I have serious questions about James Comey's credibility in this regard.
18 USC § 4 reads: "Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."
This is called misprision of a felony.
Concealing knowledge of a felony and failure to report is, itself, a felony.
First, if the former FBI director was taking notes of meetings where the President had allegedly told him to drop a criminal investigation (i.e., to obstruct justice), then why did Comey wait until now to reveal this? In fact, by keeping his notes private until now, he was concealing them. Right? (That is the first element of misprision -- concealment.)
Second, if Comey did not reveal this information "as soon as possible ... to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States," then that means only one of two things ---
(A) Comey did not think the President had committed any crime, or
(B) Comey was committing a crime, himself, (i.e. misprision of a felony) in order to have something to hold over the President.
On the other hand, if he did, in fact, reveal this to a judge, or to the Attorney General, or to any other person in authority, then by revealing this information to the press, Comey may be impeding an active investigation.
So if these memos actually do exist, this does not look good for Comey. Which makes me wonder if they do, in fact, exist.
If I were Comey, I would certainly lawyer up and plead the 5th if he is called to testify before Congress.
