Strike Two for Mr. Integrity.

Comey is either careless or not very bright.

//Comey’s assertion that this “quick email” just told his staff “there was something going on” was false. The email was substantive: it documented Comey’s account of the conversation he had with the president. Comey didn’t wait five minutes to create a record of what he said to the president, and what the president said to him.

More important, he also made an extensive report on the conversation. Gellman’s book is footnoted. This is where Gellman says he got his account of Comey’s meeting with Bush:

317 “You don’t look well”: Quotations from the Bush-Comey conversation are taken verbatim from unclassified notes describing Comey’s report of the meeting shortly afterward.

Gellman’s account of the conversation is two pages long and includes the following quotes attributed to Comey or Bush:

“You don’t look well.”

“Well, I feel okay.”

“I’m worried about you. You look burdened.”

“I am, Mr. President. I feel like there’s a tremendous burden on me.”

“Let me lift that burden from your shoulders. Let me take that from you. Let me be the one who makes the decision here.”

“Mr. President, I would love to be able to do that.”
***
“I decide what the law is for the executive branch.”

“That’s absolutely true, sir, you do. But I decide what the Department of Justice can certify to and can’t certify to, and despite my absolute best efforts I simply cannot in the circumstances.”
***
“As Martin Luther said, ‘Here I stand; I can do no other.’ I’ve got to tell you, Mr. President, that’s where I am.”
***
“I just wish that you weren’t raising this at the last minute.”

“Oh, Mr. President, if you’ve been told that, you have been very poorly served by your advisers. We have been telling them for months that we have a huge problem here that we can’t get past. We’ve been working this, and here I am, and there’s no place else for me to go.”

“I just need you to certify it. Give me six weeks. If we don’t have it fixed in six weeks, we’ll shut it down.”

“I can’t do that. You do say what the law is in the executive branch, I believe that. And people’s job, if they’re going to stay in the executive branch, is to follow that. But I can’t agree, and I’m just sorry.”
***
“I think you should know that Director Mueller is going to resign today.”

“Thank you very much for telling me that. I really appreciate it, Jim. I’ll talk to him. I’m going to talk to him.”

All of that dialogue comes verbatim from “unclassified notes describing Comey’s report of the meeting shortly afterward.” Gellman’s phrasing is clumsy; it isn’t clear whether the notes were Comey’s or someone else’s. But it is crystal clear that Comey rendered a “report” on his meeting that included these extensive, self-serving quotes, and that Comey’s side of the story was preserved in notes–unclassified notes, that sounds familiar!–against any possible future contingency.

In short, Comey’s statement to the Senate Intelligence Committee that “I didn’t feel, with President Bush, the need to document it in that way” was false. He did document his story about his meeting with President Bush, in great detail, in a “report” that was turned into “unclassified notes.”//