WASHINGTON — Fired FBI Director James Comey began writing his now-famous statement clearing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of potential misconduct regarding her handling of State Department emails before his agency had interviewed key witnesses, two powerful Republican senators alleged Thursday.
Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Thursday after reviewing transcripts of interviews by the Office of Special Counsel of two FBI officials close to Comey. Grassley chairs the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee and Graham is a senior committee member.
“It appears that in April or early May of 2016, Mr. Comey had already decided he would issue a statement exonerating Secretary Clinton,” the senators said in a letter sent Wednesday to Wray.
“That was long before FBI agents finished their work. Mr. Comey even circulated an early draft statement to select members of senior FBI leadership. The outcome of an investigation should not be prejudged while FBI agents are still hard at work trying to gather the facts.”
The senators, in a statement Thursday, described the interviews as “heavily redacted,” but their statement said it was still possible to see that “they indicate that Comey began drafting a statement to announce the conclusion of the Clinton email investigation” before “up to 17 key witnesses including former Secretary Clinton and several of her closest aides” had been interviewed.
“Conclusion first, fact-gathering second — that’s no way to run an investigation. The FBI should be held to a higher standard than that, especially in a matter of such great public interest and controversy,” Grassley and Graham wrote.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said Republicans were not the only people with questions about Comey’s actions.
“As I have said before, I have serious concerns with James Comey’s decision to break department protocol by releasing derogatory investigative information about an uncharged person, and the cascade of errors that ensued,” he said.
Comey announced on July 5, 2016, that the FBI would not be pursuing criminal charges against Clinton for her use of a private server with state department emails.
“Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case,” Comey said at the time.
Comey then also said: “Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”
The announcement was an important political event, coming just before the parties’ conventions. Clinton had clinched the Democratic presidential nomination, but was facing resurgent Republicans who were about to nominate Donald Trump.
Trump fired Comey on May 9. Comey at the time was the very public face of an investigation into the Trump campaign and possible collusion with Russia during the 2016 campaign. After firing Comey, Trump would say it was a decision in part based on “the Russia thing.”
The Russia probe is now being led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller III.
