The conversion statute requires a bit more analysis. But the former requires that the disclosed material be “information relating to the national defense.” Without more, a memo that simply memorializes a private conversation with the President ain’t that (and, indeed, could not have been properly classified even if the President had tried). The two best candidates in most leak cases are the Espionage Act and the federal conversion-of-property statute. Instead, the question is whether the unauthorized disclosure of such information violated some specific criminal statute. The above thread already walked through the basics of the issue, but it reduces to this: There’s no general criminal prohibition against government employees disclosing internal governmental information, as such. Did #Comey's orchestration of the memo leak break the law? In a word, no. But I thought it might be worth saying a bit more about the leak-as-crime piece of this, just to make clear how similarly empty that argument is.ġ. I have an Op-ed out this morning via the Washington Post that explains why the executive privilege piece of this is so ridiculously empty (in short: executive privilege (1) is a shield against efforts to compel disclosure of documents and testimony, not a sword against voluntary disclosure (2) has almost certainly been waived here and (3) would in any event likely yield to the more compelling interests of pending criminal investigations). The strangest claim to emerge from yesterday’s Senate intelligence committee hearing is the one first suggested by President Trump’s personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, and picked up since then by the President’s strongest defenders: That former FBI Director James Comey somehow violated executive privilege and broke the law by orchestrating a leak of memos memorializing some of his conversations with the President.
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