Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign blasted FBI director James Comey on Monday for what it called a “jaw-dropping” double standard when it comes to the renewed probe into Clinton’s emails.
Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook cited reports that Comey had opposed going public with details of an FBI investigation into Russian meddling in the presidential race because it would be too close to Election Day.
“Director Comey ensured that the FBI would not be part of letting the American people know that the Kremlin was behind a direct effort to undermine our democracy,” Mook said in a call with reporters on Monday.
I am calling on Director Comey to immediately explain this incongruence and apply the same standard to Donald Trump’s associates as he has applied to Hillary Clinton’s.
Robby Mook, Clinton campaign manager
“It’s impossible to view this as anything less than a blatant double standard,” he said, adding that it “completely defies all logic.”
By using vague language in his letter to congressional leaders just 11 days before the election, Comey gave GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump an opening to “wildly speculate and lie” about the FBI’s probe into emails related to Clinton’s case, while keeping silent about investigations into Trump campaign advisers’ connections to Russian actors, Mook said.
“It is not fair for him to stay silent about investigations into election-related hacks,” Clinton campaign press secretary Brian Fallon added. “If he believes that the Russians are behind it, he should say so.”
Instead, the FBI director has “set a standard for narrating a play-by-play for matters involving Hillary Clinton” that was not being applied to matters related to Trump, Fallon said.
Responding to questions from reporters, Fallon added that the Democratic campaign was confident the newest FBI probe would not reveal anything new beyond the finding of the investigation that the agency closed in July.