My post yesterday was about FBI Director James Comey being questioned that day by a Senate committee hearing that was televised. Mr. Comey explained publicly for the first time the reasoning for his decision to inform Congress on October 28th, eleven days before the presidential election, that he had reopened the investigation into Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s use of her emails. Yet he had not informed Congress or the public that several weeks before that he had started an investigation into possible collusion between the Donald Trump campaign and Russian government operatives to try to get Trump elected.
Three Democratic members of that committee objected strongly to this decision by Comey. They even reprimanded him. Dianne Feinstein asked Director Comey if, because of this mishap on his part, the American public could in the future trust the FBI and him in particular. Her reason was that she not only thought his decision was unwise, but her and other members questioned if Mr. Comey had made this decision in order to try to get Trump elected.
In Mrs. Clinton’s new book, Shattered, she alleges that Comey’s acknowledgement to Congress about reopening Clinton’s email investigation and other matters cost her the election. In an interview Tuesday she said more pointedly, “The reason, I believe, we lost [the election] were the intervening events in the last ten days. If the election had been on October 27th, I’d be your president.”
During his testimony, Comey said he had discussed the matter with other FBI officials before deciding to inform Congress by means of a letter about reopening the Clinton investigation. Comey said when he expressed what he was thinking of doing, one official questioned him about the possibility of it affecting the election outcome. Comey said his response was that if he did not do so, that in itself would have been political whereas he was trying to be apolitical. As I watched the hearings, I did not hear Comey say that this official advised him not to say anything about reopening the investigation.
Today, the New York Times reported that in the FBI, “senior officials urged him [Director Comey] not to tell Congress” of reopening the Clinton investigation for fear that it would indeed affect the election–negatively for Clinton and thus positively for Trump. In my opinion, that makes Director Comey’s debacle worse than I thought.
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