Former FBI Director James Comey confirmed on Thursday that the controversial June 2016 meeting between former President Bill Clinton and then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch influenced his decision-making in the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation.
Senator Richard Burr, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, asked the former federal official, “Let me go back, if I can very briefly, to the decision to publicly go out with your results on the e-mail. Was your decision influenced by the attorney general’s tarmac meeting with the former president, Bill Clinton?”
Comey repeated his answer from a May 2017 hearing: “Yes, in a ultimately-conclusive way, that was the thing that capped it for me — that I had to do something separately to protect the credibility of the investigation— which meant both the FBI and the Justice Department.”
Senator Burr followed up by wondering, “Were there other things that contributed to that that you can describe in an open session?”
The former FBI director paused for a moment and replied, “There were other things that contributed to that. One significant item I can’t I know the committee has been briefed on. There’s been some public accounts of it which are nonsense. But I understand the committee has been briefed on the classified facts.”
Comey then added, “Probably the only other consideration that I guess I can talk about in a open setting is at one point, the attorney general had directed me not to call it an investigation; but instead, to call it a matter — which confused me and concerned me. But that was one of the bricks in the load that led me to conclude I have to step away from the department if we were to close this case credibly.”
You can watch the relevant portion of Senator Burr’s questioning of former Director Comey above, via CNN.
[image via screengrab]