WASHINGTON: FBI Director James Comey told Congress that revealing the reopening of the Hillary Clinton e-mail probe just before Election Day came down to a painful, complicated choice between 鈥渞eally bad鈥� and 鈥渃atastrophic鈥� options.
He said he鈥檇 felt 鈥渕ildly nauseous鈥� to think he might have tipped the election outcome but in hindsight would change nothing.
鈥淚 would make the same decision,鈥� Comey declared during a lengthy hearing Wednesday in which Democratic senators grilled him on the seeming inconsistency between the Clinton disclosure 11 days before the election and his silence about the bureau鈥檚 investigation into possible contacts between Russia and Donald Trump鈥檚 presidential campaign.
Comey, offering an impassioned public defense of how he handled the election-year issues, insisted that the FBI鈥檚 actions in both investigations were consistent. He told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the FBI cannot take into account how it might benefit or harm politicians.
鈥淚 can鈥檛 consider for a second whose political futures will be affected and in what way,鈥� Comey told the senators. 鈥淲e have to ask ourselves what is the right thing to do and then do that thing.鈥�
Persistent questions from senators, and Comey鈥檚 testimony, made clear that the FBI director鈥檚 decisions of last summer and fall involving both the Trump and Clinton campaigns continue to roil national politics and produce lingering second-guessing and lingering bitterness about whether the investigations were handled evenly.
On Tuesday, Clinton partly attributed her loss to Comey鈥檚 disclosure to Congress less than two weeks before Election Day that the e-mail investigation would be revisited. Trump disagreed, tweeting that Comey actually 鈥渨as the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds!鈥�
Wednesday鈥檚 hearing yielded Comey鈥檚 most extensive explanation by far for the decision-making process, including his unusual July 2016 news conference in which he announced the FBI鈥檚 decision not to recommend charges for Clinton and his notification to Congress months later.
Speaking at times with a raised voice, Comey said he faced two difficult decisions when agents told him in October that they had found e-mails potentially connected to the Clinton case on a laptop belonging to former Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., who separated last year from top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. Weiner鈥檚 laptop was seized as part of a sexting investigation involving a teenage girl.
Comey said he knew it would be unorthodox to alert Congress to that discovery 11 days before Americans picked a new president. But while that option was 鈥渞eally bad,鈥� he said he figured it鈥檇 be worse to hide the discovery from lawmakers, especially when he had testified under oath that the investigation had been concluded and had promised to advise lawmakers if it needed to be reopened.
Plus, he said, his agents weren鈥檛 optimistic that they could finish reviewing the thousands of e-mails on the laptop before the election, and could not rule out that they would find evidence of 鈥渂ad intent.鈥�
鈥淐oncealing in my view would be catastrophic, not just to the FBI, but well beyond,鈥� Comey said, in explaining his options. 鈥淎nd honestly, as between really bad and catastrophic, I said to my team we got to walk into the world of really bad. I鈥檝e got to tell Congress that we鈥檙e restarting this, not in some frivolous way, in a hugely significant way.鈥�
The FBI obtained a warrant to search the laptop and sifted through thousands of e-mails, Comey said, including ones with classified information that had been forwarded to the laptop by Abedin to be printed out. Though officials found many new e-mails, officials again found insufficient evidence that anyone had intended to break the law, Comey said.
He also said he had not intended to harm the Clinton campaign with his public announcement in July that Clinton and her aides had been 鈥渆xtremely careless鈥� in their handling of classified information though there was no evidence to support criminal charges.
He said he had been concerned for months about how to publicly report the investigation鈥檚 findings, and because of Justice Department actions including an impromptu airplane meeting between Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch he had concluded he needed to make the announcement himself.
鈥淢y goal was to say what is true. What did we do, what did we find, what do we think about it? And I tried to be as complete and fair鈥� as possible, Comey said.
He also denied that he had treated disclosures about investigations into Clinton鈥檚 e-mails differently than potential connections between the Trump campaign and Russia.
The FBI began that counterintelligence investigation in late July, but he did not disclose that until a hearing in March, after Trump had been elected and taken office. That prompted Democrats to complain of a double-standard in the way the investigations were treated. But Comey said that other than confirming the Clinton investigation existed, he did not discuss it until after it concluded last year. And he said the FBI does not expect to have anything to say about the Russia investigation until that one was over.
He declined Wednesday to discuss that investigation or to say which Americans the FBI was looking at.
He strongly criticized WikiLeaks, the secret-spilling website that published e-mails from Democratic accounts that intelligence officials say were hacked by Russia. He likened the site to 鈥渋ntelligence porn鈥� and said it pushed out information to damage the US.