FBI director James Comey on Wednesday described Russia as “the greatest threat” to US democracy, but defended his decision to keep secret an investigation into the Trump campaign’s links to Moscow despite revealing details of an inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified emails. Giving evidence to a hearing of the Senate judiciary committee, Comey offered his most extensive explanation to date of the thinking behind his different approaches to the two investigations. Clinton claimed on Tuesday that Comey’s 28 October letter to leading members of Congress about new emails that had been found damaged voter perceptions of her and cost her the election. “If the election had been on 27 October, I would be your president,” the former Democratic presidential candidate said. The discovery of the emails ultimately made no difference to the FBI decision not to press charges over the use of the private server.
Asked about Clinton’s claim that his letter could have swung the vote, Comey said: “This was terrible. It makes me mildly nauseous to think we might have had some impact on the election. But honestly, I wouldn’t change the decision.”
The FBI director said that the discovery in October of a new batch classified emails put him in a near impossible dilemma. He said he had to make a choice between “speak or conceal”: to speak would have been “really bad”, he said; to conceal would have been “catastrophic”. So he chose to speak out.
“One of my junior lawyers asked me: should you consider what you do might help elect Trump as president? I said: not for a moment,” Comey said, arguing that political considerations should never be a factor in such decisions.
Full Article: James Comey defends Clinton email decision but warns of threat from Russia | US news | The Guardian.