Fired FBI director says Obama attorney general tried to minimize email server case
By Jim Stinson; LifeZette:
The Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee got the former director of the FBI to admit in testimony Thursday that a top Democrat tried to influence and downplay a major investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email practices in 2016.
Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the Intel Committee chairman, raised the subject of former FBI Director James Comey’s most infamous actions — how and when he handled public statements on the investigation into the Democratic nominee for president’s private email server.
The FBI was tasked with investigating Clinton use of a private server to run her State Department email traffic. The arrangement was a serious violation of federal policy on handling classified information and may have been a violation of federal law.
As the investigation grew, Clinton felt the attention was weighing down her campaign for president. It was late June 2016. Clinton was close to nomination by the Democratic National Convention, and her first joint campaign appearance with President Barack Obama was approaching.
Then on June 27, former President Bill Clinton met with then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch on the tarmac of the Phoenix airport. It is still not clear what was discussed, but on Thursday, Comey admitted that Lynch had tried to get Comey to downplay the Clinton email investigation.
On July 5, Comey held his infamous press conference, in which he laid out a compelling case to prosecute Hillary Clinton, but then said he would not recommend charges. Comey has said he decided to hold an unprecedented public news conference because of the tarmac meeting.
“The decision to publicly roll out with your results on the email, was your decision influenced by the attorney general’s tarmac meeting with the former President, Bill Clinton?” Burr asked.
“Yes, in an ultimately conclusive way, that was the thing that capped it for me,” Comey said. “That I had to do something separately to protect the credibility of the investigation, which meant both the FBI and Justice Department.”
But then Comey admitted there were other things that bothered him.
“Probably the only other consideration that I guess I can talk about in an open setting is that at one point the attorney general [Lynch] had directed me not to call it an ‘investigation’ but instead to call it a ‘matter,’ which confused me and concerned me,” said Comey.
Comey later told Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) that Lynch insisted on calling the “open criminal investigation” a “matter.”
Comey said he decided it was not a hill worth dying on, and told the press later it was a matter. Comey said he knew the media would not buy the Lynch spin.
In the end, the press reported it was an investigation.
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