The Slatest

Today in Conservative Media: The Comey Memo News Is a Potential “Bombshell”

Former FBI Director James Comey.

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A daily roundup of the biggest stories in right-wing media.

Multiple outlets ran posts about a Hill report on the classified contents of former FBI Director James Comey’s memos. “The news appears to contradict statements made by the sacked FBI Director,” a post on the Sean Hannity Show’s website read, “who claimed during a hearing in front of the Senate intelligence committee in early June that the memos were personal in nature and not ‘government documents.’ ” On Fox & Friends, Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway called the Hill’s report an “incredible bombshell”

The boy scout, choir boy defense doesn’t hold up here because if it contains classified information, he is apparently violating, at the very least, what all members of the FBI sign—they sign a document that says you will not do something like this. He was the director of the entire bureau. The irony to me, anyway […] is that this is exactly the problem that Hillary Clinton had with her illegal server—the handling of classified and confidential information that Jim Comey was meant to investigate, if not prosecute.

Some writers, including John Solomon, the author of the Hill’s report, echoed Conway’s comparison of Comey’s conduct to Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified materials with her email server. “Just less than a year ago, Comey stood on the national stage and blasted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her ‘carelessness’ in handling sensitive and even classified information,” Independent Journal Review’s Virginia Kruta wrote. “He later said that the FBI would not present a case for prosecution because ‘it was not clear that Clinton intended to break the law.’ ”

National Review’s Andrew C. McCarthy criticized President Trump for tweeting that Comey had leaked classified materials in his memos to the media.

In another intemperate tweet this morning, President Trump asserted, “James Comey leaked CLASSIFIED INFORMATION to the media. That is so illegal!” In reality, we do not yet know whether this is the case. For starters, The Hill’s report is based on leaks (which, I’d note, the president is not complaining about this time). The government has not taken a formal public position on the memos yet.

Second, even if we assume the report is accurate (as I am inclined to do), it indicates that at least four of the seven memos contain classified information — not that all of them do.

In other news:

Trump earned praise from conservatives for the firing of hundreds of Veterans’ Affairs employees since he took office. From the Daily Caller News Foundation:

Five hundred and forty-eight Department of Veterans Affairs employees have been terminated since President Donald Trump took office, indicating that his campaign pledge to clean up “probably the most incompetently run agency in the United States” by relentlessly putting his TV catchphrase “you’re fired” into action was more than just empty rhetoric.

Another 200 VA workers were suspended and 33 demoted, according to newly published data by the department as part of VA Secretary David Shulkin’s commitment to greater transparency. Those disciplined include 22 senior leaders, more than 70 nurses, 14 police officers, and 25 physicians.

A headline at the Daily Wire called the news “good Trump,” while Conservative Tribune’s Martin Lioll called it one of Trump’s “most effective swamp drains” since the inauguration. “True to the campaign promise that President Trump made,” SarahPalin.com’s Mary Kate Knorr wrote, “negligent Veterans Affairs’ employees are finally being called to task.”

A daily roundup of the biggest stories in right-wing media.

A daily roundup of the biggest stories in right-wing media.