NYT: Comey Tried to Shield the F.B.I. From Politics. Then He Shaped an Election.

Comey Tried to Shield the
F.B.I. From Politics. Then
He Shaped an Election.
As the F.B.I. investigated Hillary Clinton and the Trump
campaign, James B. Comey tried to keep the bureau out
of politics but plunged it into the center of a bitter election.

..............


Fearing the backlash that would come if it were revealed after the election that the F.B.I. had been investigating the next president and had kept it a secret, Mr. Comey sent a letter informing Congress that the case was reopened.


“In my mind at the time, Clinton is likely to win,” (ex-senior FBI official Michael B. Steinbach) said. “It’s pretty apparent. So what happens after the election, in November or December? How do we say to the American public: ‘Hey, we found some things that might be problematic. But we didn’t tell you about it before you voted’? The damage to our organization would have been irreparable.”


At the Justice Department, career prosecutors and political appointees privately criticized not only Mr. Comey for sending the letter but also Ms. Lynch and Ms. Yates for not stopping him. Many saw the letter as the logical result of years of not reining him in.


At their second meeting, Mr. Comey argued that it would look too political for the F.B.I. to comment so close to the election, according to several people in attendance. Officials in the room felt whiplashed. Two months earlier, Mr. Comey had been willing to put his name on a newspaper article; now he was refusing to sign on to an official assessment of the intelligence community.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/22/us/politics/james-comey-election.html?_r=1
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/4/22/1655333/-New-York-Times-FBI-Director-Comey-blew-up-election-in-effort-to-shield-FBI-from-criticism

Link to tweet

Compare and contrast: Why Comey didn't disclose Trump/Russia probe vs. why he did disclose new Clinton emails