Donald Trump’s outside lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, has let it be known that he’s going after former FBI Director James Comey for being one of those lowlife leakers that Trump has talked about so often.
The complaint will focus on Comey's testimony that he gave a friend the content of memos about his conversations with Trump and asked the friend to then give that information to a reporter. Comey said Friday that he gave the friend -- later identified as Daniel Richman, a longtime Comey confidante and Columbia University professor -- the information after Trump tweeted that he may have tapes of his conversations with the fired FBI director.
These aren’t classified documents. They aren’t even government documents. They’re personal notes that Comey made expressly because his first personal meeting with Donald Trump revealed that the man was an uncomfortable creep.
Any complaint against Comey would assumedly be filed with the Justice Department, whose possible actions against Comey are extremely limited—and in this case, pretty well nonexistent. But that’s okay, because Trump isn’t really going to do anything. Crying “I’ll sue!” is his response to everything.
Trump, through his lawyers, has long threatened legal action that never materialized. Trump threatened to sue Sen. Ted Cruz multiple times during the 2016 campaign, along with the Republican Party of Louisiana and The Washington Post. None of those lawsuits were ever filed.
The purpose isn’t to penalize Comey, or even to make him worry about legal action. It’s just to play into the idea that Comey is a “leaker” for sharing his own words. But maybe Comey isn’t the one who should worry.