Bureau boss is a good guy in a bad spot

He’s no Ken Starr. As much as Hillary Clinton would like to paint FBI Director James Comey as the second coming of the Whitewater investigator, she is way off base. Comey is an honorable person. He’s about as straight arrow a guy you’ll find. He’s just in an untenable position.

Last week, Comey told Congress the FBI was revisiting the Hillary Clinton email issue in light of “the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation.”

According to reports, those emails appeared on the laptop of disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner, who is married to top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

If Clinton is allowing classified material to be sent to her aide on a computer that is shared by her aide and her husband — Carlos Danger — that’s a problem. Weiner is as toxic as you can get.

If there are thousands of emails and a good number of them are classified, it goes far beyond what Comey once described as “careless.”

If Comey finds emails with classified material on Weiner’s computer, this may rise to a level that is beyond gross negligence.

But I don’t think Comey had a choice. He’s caught in the middle. He’s so afraid there might be something there and he doesn’t want to be accused of a coverup. He’s taken the position that full transparency is the best option. I don’t fault him for that.

Comey had already been under fire for letting Clinton off the hook, giving her a pass after Gen. David Petraeus was convicted for state secrets. The distinction, though, is that Petraeus directly transferred classified information to a third party — his girlfriend.

What disturbs me is that we’re back to 1998, when Starr was investigating former President Bill Clinton. Back then, Starr’s investigation of a land deal and the suicide of a White House counsel morphed into a probe of an alleged marital affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Just as it was then, the Clinton machine is in full force now, trying to turn Comey into Ken Starr.

Comey is about as impeccable a public servant as you will find. I really hope they cease and desist from trying to destroy Comey. There’s no political motive on his part. He’s not a partisan person.

Simon is a criminal defense lawyer and a former assistant Brooklyn U.S. attorney.