FBI Director James Comey knew he’d take heat for releasing a cache of Hillary Clinton emails from the FBI investigation late on a holiday weekend Friday. He’s been around the political block and envisioned he’d be accused of “burying” the potential story by releasing during a slow news time. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan obliged Comey’s worry by lashing out that the FBI was playing politics, instead of law enforcement — a brutal accusation. It’s what Comey expected. But the director replied that the FBI doesn’t “play games.” The materials were released when they were ready — and he’d have likely been fired on for holding them longer too.
“I almost ordered the material held until Tuesday because I knew we would take all kinds of grief for releasing it before a holiday weekend, but my judgment was that we had promised transparency and it would be game-playing to withhold it from the public just to avoid folks saying stuff about us,” Comey said in a statement.
