Just hours before fired former FBI Director James Comey’s interview with ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos was set to air Sunday, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch released a lengthy statement slamming Comey, saying he “never” raised any concerns regarding the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email scandal.
“I have known James Comey almost 30 years,” she wrote. “Throughout his time as Director we spoke regularly about some of the most sensitive issues in law enforcement and national security. If he had any concerns regarding the email investigation, classified or not, he had ample opportunities to raise them with me both privately and in meetings. He never did.”
Comey claimed he reopened the investigation in an effort to legitimize her presidency if she won in 2016.
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“I was operating in a world where Hillary Clinton was going to beat Donald Trump,” he said. “And so I’m sure that it was a factor. That she’s going to be elected President and if I hide this from the American people, she’ll be illegitimate the moment she’s elected, the moment this comes out.”
Comey suggests he released the letter saying he was reopening the investigation into Hillary in October 2017 because it was his assumption she was going to win.
"If I hide this…she’ll be illegitimate the moment she’s elected, the moment this comes out." pic.twitter.com/muKuEDJ790
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) April 15, 2018
Here’s her full statement, as posted by the Daily Wire:
Over almost two decades as a federal prosecutor I have aggressively prosecuted drug dealers, violent gangs, mobsters, and money launderers, upheld the civil rights of all Americans, and fought corruption of all types – whether by elected officials from both sides of the aisle or within organizations like FIFA. Through it all I have never hesitated to make the hard decisions, guided by the Department of Justice’s core principles or integrity, independence and above all, always doing the right thing.
The Justice Department’s handling of the Clinton email investigation under my leadership was no exception. It was led by a team of non-partisan career prosecutors whose integrity cannot be overstated and whom I trusted to assess the facts and make a recommendation – one that I ultimately accepted because I thought the evidence and law warranted it.
Everyone who works for the Department of Justice has an obligation to protect the confidentiality and integrity of the work of the department. That is why, at the critical early stages of this case, I followed the department’s long-standing policy of neither confirming nor denying the fact of an ongoing investigation. This policy both pre-dates my tenure in the Department and will live on long after the current debate is over. It neither misleads nor misinforms but instead both protects investigations and guarantees equal treatment of those under scrutiny, whether well-known or unknown. Any suggestion that I invoked this bed rock policy for any other reason is simply false.
Throughout the process I did what I always do: rise above politics and uphold the law. At no time did I ever discuss any aspect of the investigation with anyone from the Clinton campaign or the DNC.
I have known James Comey almost 30 years. Throughout his time as Director we spoke regularly about some of the most sensitive issues in law enforcement and national security. If he had any concerns regarding the email investigation, classified or not, he had ample opportunities to raise them with me both privately and in meetings. He never did.
Let’s repeat that last line: “He never did.”
Let that sink in.
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