Dem Rep Himes: ‘Credible Argument’ Comey’s Actions ‘Handed’ Trump the Presidency

On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “At This Hour” conducted before the release of the DOJ IG’s report on the Clinton email investigation, Representative Jim Himes (D-CT) said that there is “a credible argument” that former FBI Director James Comey’s actions “handed the presidency to Donald Trump.”

Himes said that regardless of what the forthcoming DOJ IG report actually says, “the president is going to say something very dangerous for the Department of Justice and the FBI, which is that this shows bias, it shows that, you know, they can’t do their work, etc., etc.”

He continued, “Now look, those of us who are not, you know, obsessed with the president’s Twitter feed or his misstatements, which seem to come at the rate of a half dozen a day will be treated, I think, to something really interesting, which is, did Jim Comey make the right decision when he went public with the results of the investigation? Remember, at the very same time that Jim Comey goes public with the Clinton investigation and castigates her and reopens it right before the election, there is an investigation of the Trump campaign going on, of which he makes no mention. So, though the president will use this to show bias in the FBI, if you look at the big picture, you can say to yourself, wait a minute, whether what Jim Comey did was right or wrong, and I actually think he probably violated procedure in ways I think were probably wrong, there is a credible argument that his actions handed the presidency to Donald Trump.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett