The Department of Justice inspector general is reportedly conducting an investigation regarding memos that former FBI director James Comey passed to a friend last year because it was later decided that one of them contained classified information.
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the memos, which Comey gave to a friend to leak to the media, contained various degrees of classified information.
Comey redacted portions of one of them because he knew that information was classified. The other memo did not contain any protected information at the time but was later upgraded to confidential, the first classification level.
The DOJ's inspector general is now probing the matter.
Comey wrote several memos that documented his interactions with President Donald Trump before he was fired last spring. Those memos were given to Congress on Thursday and leaked to the media that evening.
Comey, who served as FBI director starting in September 2013, shared the content of four of his memos with Columbia Law School professor Daniel Richman last May, with the intent of having Richman give the information to The New York Times — which he hoped would trigger a special counsel investigation of Trump's campaign. Former FBI director Robert Mueller was named the special counsel a short time later.
Comey is on a national media tour as he promotes his new book that talks about his time as FBI director, including his thoughts on Trump and the beginnings of the Russia probe.