When I was a New York federal prosecutor, in the same Manhattan office where FBI Director James B. Comey served under then US Attorney Rudolph Giuliani, we did not ever say publicly that we had an “ongoing investigation,” because we wanted to protect the investigation from disclosure, it was also against Justice Department guidelines, and we did not want to expose anyone to ridicule and humiliation who might never be charged or prosecuted.

Nor would we release information about a public official in an imminent election, less than two weeks away in the presidential election at hand, and we would never have “suggested” there might be wrongdoing when we had no evidence whatsoever of wrongdoing – and you don’t have any evidence – if you haven’t even asked a federal judge to issue a warrant to review the “suspect” information.

When Director Comey wrote the U.S. Congress, telling them that he had information from an “unrelated” investigation, he admitted he didn’t know if it “contained classified information.”

Nor could he say he had anything “important.”

Director Comey wrote Congress to tell them the FBI had to “assess their importance.”

And Director Comey couldn’t say that what he had was “significant.”  Director Comey confessed that “the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant.”

Director Comey felt he had to explain himself to FBI personnel, as what he was doing was unprecedented; he wrote, “We don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations.”

Director Comey thus did what was extraordinary and he knew it. Continue reading →