Government lawyers have asked a federal judge to deny requests from various media outlets and government watchdog groups to make public memos by ousted FBI Director James Comey, which detail his meetings with President Trump.

According to a report by CNN, lawyers asked the judge for permission to argue against the disclosure of the memos behind closed doors, saying the disclosure of the memos could compromise ongoing investigations into Russian election-meddling.

The lawyers said an unidentified "FBI employee" would only testify behind closed doors as to why the Comey memos could not be released to the public.

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"Publicly explaining in any greater detail why the release of the Comey Memos would be detrimental to the pending investigation would itself disclose law enforcement sensitive information that could interfere with the pending investigation," the government said in a filing obtained by CNN on Friday.

Comey revealed the existence of the memos shortly after Trump fired him in May, when he asked a friend to leak one such memo to The New York Times.

The former FBI director had been spearheading the probe into Russian election meddling before his firing.

Comey publicly disclosed the memos for the first time during a testimony before Congress in June, in which he described an instance when Trump asked him to let go of the investigation into ousted National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

He said he has given copies of the memo to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian election meddling.