Responding to the day's top story about fired FBI Director James Comey's testimony regarding his conversations with President Donald Trump, CNN analyst and Texas law professor Steve Vladeck posted a series of tweets eviscerating the president's argument that Comey's decision to leak his memos to the press was illegal.
"Did Comey's orchestration of the memo leak break the law? In a word, no," Vladeck wrote at the beginning of his thread. "Don't get caught up on whether it was a 'leak' or not; no statute prohibits 'leaks,' as such."
He went on to write that "unless memo includes 'information relating to the national defense' (& no indication it did), then leak doesn't violate Espionage Act."
Although Comey didn't break the law by leaking his memos on Trump, he may have, according to Vladeck, violated a "federal conversion-of-property statute" that leaves open the question about whether "'pure 'information' constitutes property." Although it could be applied legally, Vladeck said conviction under the conversion-of-property statue is unlikely because the memos had no monetary value.
Though "there may be ethical issues" with Comey's release of the memos, Vladeck said "any legal argument is a real stretch, here."
Read Vladeck's entire tweet thread below.
