FBI Denies FOIA Request for Comey Memos

The FBI has denied a Freedom of Information Act request filed by BuzzFeed News to provide copies of former FBI Director James Comey's memos that detail his conversations with President Donald Trump.

The website reported Friday that the bureau cited the fact that the memos are part of an active investigation as reason to deny the request.

The memos, wrote the FBI, "are law enforcement records. There is a pending or prospective law enforcement proceeding relevant to these responsive records, and release of the information in these responsive records could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings."

Comey wrote memos after his in-person and phone meetings with Trump. The longtime lawman told lawmakers last week he had never done that before, but something about the way Trump spoke to him in private made him uneasy to the point that he felt he needed to document what had been said.

At least one of the memos Comey wrote is classified, a fact that he admitted during testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. That memo, he said, was written on a classified FBI laptop.

Comey leaked one of the memos to the media via a friend in an effort to help trigger the appointment of a special counsel to oversee the Department of Justice's Russia investigation. Former FBI Director Robert Mueller was later brought on to serve in that role.

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