper who was singled out in a finding of the recently issued House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s ‘final report of Russia’ which concluded there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

“ … Clapper, now a CNN national security analyst, provided inconsistent testimony to the committee about his contacts with the media, including CNN,” the report stated.

In short, it was Clapper that asked Comey to set up a meeting with the president to inform him that this dossier exists and news outlets were ready to run with it. Four days later the dossier was leaked to CNN, according to news reports filed on Real Clear Politics.

“This briefing, and the leaking of it, legitimized the dossier, which touched off the Russia hysteria. That hysteria led to a full-fledged media freakout,” writes Mollie Hemingway in the Federalist. “During the freakout, Comey deliberately refused to say in public what he acknowledged repeatedly in private – that the President of the United States was not under investigation. He even noted in his memos that he told the president at least three times that he was not under investigation. Comey’s refusal to admit publicly what he kept telling people privately led to his firing.”

Remember the old daytime long-running soap operas with titles like “As the World Turns,” “The Days of Our Lives” and “The Young and the Restless” well they have nothing on the current soap opera going on in Washington these days and it’s not good for the country to be embroiled in constant controversy, litigation and endless investigations.

The situation may change, but as things stand now President Trump is not in legal difficulty — but Comey, McCabe and Clapper are.

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.