Comey was not comfortable at all with sharing these memos with reporters which is why he did not do so.
He hired his buddy to receive the memos who in turn distributed them to the reporters.
Yes, Comey did leak classified information
<snip>
The problem for Comey was Memo 2, which he sent to Richman and to Comey's two other lawyers, Patrick Fitzgerald and David Kelley. Of the memos Comey shared with his attorneys, Memo 2 contained six words that the FBI determined in June 2017 to be classified at the 'CONFIDENTIAL' level," the inspector general report said. In a footnote, the report added: "Four of the six words in Memo 2 that the FBI determined were classified were the names of foreign countries being discussed by the president....The president referenced the countries when he conveyed his personal views on the relative importance of promptly returning telephone calls from the leadership of the named countries."
Comey, who as director was something known as an OCA, or Original Classification Authority, had the power to classify material on his own. He did not classify Memo 2 at the time he wrote it, but an FBI team later determined it should be classified. When the document was released to the public, portions were blacked out to reflect that classification.
Another indication of the material's status as classified was that the the FBI took extensive steps to remove it from the computers and devices of the three lawyers, Richman, Fitzgerald, and Kelley, who received it.
After top bureau officials determined that there was classified material in what Comey had sent, in June 2017 the FBI dispatched agents to Richman's home to take away his desktop computer. Nine days later, they returned the computer "after taking steps to permanently remove the memos from it," the report said.
In later months, FBI agents "met with the individuals and IT professionals associated with [Fitzgerald's and Kelley's] accounts, and confirmed that the emails and copies of the memos were deleted from the computer systems that had received them."
It was a lot of work. "The FBI wouldn't have wasted time deleting copies of Memo 2 from Comey's lawyers' email accounts if it didn't contain classified information," a source familiar with the interactions between the FBI, the inspector general's office, and oversight committees on the Hill about the classified clean-up efforts told me.
"There is no doubt Comey leaked that classified memo to his counsel, and oversight committees have known about the clean-up operation since it first occurred."
Comey's defenders can argue that just a few words on Memo 2 were classified. They can argue, as Comey apparently believes, that even those words should not have been classified.
But the fact is, they were classified, and Comey sent them to unauthorized recipients, and after the FBI learned about it, the bureau took steps to clean up what it called a "spill" of classified material.
So it's true that Comey did not leak classified information to members of the media.
But he still leaked classified information.
<snip>
