‘But My Emails’: Hillary Clinton Fumes at Comey’s Gmail Use

Failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton mocked fired FBI Director James Comey Thursday after the Justice Department Inspector General report revealed he, too, used a personal email account to conduct official business.

“But my emails,” Clinton’s account posted, responding to Politico’s Kyle Cheney reporting on Comey’s private Gmail account.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz found Comey used a personal email account in five separate instances.

According to the Justice Department’s report:

On November 8, 2016, Comey forwarded to his personal email account from his unclassified FBI account a proposed post-election message for all FBI employees that was entitled “Midyear thoughts.” This document summarized Comey’s reasoning for notifying Congress about the reactivation of the Midyear investigation. In late December 2016, Comey forwarded to his personal email account from his unclassified FBI account multiple drafts of a proposed year-end message to FBI employees. On December 30, 2016, Comey forwarded to his personal email account from his unclassified FBI account proposed responses to two requests for information from the Office of Special Counsel.

On January 6, 2017, Comey forwarded to his personal email account from his unclassified FBI account an email from Rybicki to Kortan highlighting language that needed to be corrected in a Wall Street Journal article. In mid-March 2017, Comey sent from his personal email account to his own and Rybicki’s unclassified FBI accounts multiple drafts of Comey’s proposed opening statement for his March 20, 2017 testimony to the House Intelligence Committee.

Comey admitted to investigators that he used a Gmail account and private mobile device to conduct FBI business, pointing out that he only did so with unclassified information.

“Because it was incidental and I was always making sure that the work got forwarded to the government account to either my own account or Rybicki, so I wasn’t worried from a record-keeping perspective and it was, because there will always be a copy of it in the FBI system and I wasn’t doing classified work there, so I wasn’t concerned about that,” Comey told watchdog officials.

The FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s email use was a hallmark of the 2016 presidential election. Comey famously notified Congress 11 days prior to the election that the FBI reopened its investigation into Clinton’s email use, only to reaffirm the bureau’s findings in July exonerating her of any criminal wrongdoing.

Comey suggested in a memo drafted in May 2016 that while Clinton and her aides may have broken federal law, a jury would have a difficult time proving intent.

“Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statute proscribing gross negligence in the handling of classified information and of the statute proscribing misdemeanor mishandling, my judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case,” Comey wrote.