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By Kevin Daley

Former FBI Director James Comey acknowledged that he orchestrated the leak of a memorandum detailing his private interactions with President Donald Trump during testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Thursday morning.

“I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter,” Comey said. “I didn’t do it myself for a variety of reasons.”

He added that he did so in hopes his account might spur the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the Trump campaign’s contacts with elements of the Russian government, and any subsequent cover up.

The leak to the Times’ Michael Schmidt appears to have come by way of Daniel Richman, a Columbia Law School professor and close friend of the former director. The New Yorker describes Richman as Comey’s “unofficial media surrogate.” Comey told Sen. Collins that he transmitted the memos to the Times through a friend at Columbia Law School.

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