Former FBI Director James Comey said Monday there is “zero chance” Hillary Clinton will be prosecuted for her emails.
“There is zero chance, zero chance, on the facts in the Hillary Clinton case, that she would be prosecuted,” Comey said during a town hall lecture in Sarasota, Fla. “You are out of your mind if you don’t think the FBI wanted to make a case if we could. The facts weren’t there. Period. Full stop.”
As FBI director, Comey oversaw his agency’s inquiry into the unauthorized email server Clinton used while serving as secretary of state.
In a stunning public admission in July 2016, Comey announced his agency would not recommend criminal charges against anyone involved with Clinton’s private email network, even after finding that Clinton’s team was “extremely careless” in handling classified emails.
Less than two weeks before the presidential election — in which Clinton was the Democratic nominee — Comey once again shook the political world when he announced the FBI was reopening its investigation into Clinton’s email server. The FBI closed the inquiry again just days before the election took place. This controversial move has prompted Clinton and her allies to blame Comey, in part, for contributing to her 2016 defeat.
Trump has long attacked Clinton for the email controversy. During the 2016 campaign the “Lock her up” became a mainstay at his rallies and during one of their debates Trump told Clinton she would “be in jail” if he was elected president.
In August, Trump accused the FBI of ignoring “tens of thousands of Crooked Hillary Emails, many of which are REALLY BAD.” He also warned that at some point he “may have to get involved!”
That Twitter storm followed a RealClearInvestigations report on how a “technical glitch” thwarted the ability of FBI technicians to compare Clinton’s emails that were in the FBI’s possession with new emails discovered on the laptop of Anthony Weiner, who is married to top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. According to RealClearInvestigations, the FBI directly examined 3,077 of the 694,000 emails for classified information.
A New York Times report from November said Trump earlier in the year went so far as to tell the White House counsel he wanted to direct the Justice Department to prosecute his political enemies, including Clinton and Comey. But Don McGahn, who was the White House lawyer at the time, told the president that he had no authority to order the prosecution of Clinton, and Comey and warned Trump that doing so could lead to his possible impeachment.
Comey was fired in Mary 2017 by Trump, prompting Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to appoint former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel in charge of the federal Russian interference investigation.
At the event in Sarasota, Comey trashed his former boss, calling him “one of the worst listeners as a leader,” according to Fox 13.
He also brought up his claim that Trump asked him to take a loyalty pledge — a conversation which Trump denies took place. “An effective leader never asks for loyalty,” Comey said to applause according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
Comey, who has been on a book tour for his life memoir A Higher Loyalty, during which he has repeatedly condemned Trump, lamented his status as a “semi-employed celebrity.”
“I thought the easiest thing for me to do would be to be quiet. I don’t love my life as a semi-employed celebrity, but I would be a coward if I didn’t speak. I’m really worried about the impact this president has on our values that we all have in common,” he said.
