WEBVTT - James Comey Stands Firm 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:09.680 Hi Brian, Hi Katie, and hello everyone from Aspen. We 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:12.080 put in some miles for the pot this year, haven't we, Brian. 0:00:12.440 --> 0:00:14.840 We have. We were hardly back from our tapings in 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:18.799 London when the mountains and the greenery of Colorado beckoned us. 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:22.759 That's right. More specifically, the Aspen Ideas Festival came a calling, 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:25.599 and I love coming here. I've done it for several years. 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:28.960 Not only is the setting magnificent, but the conversations are 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:32.680 so stimulating. You feel much smarter when you leave here 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:36.160 than when you came. People like Steve Case talking about 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:41.240 his efforts to really expand the startup revolution in Middle America, 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:45.240 to John Carey, the former Secretary of State to Toronto, Burke, 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:47.680 who of course is the founder of the Me Too movement, 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:52.479 and everyone in between. It's really such a fun event. 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:55.920 And today we're bringing you one of those conversations because Katie, 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:59.440 you have the opportunity to sit down with James Comey. 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:01.200 And if you don't know who that is, you shouldn't 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:04.240 be listening to this podcast. That's not true. He's a 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:08.000 former director of the FBI who has been embroiled in 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:12.240 controversy now for about the past two years. Hillary Clinton 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:14.880 believes that he cost her the election. Many of people 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:17.760 agree with her on that, and President Trump, who fired 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:20.959 Comy last spring, has said, well tweeted, of course, that 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:24.960 Comy will go down as the worst all caps FBI 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:29.040 director in history by far exclamation point. That may be 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:31.399 the only thing that Trump and Hillary actually agree on 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:35.000 every same time. Other people like Senator John McCain have 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:38.080 praised Komy for his integrity, and we know that during 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:41.520 his tenures FBI Director, Comy was very respected by the 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:44.039 rank and file agents who served under him. Well. Since 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:47.560 being fired by President Trump without warning last May, he's 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:50.000 been teaching at Howard University and has come out with 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:53.680 a best selling memoir called A Higher Loyalty. It tells 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:56.640 the story of his life, how he became interested in 0:01:56.760 --> 0:01:59.320 law and law enforcement, and of course, what it was 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:03.160 like working in the chaotic early days of the Trump administration. 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:06.040 I was excited to talk to Mr Comey because just 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:10.080 last month, the Justice Department issued a five page report 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:13.600 highly critical of him and the FBI during the two 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:16.840 thousand sixteen presidential election. Of course, we should note that 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:20.079 if we learned anything from his congressional testimony, Comey is 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:22.600 a pretty disciplined guy. He knows how to say what 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:25.400 he wants to say and nothing more. But of course 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:29.320 that didn't stop me from trying. So here's my conversation 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:35.640 with James Coomy. I feel like Sarah Palin when I say, 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:42.400 can I call you Jim Can? I? You've known me 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:48.320 since I was like six to all right, seriously, thank 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:50.920 you very much for being here. We've got a lot 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:53.880 to cover, so let's get right to it. An interesting 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:57.200 thing happened towards the end of your media blitz. The 0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:00.640 Justice Department's Inspector General of former colleague of yours name 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:04.800 Michael Horowitz, issued a five page report about your actions 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:08.000 as head of the FBI during the two thousand sixteen campaign. 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:11.320 It was highly critical, as you know, let me read 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:14.160 you some excerpts. Your press conference in July of two 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:18.799 thousand sixteen was quote on an extraordinary and insubordinate thing 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:22.800 to do. Quote. We found none of Mr Comey's reasons 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:26.560 to be a persuasive basis for deviating from well established 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:31.400 department policies. You engage in your own quote subjective ad 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:35.600 hoc decision making. The report also said you're October letter 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:39.720 to Congress announcing a reopen Clinton investigation was a quote 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:43.839 serious error in judgment. Take us back to the day 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:47.520 you were reading this report. What was that like? It 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:50.720 was painful. I had encouraged the report when I was director, 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:53.080 and even after I got fired. I wanted them to 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:56.240 do it because I think accountability is incredibly important to 0:03:56.280 --> 0:04:00.040 the institution, especially and reading it was painful for a 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:02.120 couple of reasons. First, it was a bit of a 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:04.920 it's a trauma to go back through one of the 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:07.560 most painful things I've ever been through as a leader. 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:10.400 And then it's painful to read yourself being criticized, even 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:13.920 though I expected to be criticized. It was painful. And 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:17.800 let's talk about these three big decisions you made. I 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:21.800 know you've addressed them all during your numerous interviews, but 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:25.320 the IG report really did breathe new life into the controversy. 