COMEY SPURNS JUSTICE DEPT. BY TELLING CONGRESS ABOUT EMAILS
FBI Director James B. Comey’s controversial decision to alert Congress to a new batch of emails related to the agency’s probe of Hillary Clinton’s private email server was made against the wishes of the Justice Department, which urged him not to because of the shockwaves it would send through the presidential election, officials say.
The Justice Department advised the FBI against telling Congress about the new developments because “it would be inconsistent with department policy that directs against investigative actions that could be seen as affecting an election or helping a particular candidate,” a government official told The Associated Press yesterday.
But Comey, who had come under fire from both parties over the bureau’s handling of the yearlong investigation into Clinton’s email account as secretary of state, decided independently to send a letter to Congress announcing that the FBI discovered the new emails while pursuing a case related to the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin — disgraced former New York U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, who was allegedly sexting a 15-year-old North Carolina girl on a laptop he shared with his wife.
In the letter, the 55-year-old former Republican said the FBI would be reviewing whether the newly discovered emails contained classified information.
Donald Trump seized on the revelation that the DOJ wanted Comey to keep the new emails under wraps during campaign
stops yesterday in Golden, Colo., and Phoenix, Ariz.
“It’s reported today that the Department of Justice was fighting the FBI and that’s because the Department of Justice is trying so hard to protect Hillary,” Trump said to a chorus of boos from his supporters in Arizona, before suggesting that Attorney General Loretta Lynch was in on the cover-up.
“There are those — and I happen to be one of them — who think Hillary offered Loretta Lynch a reappointment as attorney general if Hillary was to become president — we don’t want that,” Trump said. “Perhaps that was what Bill Clinton was arranging when he met with Attorney General Lynch on her airplane on the tarmac on a very, very warm day right here in Arizona.”
Trump, who repeated his assertion that the email probe is “the biggest political scandal since Watergate,” said Clinton “has nobody to blame but herself.”
“Her criminal action was willful, deliberate, intentional and purposeful. Hillary set up an illegal server for the obvious purpose of shielding her criminal conduct from public disclosure and exposure,” Trump said. “She set up this illegal server knowing full well that her actions put our national security at risk and put the safety and security of your children and your families at risk. But she didn’t care. As long as she and Bill got the money, the safety of your family made absolutely no difference to her.”
Trump’s comments came as four senior Democratic senators urged the Justice Department and the FBI to promptly release more information about the new emails.
The letter, sent to Comey and Lynch by Sens. Benjamin Cardin of Maryland, Thomas Carper of Delaware, Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Dianne Feinstein of California, calls on the agencies to provide more detailed information by tomorrow about what investigative steps are being taken, the number of emails involved and what is being done to find out how many have already been reviewed as part of the federal probe of Clinton’s email server.