The former attorney general under George W. Bush said Loretta Lynch made the Department of Justice “an arm of the Clinton campaign” by instructing then-FBI Director James Comey to mislead the public about the Clinton email investigation.
“What makes it egregious is the fact — and I think it’s obvious that it is a fact — that the attorney general of the United States was adjusting the way the department talked about its business so as to coincide with the way the Clinton campaign talked about that business,” Michael Mukasey said in an interview with Newsmax on Friday. (RELATED: Lynch Successfully Pressured Comey To Mislead Public Using Clinton Campaign’s ‘Inaccurate’ Talking Points)
“In other words, it made the Department of Justice essentially an arm of the Clinton campaign,” added Mukasey, who served as the attorney general from 2007 until 2009. “That is a betrayal of the department and of its independence to illustrate that clearly that the attorney general was essentially in the tank for Secretary Clinton.”
Comey testified on Thursday that Lynch successfully pressured him into using the Clinton campaign’s spin on the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state.
Lynch told Comey to call the investigation a “matter” rather than an “investigation,” Comey said. When he asked Lynch why, he said, she dodged the question, saying: “Just call it a matter.”
Comey emphasized that the order, “gave the impression that the attorney general [Lynch] was looking to align the way we talked about our work with the way the political campaign was describing the same activity, which was inaccurate.”
Comey said he complied with Lynch’s directive to use the “inaccurate” terminology because it “wasn’t a hill worth dying on.”
WATCH COMEY DISCUSS FORMER AG LORETTA LYNCH:
The former FBI director cited Lynch’s order as well as her private tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton as the reason why he took the unusual step of holding a press conference to announce the results of the Clinton email investigation. (RELATED: Why Did Bill Clinton And Loretta Lynch Meet On Her Airplane In Phoenix?)
