FBI director under pressure to explain Hillary bombshell
The Hill :
Six weeks since Hillary Clinton’s surprise loss in the presidential election, FBI Director James Comey is under pressure to justify the bombshell announcement that rocked the final days of the campaign.
Democrats, still smarting from the Nov. 8 loss, have lashed out at Comey as the architect of Clinton’s defeat.
“James Comey cost her the election,” former president Bill Clinton has said.
Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has accused the once-unassailable director of being a “Republican operative” who helped Donald Trump win the White House. Now, speculation has begun to swirl that Comey will publicly address the charges of partisanship. Several former FBI officials told The Hill they had heard Comey is now weighing a possible press appearance after Trump is inaugurated
on Jan. 20 to tell his side of the story. The FBI declined to comment for this report. Eleven days before the election, Comey shocked the political world with a letter informing Congress that investigators had discovered new emails that could be relevant to its probe, then considered completed, of Clinton’s private email server while she was secretary of State.
Comey for months passionately defended the integrity of the probe – first against Republicans when he declined to recommend charges against Clinton in the first place, and more recently against Democrats and internal critics who said that his eleventh-hour disclosure unfairly damaged Clinton. The 6-foot-8 former prosecutor has made very few media appearances over the course of his career – he did sit for a “60 Minutes” interview in 2014 – but he has been forced into the harsh glare of camera lights throughout the past year.
He was thrust into the spotlight after Attorney General Loretta Lynch sparked outrage by meeting with Bill Clinton before the conclusion of the investigation this summer – a meeting they described as social – forcing her to announce that she would abide by whatever recommendation Comey made in the case.
Comey was then extraordinarily public with the FBI’s reasoning in declining to recommend charges against Clinton, holding a detailed press conference announcing its conclusions and later appearing before Congress in an open setting multiple times. But he has been notably silent since his Oct. 28 letter to Congress.
Democrats, appalled by the fallout from his letter to Congress, have argued that Comey’s unprecedented disclosure in the final days leading up to the election was a massive break from bureau policy that blunted Clinton’s path to the White House. They say that although the FBI announced two days before the election that the new emails would not change its conclusions in Clinton’s case, the damage was done.
Six weeks since Hillary Clinton’s surprise loss in the presidential election, FBI Director James Comey is under pressure to justify the bombshell announcement that rocked the final days of the campaign.
Democrats, still smarting from the Nov. 8 loss, have lashed out at Comey as the architect of Clinton’s defeat.
“James Comey cost her the election,” former president Bill Clinton has said.
Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has accused the once-unassailable director of being a “Republican operative” who helped Donald Trump win the White House. Now, speculation has begun to swirl that Comey will publicly address the charges of partisanship. Several former FBI officials told The Hill they had heard Comey is now weighing a possible press appearance after Trump is inaugurated
on Jan. 20 to tell his side of the story. The FBI declined to comment for this report. Eleven days before the election, Comey shocked the political world with a letter informing Congress that investigators had discovered new emails that could be relevant to its probe, then considered completed, of Clinton’s private email server while she was secretary of State.
Comey for months passionately defended the integrity of the probe – first against Republicans when he declined to recommend charges against Clinton in the first place, and more recently against Democrats and internal critics who said that his eleventh-hour disclosure unfairly damaged Clinton. The 6-foot-8 former prosecutor has made very few media appearances over the course of his career – he did sit for a “60 Minutes” interview in 2014 – but he has been forced into the harsh glare of camera lights throughout the past year.
He was thrust into the spotlight after Attorney General Loretta Lynch sparked outrage by meeting with Bill Clinton before the conclusion of the investigation this summer – a meeting they described as social – forcing her to announce that she would abide by whatever recommendation Comey made in the case.
Comey was then extraordinarily public with the FBI’s reasoning in declining to recommend charges against Clinton, holding a detailed press conference announcing its conclusions and later appearing before Congress in an open setting multiple times. But he has been notably silent since his Oct. 28 letter to Congress.
Democrats, appalled by the fallout from his letter to Congress, have argued that Comey’s unprecedented disclosure in the final days leading up to the election was a massive break from bureau policy that blunted Clinton’s path to the White House. They say that although the FBI announced two days before the election that the new emails would not change its conclusions in Clinton’s case, the damage was done.
