Clinton camp blasts FBI chief over 'blatant double standard'
The campaign manager of Hillary Clinton has accused FBI Director James Comey of recklessly engaging in a “blatant double standard” following his agency’s announcement to reopen an investigation into new emails sent by the Democratic presidential candidate on a private email server during her time as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.
"Director Comey has made it known that he felt that he owed the information about the emails to Congress, but he has no problem depriving information to the American people, Sen. Harry Reid and to House members who have been inquiring about Russia's attacks on our elections and our democracy," Robby Mook told reporters on Monday.
"It is impossible to view this as anything less than a blatant double standard,” he added.
The comments came after a CNBC report claimed that Comey was reluctant to publicly accuse Russia of interfering in the US presidential election, but was comfortable with disclosing that his bureau was examining some 650,000 emails recovered from a laptop belonging to Anthony Weiner, a former US congressman who was married to Clinton’s top aide, Huma Abedin, until their divorce in late August.
The campaign manager said the very idea of being cautious about blaming Russia, but reopening the probe into Clinton’s emails shows that Comey was more concerned about a foreign state actor than the Democratic presidential nominee.
He also accused the FBI chief of sending the letter to Congress while ignoring protocol as well as the "hallmarks of a good investigation."
"Director Comey is the one who opened this door, he is the one who broke protocol when he provided information on an investigation before it concluded," Mook said. "He needs to immediately explain this incongruence and apply the same standard to Donald Trump’s associates as he as applied to Hillary Clinton."
According to American writer and journalist Stephen Lendman, the FBI decided to reopen the investigation into Clinton’s emails only after it realized that Republican nominee Donald Trump was winning with a landslide in early voting.
Lendman believes that the FBI was involved in “rigging the game” for Clinton from the beginning and its latest move was a face-saving measure for the Democratic presidential candidate.
“The FBI did the rigging itself last July saying despite all this evidence against Hillary Clinton – there are mountains of it – they said they couldn’t find anything that was incriminating,” he told Press TV on Monday.
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