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Article snippet: WASHINGTON — James B. Comey’s testimony on Thursday that he orchestrated the disclosure of his account of his discussions with President Trump has raised questions about the ethical and legal implications of his actions. “My judgment was, I needed to get that out into the public square,” said Mr. Comey, whom Mr. Trump fired last month as F.B.I. director. “And so I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. Didn’t do it myself, for a variety of reasons. But I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel. And so I asked a close friend of mine to do it.” The friend, Daniel Richman, a Columbia Law School professor, gave the information to a journalist at The New York Times. Mr. Trump and his defenders have responded to Mr. Comey’s testimony by denouncing him as a leaker. What is a leak? The word “leak” has no official legal definition. But the term usually refers to the act of providing confidential information to the public in a surreptitious way and without official authorization. That is a neutral description, but Mr. Trump on Friday used the term in a way that was clearly intended to carry pejorative connotations: “He’s a leaker,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Comey at a news conference. Gabriel Schoenfeld — a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute, who published a book in 2010 that criticized the publication of leaked national security information, but has praised leaks about the Trump ad... Link to the full article to read more