Comey’s Memos Were a Product of a Culture of Note-Keeping
WASHINGTON
— The revelation that James B. Comey documented his interactions with
President Trump — describing in detail how the president urged him to
quash the federal investigation into Michael T. Flynn, the former
national security adviser — provided the clearest evidence yet that Mr. Trump tried to influence the government’s inquiry into possible links between his associates and Russia.
It also shined a bright light on something more commonplace: the F.B.I.’s practice of keeping careful, contemporaneous notes.
For
law enforcement officials like Mr. Comey, who was fired last week as
the director of the F.B.I., documenting sensitive conversations is a
reflex — and in keeping with the habits of diligent lawyers. Mr. Comey
was a federal prosecutor and corporate counsel before he took over the
F.B.I.
Why do F.B.I. employees write memos?
In sensitive investigations as well as in routine matters, it is standard for people who work in law enforcement to keep detailed phone and meeting logs, Lauren C. Anderson, a former top F.B.I. official, said.
“That’s
the culture of the F.B.I. — you habitually document everything you do,”
Ms. Anderson, a 29-year veteran of the bureau, said. “As a rule, you’re
not taping every conversation, so your ability to recall details in a
way that can be maintained and relied on is absolutely critical.”
The instinct to preserve possible evidence goes beyond the F.B.I.
“The
same is true in the C.I.A.,” Ms. Anderson said. “They’re meticulous in
their documentation of both formal and informal communications.”
Tweet
In the cia,
there is a sayin: if you didnt write it down it doesnt exist. in the fbi
everything exists because everything is written down.
Why keep the records?
Memos
such as Mr. Comey’s help reflect a level of detail documented while
events are still fresh in the writer’s mind. In court, they can serve to
corroborate testimony.
Interactions
with people who may in some way figure into an investigation —
regardless of what may be discussed — could be pertinent to an inquiry
and later serve as evidence.
“Memos give you the flexibility to report facts as well as atmospheric impressions,” Ms. Anderson said.
“It
goes to his credibility,” she said of Mr. Comey. “The fact that he
wrote it when it happened lends weight to it. It’s not like he wrote
something last weekend and backdated it.”
Mr. Comey’s memos were not the standard forms that F.B.I. agents use to
summarize the facts of interviews they conduct, called FD-302s, or 302s
in bureau parlance. They were a more informal way to document not just
the facts of an interaction but also personal impressions and analysis
to help put those facts into context.
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