Former FBI Director James Comey’s “first misstep" was his 2016 news conference announcing there should be no prosecution of Hillary Clinton — making a decision based on politics rather than “investigative judgments,” Sen. Susan Collins said Sunday.
In an interview with ABC News’ “This Week,” the Maine Republican Comey “did something very unusual.”
“To me, the first misstep that James Comey made, after a very distinguished career, was not 11 days before the election,” he said, referring to the October 2016 decision to reopen the email investigation of Clinton.
“It was back in the summer of 2016…the press conference in which he did something very unusual,” she said. “As an investigator, he announced — and thus violated the Department of Justice’s own guidelines — the decision not to indict Hillary Clinton and then excoriated her for her handling of classified information. That’s not an appropriate role for the FBI director. And it seems to me that unfortunately Mr. Comey stopped making investigative judgments and instead was making political assessments.”
Regarding the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller, Collins expressed support for legislation to protect him against being fired mid-investigation.
“It would not hurt if we passed legislation to send a message to the White House that we want the investigation to continue,” he said. “But the fact is that the president is never going to sign that legislation. And there are some legitimate constitutional concerns about it. But having the discussion in Congress helps send a very strong message that we do not want Mr. Mueller’s investigation interfered with in any way.”
Collins noted ex-Britsh spy Christopher Steele won't cooperate with Senate intel panel in its own investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election — making Mueller’s own investigation even more important.
“Mr. Steele has refused to cooperate with the Senate Intelligence Committee, so we’ve not been able to interview him,” she said. “It will have to be Bob Mueller who gets to the bottom of some of the allegations in the report that Mr. Steele compiled.”
She also endorsed the military strikes against Syria for its continued use of chemical weapons against its citizens — but called for “an overall comprehensive strategy for dealing wit Syria.”
“It’s a very difficult issue, but I don’t think we can stand idly by after the Syrian’s violated the 2013 agreement that the Russian’s negotiated that was supposed to put an end to all of their chemical weapons,” she said. “Clearly, that did not happen.”
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