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:28.960 So July five, two thousand and sixteen, you held a 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:32.600 press conference announcing you were not recommending charges be brought 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:36.280 against Secretary Clinton, that quote, no reasonable prosecutor would bring 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:39.120 such a case. But you also said that Clinton was 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:43.359 quote extremely careless in her handling of emails. My question 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:46.919 is this, what were you doing making this announcement the 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:49.679 first place. You were not the attorney general, you weren't 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:53.080 even a prosecutor. Why was it appropriate for you, as 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:56.159 the investigator to make that announcement. That's a great question. 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:59.520 I was doing something I never could have imagined, because 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:03.120 normally the responsibility for announcing the closing of an investigation 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:07.120 and offering transparency, which is done in cases of extraordinary 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:10.200 public interest. For example in Ferguson, we did a public 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:14.039 report there, but it's always the attorney general that announces, 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:16.200 and the FBI director is typically standing next to the 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:19.560 attorney general. The reason I did it here was I 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:24.600 thought it was between two options, offering transparency separately or 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:26.760 offering it standing next to the attorney general, the one 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:30.760 least likely to do lasting damage to the institutions? Was 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:33.599 this bad option? Not this bad option? And I'm not 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:35.760 picking on Loretta Lynch by saying that, but there were 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:38.200 a number of things that had happened that led me 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:39.960 to believe, and reasonable people I knew at the time 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:42.159 could see it differently, but led me to believe that 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:45.960 it will be very difficult for her to credibly announce 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:48.080 the completion of an investigation of one of the two 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:51.240 candidates for president of the United States, the candidate from 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:53.800 the party, the same party that she was in, and 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:56.719 President Obama. But there were other prosecutors who could have 0:05:56.720 --> 0:06:00.720 done that. Well, no, not the way it was set 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:04.520 up Loretta had it was. I don't I assume folks 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:05.880 know some of this background. There was a lot of 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:09.280 controversy during the final week of the investigation where she 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:11.440 had had a meeting with Bill Clinton on an airplane, 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:14.480 and it was all kinds of storm about whether that 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:17.960 was fatally compromised her. All this kind of business. And 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:21.120 I had no doubt that Loretta was a person of principle, 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:23.800 but I worried a whole lot about the public perception 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:27.520 that the investigation was not done credibly. And so she announced, 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:30.359 without talking to me or Sally Yates, that she was 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:32.360 not going to step out of the investigation, but she 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:35.640 would accept my recommendation and that of the career prosecutors. 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:39.279 So I don't know what option I had then, besides 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:43.680 choosing either to give her the traditional thing, the norm, 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:46.160 or do something I'd never imagined before, which has announced 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:50.080 the recommendation. She said she would accept the career prosecutors 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:54.039 right right, So why not let them, and you know 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:56.400 they would not being able to announce anything. Well, you 0:06:56.520 --> 0:06:59.719 told the Justice Department about the press conference after the 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:03.120 meet had been notified, and you didn't tell them what 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:05.279 you were going to say. A friend of mine who's 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:08.800 a very respected former federal prosecutor, says, the only reason 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:11.960 not to fully inform the Internity General was that you 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:14.560 knew you were doing something wrong and you didn't want 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:17.000 to be stopped. I'm curious to hear your reaction to that. 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:19.720 Only the second part of that's accurate. When I first 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:22.440 read the words in subordination and the Inspector Generals report, 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:24.680 actually had an emotional reaction like are you kidding me? 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:28.400 She announced she would accept my recommendation. But I actually 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:32.160 think it's fair criticism because I was intentionally not telling 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:35.840 her what I was going to say, and a superior 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:38.280 in a normal circumstance would expect that, So I think 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:41.080 that was fair. I wasn't wasn't not telling her because 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:43.160 I thought I was doing something wrong. I thought, and 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:46.000 honestly I still think, between the two bad options, it 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:48.520 was the one that was best suited to protect the institutions. 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:51.320 But I was doing it because I didn't want to 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:53.200 give her the opportunity to stop me, because if she 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:55.080 had issued an order don't do it, I would have 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:57.760 followed that order. And so the second part of what 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:00.320 your friend said is fair. The first part is not. 