Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director from Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, claims former FBI Director James Comey espouses a “very dangerous attitude” and muses about how a female FBI director might have saved Clinton from losing the 2016 election.
In a review of Comey’s new tell-all memoir, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, Palmieri wrote that Comey’s “actions and book reveal is a tendency toward a corrupting belief that his ‘higher loyalty’ — which lifted him above partisan politics — somehow bestowed upon him the right to take actions that were well beyond his role as FBI director.”
This “very dangerous attitude” is what “resulted in him taking unprecedented actions in the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, with devastating consequences,” Palmieiri added in her piece for Politico Magazine.
Palmieri, like Clinton, have heaped blame on Comey for contributing to Clinton’s 2016 election failure for how he handled the FBI investigation into the former secretary of state’s unauthorized email server.
Palmieri said Comey’s July 5, 2016 press conference, in which he first closed the FBI inquiry, was his “original sin.” He declared that no criminal charges were warranted, but gave Clinton a slap on the wrist, calling her and her aides’ behavior as “extremely careless.”
Less than two weeks before the election, Comey wrote to Congress that the FBI was reopening the inquiry after finding a new series of emails on a laptop belonging to Anthony Weiner, the husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin. On this matter, Palmieri said Comey’s went “beyond the scope of his role.”
Palmieri also suggested that a female FBI director may not have been so ego-driven.
“A friend of mine who is a Trump supporter told me I should call this piece ‘Dear Madam Director,’ because a female FBI director would never have made the same decisions he did. I think there’s some truth to that. His ego clearly got in the way,” she wrote.
During his publicity tour, Comey said, “I don’t know” in regards to whether he cost Clinton the election. He has conceded that he thought Clinton would win, however, and in his book said he would “do some things differently” in his handling of the email investigation if given a second chance.
Palmeiri, who has her own book coming out, wrote that the Clinton campaign was “foolish” not to have engaged in a more forceful defense in the email controversy.
