FBI Confirms: Comey Drafted Statement months before interviewing HRC

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The release confirms information that Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Senator Lindsey Graham, a member of that committee, disclosed in a letter to new FBI Director Christopher Wray in August. The senators wrote that they had learned from interview transcripts released by the Office of the Special Counsel that Comey had drafted the statement in advance. (That office is separate from the efforts of Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller.) The Senate Judiciary Committee is reviewing Comey's conduct as director and President Donald Trump's firing him in May.

FBI and Justice Department analysts are divided on whether Comey violated rules or broke with tradition by drafting the statement prior to interviewing Clinton and other witnesses. “To me, this is so far out of bounds it’s not even in the stadium,” Chris Swecker, who retired from the FBI in 2006 as assistant director for the criminal investigative division and acting executive assistant director for law enforcement services, previously told Newsweek. “That is just not how things operate.... It’s built in our DNA not to prejudge investigations, particularly from the top.”

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