BYRON YORK: If Comey talks to sell books, why not to Congress?

Comey’s promised openness is particularly tantalizing for some congressional investigators who have been trying unsuccessfully to get Comey to answer questions in the months since he was fired. The FBI has treated the Comey memos as if they are classified at the super-duper highest levels — they’re not, with some not being classified at all — and forbidden note-taking by the few lawmakers who have been allowed to see them. And as far as Comey sitting down with, say, the Senate Judiciary Committee as it investigates aspects of the Trump-Russia affair? Forget it.

On May 17, 2017, after Comey was fired, the Judiciary Committee asked him to testify about the circumstances of his firing and his dealings with the Trump and Obama administrations in the Trump-Russia and Clinton email investigations. Comey declined. (He agreed to just one session, with the Senate Intelligence Committee, which had different sorts of questions.)

On May 26, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top two Republicans and top two Democrats — Chairman Chuck Grassley, ranking minority Dianne Feinstein, plus Lindsey Graham and Sheldon Whitehouse — wrote Comey again. “Given our role in considering the nomination of the next FBI director, the still unanswered questions from your last oversight hearing, and our role in oversight of the Justice Department and the FBI, your testimony will be essential to our constitutional duties,” they wrote. Specifically, the lawmakers wanted to know as much as they could find out about Comey’s memos.

On June 1, Comey sent a brief response. “I have received the letter,” he wrote the committee. “As a private citizen now, I respectfully decline to answer the questions. Wishing you the best, Jim Comey.”

Comey has not exchanged a word, spoken or written, with the committee since then.

He’s a hack. Or maybe an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks.