WASHINGTON — The FBI on Tuesday corrected the sworn testimony of Director James Comey, who last week told Congress that a top aide to Hillary Clinton had sent “hundreds and thousands” of emails to her husband’s laptop, including some with classified information. President Trump fired Comey on Tuesday afternoon.
In fact, the FBI said in a two-page letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, only “a small number” of the thousands of emails found on the laptop had been forwarded there while most had simply been backed up from electronic devices. Most of the email chains on the laptop containing classified information were not the result of forwarding, the FBI said.
The apparent misstatements came during an hours-long hearing in which Comey was criticized for public comments during the election season, including his assertion during a July news conference at FBI headquarters that Clinton and her aides had been “extremely careless” in their handling of classified information.
He spoke at length at that hearing about Huma Abedin, a top Clinton aide, as he defended his decision to alert Congress 11 days before the election about the discovery of thousands of emails on a laptop belonging to former Rep. Anthony Weiner. The congressman, whose laptop was searched by the FBI as part of a sexting investigation, and Abedin separated last year.