During today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on FBI oversight, FBI Director James Comey provided a very telling and revealing moment when it came to why he decided to hold a press conference last summer regarding his recommendation not to charge Hillary Clinton with anything related to her private email server. At that presser, while recommending no charges, Comey was highly critical of the former Secretary of State over her handling of classified information.
“What I struggled with in the spring of last year was, ‘How do we credibly complete an investigation of Hillary Clinton’s e-mails if we conclude there’s no case there?’ The normal way to do it would be to have the Department of Justice announce it,” the FBI chief explained.
However, as Comey noted, Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s meeting with Bill Clinton on a tarmac last June changed everything, and made it to where he felt it was necessary to be upfront and candid with the public.
“And then the capper was — and I’m not picking on the Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who I like very much — but her meeting with President Clinton on that airplane was the capper for me,” he exclaimed.
Comey added that the “best chance” for the system was if he stepped away and told the American public this is “what the FBI did” and “here’s what we found and think.”
“That offered us the best chance of the American people believing in the system that it was done in a credible way,” he said.
Comey would go on to discuss why he sent a letter in late October regarding the Clinton email probe, saying the choice was either to “speak or conceal.”
Watch the clip above, via CNN.
[image via screengrab]
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