FBI Dir. Comey Testifies Before Senate Panel
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WASHINGTON (CBSMiami) - FBI Director James Comey was in the hot seat Wednesday as he faced tough questions from both Republican and Democratic Senators about his agency's investigations into Hillary Clinton's private email server and possible Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
During his appearance before a Senate committee, Comey was also grilled about his personal involvement in leaked information concerning those investigations.
"Director Comey, have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation," asked Sen. Chuck Grassley, (R) Iowa.
"Never," replied Comey.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, (D) California, wanted to know why the director felt it was necessary to announce 11 days before a presidential election that they were opening an investigation into Hillary Clinton.
"Why didn't you just do the investigation as you would normally with no public announcement," she asked.
Look, this was terrible. It makes me mildly nauseous to think we might have had some impact on the election. But honestly, it wouldn't change the decision. Everybody who disagrees with the decision has to come back to Oct. 28th with me and stare at this and tell me what you would do. Would you speak or would you conceal? And I could be wrong, but we honestly made a decision between those two choices, that even in hindsight and this has been one of the world's most painful experiences - I would make the same decision. I would not conceal that on Oct. 28th from the Congress," replied Comey.
"It's very hard. You took an enormous gamble. The gamble was that there was something there that would invalidate her candidacy. And there wasn't," said Feinstein.
It's not just lawmakers who are upset with Comey, Clinton herself has said he's one of the reasons lost the election to Donald Trump.
"I was on the way to winning until a combination of Jim Comey's letter on October 28th and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me but got scared off," said Clinton.
Comey's testimony comes after President Donald Trump fired off series of overnight tweets, blasting former rival Hillary Clinton for comments where she blamed the FBI director, Russia, and herself for losing the presidential race.
FBI Director Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds! The phony...
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2017
...Trump/Russia story was an excuse used by the Democrats as justification for losing the election. Perhaps Trump just ran a great campaign?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2017
Next week, the Russian probe will take center stage once again. Former acting-Attorney General Sally Yates is expected to testify before Congress that she believed former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was 'compromised' and that she warned the White House about his contacts with the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Flynn was later fired because he misled the Vice Mike President about his ties to Russia.