WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump alleged that former FBI Director James Comey broke the law by leaking classified information and prodded Republican lawmakers to send him a final health care overhaul bill before they leave for an August break.
Trump bookended his Sunday with a series of tweets, and an apparent round of golf sandwiched in between, in which he first touted a joint U.S.-Russia cybersecurity working group then said it could never happen.
After appearing Sunday night to bend to experts who said it would be unwise to work with Russia after its hacking disrupted the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Trump was back at it on Monday morning.
Just after 6:30 a.m. Eastern, Trump retweeted a Fox News tweet featuring its summary of a newspaper report in The Hill, published Sunday night, that alleged Comey included classified information in more than half the memos he prepared after conversations with Trump.
Comey had a friend leak one of the memos to the New York Times shortly after Trump fired him in mid-May. The Hill's story, which cited interviews with multiple officials familiar with Comey's memos, however, does not allege that the leaked documents contained classified information.
Still, it does suggest the former FBI chief broke his agency's own rules by not seeking permission before releasing information about ongoing investigations, as well as telling lawmakers he considered his memos personal property.
Trump broke out the all-caps on Monday morning when he followed the retweet with his accusation that Comey "leaked CLASSIFIED INFORMATION to the media."
"That is so illegal!" tweeted the president, whose Monday schedule included no public events, a rarity for any chief executive.
