Appearing Friday on Bloomberg Markets, Fired FBI Director James Comey claimed the notion that the bureau possessed a “cabal” aimed at preventing President Donald Trump from winning the 2016 election is a “dumb lie.”
A partial transcript is as follows:
MATTHEWS MILLER: There was a lot of concern generated by some texts by a couple of FBI agents [Peter Strzok and Lisa Page], some that said Trump is an idiot or that Hillary should win one-hundred million to one. You talk a lot about how you’re supposed to leave your politics at the door when you go to work at the FBI. Would you have fired those agents if you had seen those texts?
JAMES COMEY: I would have removed them from any investigation that touched anything political immediately. Then I would have referred them for discipline. The director doesn’t fire people. There’s a process to go through. Serious misconduct in my view. I never saw any indication of bias and the inspector general looked at there work afterward and didn’t see any bias affecting the investigation, but if I would have found out about it, there would have been consequences.
MILLER: Where those two agents involved in the deliberations to make the July 5th announcement on Hillary Clinton’s email investigation?
COMEY: Yes. Actually, it’s one agent and one junior lawyer. They were having a relationship and texting with each other on our phones to conceal it from their families, I think. But both were involved in the decisions to make the press conference and then the agent drafted my letter to Congress on October 28th. The notion that he was part of some Deep State anti-Trump effort doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
MILLER: You make a point also that a lot of FBI agents at least enter the institution leaning to the right. The president still claims that this sort of witch hunt and some of the moves you made, Comey one and Comey three I think he would say in terms of your communications on the Clinton email scandal, to indict that you were in some way supporting Clinton with those disclosures. What do you think about the Barr investigation into that counterintelligence investigation?
COMEY: The notion that we were part of some anti-Trump cabal is a lie and it’s actually kind of a dumb lie… We were investigating people associated with the Trump campaign before the election and we didn’t tell anybody… The investigation that the attoney general has order now, I don’t know why he’s investigating, but if you’re going to investigation, investigate. Just gather the facts and share them with the American people.