The president's outside counsel plans on filing a complaint against former FBI Director James Comey with the Justice Department Inspector General and the Senate judiciary committee, two sources familiar with the situation told CNN.
President Donald Trump's lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, wrote in a statement after Comey's bombshell testimony Thursday that the fired FBI director had made unauthorized leaks that required further investigating.
[salon_video id="14777825"]"We will leave it the appropriate authorities to determine whether this leaks should be investigated along with all those others being investigated," Kasowitz wrote.
The lawyer apparently realized he had to file a complaint in order to initiate a probe.
CNN's Joe Johns and Dan Merica reported that the Justice Department does not have much control over former employees such as Comey. The department can investigate, but the worst outcome for Comey would be a note in the former FBI director's file should he ever apply for a job in the Justice Department again.
LawFare contributor Benjamin Wittes said Thursday that Comey and Dan Richm, the friend whom he leaked his memos to, did not do anything illegal.
"Dan is an exceptionally fine person," Wittes wrote in a LawFare live blog about the testimony. "He and Jim have been close friends for many years. There is nothing illegal, improper or dishonorable about what he did in this instance."
"He and Comey are now acknowledging his hand in the story in question and the role he played. So it's not even an anonymous leak in any sense that a normal person would understand the term," he added.
In an appearance on "Fox and Friends" on Friday, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski called Comey the "Deep State" and a "Washington leaker."
"He is a leaker. He is a Washington leaker. He is the Deep State," Lewandowski said. "He is everything that is wrong with Washington."
"My judgment was I needed to get that out into the public square. So I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter," Comey said.
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