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A person close to
the legal team said on Friday Trump's chief personal lawyer,
Marc Kasowitz, expected to file a complaint against Comey early
this week to the Justice Department's inspector general's
office.
“I think it’s going to take a little longer,” Mark Corallo, a
spokesman for the legal team, said on Tuesday. “It may well slip
to next week.”
Corallo also said the complaint may be filed to the Justice
Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility rather than
its Office of Inspector General.
Trump's lawyers are sifting through additional information and
preparing at least one submission, and a meeting scheduled for
Wednesday may clarify the proper avenue for the complaint, he
said.
The president has responded to Comey's testimony on Thursday to
the Senate Intelligence Committee by denying that he tried to
interfere with an FBI investigation, and calling the former FBI
chief a leaker.
In his testimony, Comey said that after Trump fired him last
month he gave a memo he wrote about a meeting with the president
to a friend in order to have its contents disclosed to the
media.
In a statement following the testimony, Kasowitz accused Comey
of leaking "privileged" information. Some legal experts have
said the information disclosed was not privileged because Trump
himself had already publicly discussed their conversations.
A former high-ranking Justice Department official familiar with
how the inspector general handles complaints said any filing by
Kasowitz would most likely be treated as part of an existing
investigation into Comey's handling of the Hillary Clinton email
investigation. “This could end up as a footnote in a longer
report,” the former official said.
Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington
University, said he believes the Comey disclosure violated FBI
regulations but said the Office of Professional Responsibility
may be reluctant to look into an disciplinary allegation against
a former rather than current employee.
"The challenge for the Trump team is to find an office that will
get to the merits," said Turley.
John Lavinsky, a spokesman for the Inspector General, declined
to comment.
(Reporting by Karen Freifeld; Editing by Anthony Lin and Frances
Kerry)
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