I always want to respect the institution of Congress, i'd love it if they didn't want me to testify, but if they want me to testify and we can do it in a responsible way, I will abide it.

James Comey

Categorized in : Top News

In this country you're innocent until there's evidence, and so we have pursued oversight until the evidence comes in. And on the unmasking, there is evidence coming in, and we're getting it.

It's going to be interesting to see the direction that the presid... by James Comey

It's going to be interesting to see the direction that the president takes now.

When I see her, I see her in an orange jumpsuit, I'm sorry, or at... by James Comey

When I see her, I see her in an orange jumpsuit, I'm sorry, or at least a striped one.

A number of things had gone on which I can't talk about yet, that made me worry that the department leadership could not credibly complete the investigation and decline prosecution without grievous damage to the American people's confidence in the justice system, and then the capper was -- and I'm not picking on the attorney general, Loretta Lynch, who I like very much -- but her meeting with President Clinton on that airplane was the capper for me, and I then said, you know what, the department cannot, by itself, credibly end this.

Leaks are always a problem, but especially in the last three-to-six months, where there is a leak of classified information, the FBI -- if it's our information -- makes a referral to the Department of Justice.

Look, this is terrible. It makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had some impact on the election, but honestly, it wouldn't change the decision.

To my mind it crosses a line when it moves from being about trying to educate a public and instead just becomes about intelligence porn, frankly, just pushing out information about sources and methods without regard to interest, without regard to the First Amendment values that normally underlie press reporting, and simply becomes a conduit for the Russian intelligence services or some other adversary of the United States.

It was a hard choice, I still believe in retrospect the right choice, i can't consider for a second whose political fortunes will be affected.

In my view, a huge portion of WikiLeaks' activities has nothing to do with legitimate newsgathering, informing the public and commenting on important public controversies, but is simply about releasing classified information to damage the US, people sometimes get cynical about journalists -- American journalists do not do that. They will almost always call us before they publish classified information and say, 'is there anything about this that is going to put lives in danger -- that is going to jeopardize government people, military people, or innocent civilians anywhere in the world?'.

I don't know for sure, but I think that was a fairly easy judgment for the community, he -- Putin -- hated Secretary Clinton so much that the flip side of that coin was he had a clear preference for the person running against the person he hated so much.

That includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts.

They wanted to hurt our democracy, hurt her, help him. I think all three we were confident in at least as early as December.

Yes. I understood the question to be about the report itself, the unclassified intelligence assessment doesn't discuss the issue of US person coordination with the Russians.

Correct, the counterintelligence investigation is the FBI's busin... by James Comey

Correct, the counterintelligence investigation is the FBI's business.

Because it is an open ongoing investigation and is classified, I cannot say more about what we are doing and whose conduct we are examining, i know that is extremely frustrating to some folks. I hope you and the American people can understand.

Some folks may want to make comparisons to past instances where the Department of Justice and the FBI have spoken about the details of some investigations, but please keep in mind that those involved the details of completed investigations, our ability to share details with the Congress and the American people is limited when those investigations are still open, which I hope makes sense.

I have no information that supports those tweets. by James Comey

I have no information that supports those tweets.

It was not our intention to say that today. by James Comey

It was not our intention to say that today.

I cannot comment on that. by James Comey

I cannot comment on that.

I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.