Lynch’s request raised Comey’s suspicions

WASHINGTON — Former FBI Director James Comey said Thursday that he was unsettled last year by a request from the previous attorney general that could have been construed as enlisting him in an effort to play down the gravity of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

Comey said Attorney General Loretta Lynch asked him to refer to the Clinton probe as a “matter” rather than an “investigation.”

“It gave the impression that the attorney general was looking to align the way we talked about our work with the way the campaign” was describing it,” Comey said, referring to Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. “That gave me a queasy feeling.”

But Comey said he decided not to challenge her because it was “not a hill worth dying on.” He did use the word “matter” in congressional testimony.

A spokesman for Lynch did not respond to a request for comment, but a former U.S. official close to Lynch challenged Comey’s description.

“Former Director Comey requested a meeting in September of 2015 in which he asked the AG and other Department officials for guidance on how to discuss the investigation at his upcoming testimony before Congress,” said the official, who provided a statement on the condition of anonymity. “The primary question before the group was not how to refer to the investigation, but whether to confirm its existence at all … The AG told Director Comey that she had used the term ‘matter’ in response to press inquiries, in order to ensure that she neither confirmed nor denied the investigation, in accordance with longstanding Justice Department and FBI policy.”