Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey is under attack for blurring or crossing ethical lines, and reversing his decisions since he announced he had reopened a probe into Hillary Clinton’s actions, two former whistleblowers told Sputnik.
“I think it is because Comey has crossed an ethical line,” former CIA analyst and whistleblower John Kiriakou said regarding the FBI director’s decision to re-open the Clinton emails investigation after being accused of prematurely closing it.
Over the past week, Comey has been under increasing attack for announcing the FBI had reopened its probe into Clinton’s alleged abuse of emails and related issues following the discovery of a gigantic stash of 650,000 emails.
The emails were found on the laptop of Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin, who is expected to be her White House chief of staff if Clinton is elected to be the next US president on Tuesday.
After revealing classified information to ABC News in 2007, Kiriakou was sentenced to 30 months in prison, of which he served 23 months between February 2013 and February 3, 2015.
“It is unethical to release investigative information on a person who has not been indicted or arrested. And that’s exactly what he [Comey] has done,” Kiriakou said.
National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower William Binney told Sputnik he did not believe Comey was trying to maintain a new cover up.
Binney suggested that the FBI chief wanted to keep evidence under wraps to ensure it would not be compromised if he brought it before a grand jury to seek an indictment against Clinton.
“My guess is that they are trying to preserve evidence for submission to the courts. If they release it to the public, it would be difficult to use in criminal prosecution in a court of law,” he explained.
Ohio Northern University Assistant History Professor Robert Waters said Comey’s decisions to first close down and then reopen the Clinton investigation seemed to reveal an indecisive leader trying to do the right thing.
“I thought the fix was in when Comey did his swerve and explained why Hillary [Clinton] should be indicted then announced he wasn’t indicting her… [But] I revised my opinion and thought he was… weak for not threatening to resign, but… he at least tried to get the evidence out there with his list of Hillary’s sins,” Waters said.
Comey’s decision to make public the discovery of the 650,000 emails appeared to confirm this assessment, Waters said.
