With Donald Trump, there is sometimes so much material to provoke outrage that you worry something important is bound to be overlooked. This is the case with the recently released Comey memos, which detail his shocking conversations with the new president.



Sure, the focus should be on Trump, his maladroit and possibly illegal attempts to strong-arm Comey to drop his investigation of then national security adviser Michael Flynn; his heavy-handed demands for loyalty; his many references, some blacked out, to Vladimir Putin; and even his lurid references to Russian prostitutes. But the part of the memos that most caught my attention and greatly troubles me is the one that reflects a blatant disrespect for freedom of the press by both Trump and Comey, who is no martyr.

In a memo dated 14 February 2017, Comey says Trump complained during an Oval Office meeting about classified information being leaked to the media. Comey writes that he said he “agreed very much” that it was “terrible” such information was being leaked, and added that he was “eager to find leakers and would like to nail one to the door as a message”. Comey adds that Trump “wrapped up” the conversation “by returning to the issue of finding leakers”.

“I said something about the value of putting a head on a pike as a message,” Comey writes. “[Trump] replied by saying it may involve putting reporters in jail. ‘They spend a couple days in jail, make a new friend, and they are ready to talk.’”

Then, as a grand finale, Comey “laughed as I walked to the door Reince Priebus had opened”.

This exchange chilled my blood. Jailing journalists is no laughing matter and the image of these two supremely powerful officials sharing a good chuckle over the prospect of it is simply nauseating.

I visited a painfully thin Judith Miller when she was in an Alexandria prison. It was no laughing matter

It shows a shared indifference to the first amendment and ignorance, even, over why we have a first amendment. The founders of the United States were deathly afraid of overcentralized government power and saw the press as the bulwark against despotism and corruption. Thomas Jefferson famously said that if he had to choose between a world with government and no newspapers or one with newspapers and no government, he’d choose the latter. The Comey memo confirms his good judgment.

As Washington bureau chief, managing editor and executive editor of the New York Times, I lived through eight criminal leak investigations of the press initiated by the George W Bush and Barack Obama administrations. Together, these were almost triple the number of leak investigations – probes into how classified material leaked to the press – than had been pursued by all other administrations combined. The cases involved the reporting of stories that were indubitably in the public interest, scoops about intrusive government eavesdropping, poor monitoring of nuclear programs and international hacking, among other subjects.

The publication of these stories conveyed important information to the public, information the people had a right to know and should have known. In a democracy, government requires the consent of the governed. In order to give consent, the public must be informed. And who does the public depend on to bring them vital information? The press.

Comey’s callous remark about putting a head on a pike shows him for the man he is. Trump’s comment about jailed reporters finding a “new friend” in prison is vile and beneath contempt.

Using coercion to make reporters reveal their sources by issuing subpoenas and forcing them to testify in criminal leak investigations has also proven counter-productive, for the most part. After spending weeks in prison in 2005, Times reporter Judith Miller did finally name her source in the Valerie Plame case, the recently pardoned White House aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby. I visited a painfully thin Ms Miller when she was in an Alexandria prison. It was no laughing matter.

I was Jim Risen’s boss for the many years that he fought, successfully it turned out, a subpoena in another criminal leak case. Thank goodness that case ended before matters turned dire, but Risen said over and over again that he too would have gone to jail rather than be forced to name a source. I saw how years of legal threats wore on his face and distracted him from the important journalism he did at the Times. The Risen case began with Bush but was also, inexplicably, pursued by Obama. It was sickening and unnecessary.

As an editor, I always understood that the government needs to protect some secrets. We are citizens, too, and no one wants to harm our national security. But the US government has been on an over-classification binge for decades and its penchant for secrecy is far too extreme. During my career as an editor, I found that in many cases the reason the government did not want the Times to publish stories based on classified information was more to avoid embarrassment than protecting the national welfare.

In his memo, James Comey shows himself to be the overzealous and hubristic prosecutor he often was.

Donald Trump? He always manages to exceed our low expectations.