A “good friend” of former FBI Director James Comey’s said he is “very much” looking forward to what the upcoming Justice Department inspector general report on the Clinton email investigation has to say about former Attorney General Loretta Lynch — the former Obama administration official now engaged in a war of words with Comey.
Benjamin Wittes, editor in chief of Lawfare, wrote at length Wednesday about the backstory of Comey’s new tell-all memoir, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership. While he said Comey isn’t without blame for how he handled the FBI’s investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s unauthorized private email server, he said the consideration of other decision-makers, “particularly Lynch,” paint a full picture for those people who believe the probe was a “train wreck” that cost Clinton the 2016 presidential election.
Noting the “selective outrage” against Comey for announcing the case was reopened less than two weeks before the election, Wittes said, “Lynch was a compromised figure with respect to the emails ‘matter.'”
The mention of a “matter” is a reference to Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee last year, in which he said Lynch requested he minimize Clinton’s email investigation, urging him to call it a “matter” instead of an “investigation.”
Wittes described how Lynch appeared to be “only too happy to have Comey fall on this particular grenade,” in reference to how, according to Comey’s book, Lynch told him, “Try to look beat up” about the renewed email probe.
“Comey told me this story shortly after it happened, and for a lot of reasons, it has bothered me ever since. Partly because of it, I very much look forward to how the forthcoming inspector general’s report on the Clinton email investigation treats the attorney general,” Wittes wrote.
Wittes also decried how Lynch and her deputy, Sally Yates, appeared to finesse the situation so that Comey remained the face of the investigation, even though Lynch never recused herself, even after her controversial tarmac meeting with former President Bill Clinton.
“Yet Lynch refused to recuse herself, even as she also said she would accept the recommendations of her investigative team — a kind of non-recusal recusal that all but guaranteed that the investigation would not close credibly,” Wittes wrote. “Her deputy, Sally Yates, did not persuade her to step aside. In October, when Comey decided to inform Congress of new investigative steps, both women contented themselves with staff-level messages objecting.”
In response to Comey’s book, Lynch issued a statement effectively condemning the former FBI head for not raising his concerns with her sooner. “I have known James Comey almost 30 years,” Lynch wrote in a statement Sunday. “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.”
To this, Wittes wrote: “Lynch’s statement issued the other day addresses substantially none of the questions a reasonable person might have about her own handling of the Clinton email matter.”
