>>>The notes Comey wrote were not classified.
>
>But leaking them was illegal and for the third time: classification is controlled by POTUS. Not by Comey, not by Jake Tapper and not by you.
>
>FBI policy clearly states that if in doubt, documents should be treated as classified. For Comey or anybody else to issue a contrary declaration, they must rely on delegated authority from POTUS.
>
>Your version requires that Comey believed he had delegated authority from POTUS to betray POTUS.
>
>After that absurdity, your version then has to ignore the FBI requirement for seeking disclosure approval 30 days in advance- a provision designed to prevent precisely this sort of scenario. Not even Jake Tapper can pretend Comey would have gotten approval.
>
>So Comey broke the law hoping to damage his boss and while you or I may perceive that the material he leaked wasn't classified, the only person who can say for sure is his target.
>

I am tracking your arguments to a great extend. That said: one of the problems aggravated by fake news insurgence is the exponential doubt cast on making statements about incidents more than a couple of days ago - no need to invoke Cavanaugh time stretches.

Getting the story out - while going against established procedure ([down-]labeled this way as to not pretend to be lawyering...) - is about the only certain way to avoid tampering,suppression or doubt on "unchanged by memory or compound interest".

Publishing a ciphered and blockchained memo could avoid most of the above, but lead to the often stupid flick scenarios of "follow the single USB stick" or "Decipher code hidden/lost to amnesia" scenarios...

As a freshly fired director I'd probably create a couple of USB copies - each injected / coupled with a "watermarking difference" into the to-be-ciphered text and scatter that and to trustees / notaries during next days, so suppressing all copies would be doubtful. Leaks could be traced - I personally think Comey felt himself driven to leak as security measure by the people he connected to directly after being axed, less as a political manouver.

Wishful thinking based on speculation without evidence - I know ;-))

Not enough knowledge to speculate if he could have used a gov agency to report any misgivings he had about the whole enchilada and make the leak not into the open but into a gov setting like the investigation started soon after his firing. But my guess is he could have set up himself to be questioned before a commitee and himself to be sworn to tell the truth - and then recur to his notes.