Libertarian vice-presidential candidate Bill Weld slammed FBI Director James Comey for announcing the discovery of emails on a laptop that could be connected to the Hillary Clinton email probe.
"It's a real mess, and it's a mess of his own making," said Weld during an appearance on CNN's "New Day."
Weld was the head of the Justice Department's criminal justice division during the last years of former President Ronald Reagan's presidency.
Comey was not required to make such an announcement, said Weld and "this is not a new development. This is not something that would require an update."
He rebuked speculation about what might be discovered in the emails. "If you don't know, keep your mouth shut. Don't speculate. He's forwarding a gossamer thread. 'This might be something. We don't know.'"
Comey and those who were behind the announcement are "totally off the reservation. Let's be honest. They're playing hit and run," Weld said.
Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate, has no way of knowing what evidence the officials have. "And they've said themselves they don't know it, so that just makes it all the more unreasonable to have waded into these waters in the first place," Weld said.
Host Alisyn Camerota asked Weld to speculate as to why Comey decided to make the announcement.
"I think he was concerned about criticism from Congress, if it later turned out, three months from now, one of those emails turned out to be relevant to his investigation," Weld said.
The FBI director did not break laws with his announcement, but if Comey continues to make announcements about the newly discovered emails, "somebody is going to have to step in," Weld continued.
"Attorney General Lynch is going to have to do what she doesn't want to do, which is order him to stand down," he added.
Donald Trump embraced Comey's announcement as more evidence against his opponent, saying, "We never thought we were going to say thank you to Anthony Weiner."
Weld said Trump's response reminded him of a scene in the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," in which villagers made outrageous arguments that a woman was a witch.
"The point of that skit in Monty Python was that those townspeople were ignorant and stupid, not that they were great."
Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings told CNN in a separate "New Day" segment that Comey "basically gave Donald Trump a softball to hit over the fence."
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