CNN sues Justice Department for copies of Comey memos

WASHINGTON – CNN is suing the Justice Department for copies of fired FBI Director James Comey’s personal memos on his interactions with President Donald Trump.

Comey prepared multiple contemporaneous memos documenting conversations with Trump that made him uneasy in the weeks before his May 9 firing.

One memo recounts a February request from Trump, during a private meeting in the Oval Office, that Comey end an investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

Details from some memos were made public in news media accounts in the days after he was fired, and Comey himself detailed his conversations with Trump at a Senate hearing last week.

The lawsuit said CNN asked for the memos on May 16 in a Freedom of Information Act request, but said the FBI had not turned them over yet even though the Justice Department’s Office of Information had granted a request for expedited processing.

In its complaint, CNN argues that the “urgency and national public importance” in releasing those memos is “unquestionable.”

“As of the date of this filing, the FBI has not provided any substantive response to CNN,” says the lawsuit, which is dated Thursday. “It has not produced any of the requested records.”

The Associated Press has requested the same records. The FBI has responded by saying that it has received that request.