James Comey is suddenly a major player in the final act of the presidential campaign.
His decision to notify Congress Friday of newly discovered emails potentially related to the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private server shook the campaign and came over the objections from the nation’s top law enforcement officials.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch and her deputy, Sally Yates, disagreed with Comey outlining how the FBI was dealing the review of emails found on a computer shared by Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin, a top Clinton aide, according to law enforcement officials familiar with the discussion.
Comey notified Congress anyway, going against what an agency official said was longstanding Justice Department and FBI practice to not comment publicly about politically-sensitive investigations within 60 days of an election. But Comey was clearly balancing the need to uphold his bureau’s commitment to transparency and fairness against the massive political ramifications of his decision.
Comey acknowledged that balance in a letter to bureau employees.
“We don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed,” Comey wrote. “I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record.
“At the same time, however, given that we don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails, I don’t want to create a misleading impression. In trying to strike that balance, in a brief letter and in the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood, but I wanted you to hear directly from me about it,” he continued.
FBI officials also feared the likelihood that information would leak even if they didn’t notify Congress and lead to accusations that Comey was covering up to protect Clinton.
Comey, once a registered Republican, has been criticized repeatedly — especially by GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump — for not recommending prosecution of Clinton over the summer at the conclusion of the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s use of the server.
In announcing his decision at the time, Comey said “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring charges in the case, leading to criticism that he was usurping the role of the Justice Department, which reviews FBI findings to make decisions on whether to bring charges.
In that instance, he didn’t provide prior notice to Justice officials.
Controversy was already swirling around the July decision after Lynch met privately with former President Bill Clinton on the tarmac of a Phoenix airport. The resulting accusations of impropriety led Lynch to publicly announce that she would accept the recommendations of the FBI and federal prosecutors in the case.
This week, insiders acknowledged that the tarmac meeting has hurt the Justice Department’s ability to manage the fallout from the newest developments. One Justice official said the tarmac incident didn’t affect Lynch’s objections to Comey’s notifications to Congress.
Back in July, the Clinton campaign praised Comey’s decision — and didn’t resist taking a jab at Republicans who questioned the lawmakers’ expertise.
“The bottom line is the career officials who handled this case have determined that no further action is appropriate here, no matter how much Republicans may seek to continue politicizing this,” Brian Fallon, Clinton’s press secretary, said over the summer.
Those words felt distant on Saturday.
“It is now incumbent on Director Comey to immediately provide the American people with more information than what is contained in his letter,” Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, told reporters Saturday. “He owes the public the full story or else he shouldn’t have cracked open this door in the first place.”