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:03.360 You said you wanted to be transparent to make sure 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:07.680 the FBI kept its credibility. But almost any time someone 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:11.640 is investigated, you come up with damaging information about or 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:14.119 you can come up with damaging information about that person. 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:19.200 It's highly unusual for prosecutors, much less investigators, to share 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:22.760 that information if they're declining to prosecute. I'm not a lawyer, 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:26.520 but I understand that's why they call it prosecutorial discretion, 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:29.680 not law enforcement discretion. So why did you do it? 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:32.880 I think that's right. As I said, the norm is 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:35.440 the Department of Justice, with the FBI standing next to them, 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:39.160 announces the closure of an investigation. It's not true that 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:43.120 it never happens that transparency is offered when the investigation 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:46.880 of prosecutions decline. It's done when the public interest requires it. 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:49.520 And and I don't think there's a serious argument that 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:53.400 the public interests didn't require some transparency here. I did 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:56.080 it because I stared at the two options. If I 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:59.840 do the normal thing stand next to the Attorney General, 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:02.880 A corrosive doubt will creep in about whether this was 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:06.320 a political hit job to can an investigation of one 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:08.080 of the two candidates for president of the United States, 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:10.600 and that will be fed by the fact the President 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:13.480 Obama has already twice said there's no they're there. The 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:16.240 Attorney General has met with Bill Clinton again. I don't 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:19.400 think she's anything and proper, but reasonable people forget partisan 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:22.600 wing nuts. Reasonable people could have a doubt about what's 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:25.240 going on with the Attorney General right before she announces 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:29.080 the closure of this investigation, meeting privately with Secretary Clinton's husband. 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:32.160 And so my thinking was, Okay, there's two options. This 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:35.880 one is much worse for the institutions of justice. I 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:38.920 can spend some of my personal credibility because I wasn't 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:42.079 viewed as a partisan and the FBI s and by 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:45.200 doing that protect the institution. I knew this is gonna 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:48.120 be terrible for me personally, because I knew reasonable people 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:50.800 could see it differently and say the things that they've said. 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:54.680 But I thought, as between the two, the FBI offering 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:58.840 transparency separately, is the is the result best calculated to 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:01.000 maintain the faith and comp and to the American people 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:04.800 and end the investigation in a credible way, which we did. 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:08.480 I thought, But why if your intentions were so noble 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:11.960 as you believe your actions were, have you been so 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:19.720 roundly criticized by just about everyone. Yeah? Yeah, And it's 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:21.840 funny you say that. I don't. Actually, Sometimes people say 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:23.480 when everybody's mad at you, it means you're right. No, 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:28.800 it doesn't. It could be you're completely wrong. I don't 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:31.200 know for sure. I think people that have taken the 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:35.480 time to put themselves in my shoes, and I'm sure 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:37.320 we're gonna talk about October, which is a much more 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:41.080 difficult decision, and stare at the options I stared at. 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:45.760 I would say, as the Inspector General did. I disagree 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:48.720 with the results, but I understand why he did what 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:51.600 he did and if people take the time to do that. 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:54.120 The most important thing about the Inspector General's report, I 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:57.440 believe for the Institution is we made the decisions in 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:01.320 a political way. We were trying to and honestly, I've 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:03.480 stared at this a thousand times. I would still do 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:08.000 the same thing because doing the normal thing norms produced 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:10.760 predictable results in the normal situation. This is a five 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:14.480 year flood. The Obama Justice Department, of which I'm a part, 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:17.160 is investigating the Democratic Canadate for President of the United 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:19.880 States is about to decline a criminal case on the 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:22.440 eve of the conventions. How do you do that and 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:25.319 maintain the faith and confidence of the American people? So 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:28.400 is that really your job? Is that your job to 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:31.400 decide how to maintain the faith and confidence of the 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:35.400 American people? Is that within your purview? Absolutely? When you 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:37.559 are the leader of one of the institutions of justice, 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:41.000 you must care about that deeply, because the entire institution 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:43.240 rests upon the faith and confidence of the American people. 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:46.840 When the FBI rises in a courtroom or in Congress, 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:50.560 in a cookout, they must be seen as independent in 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.400 American life and must be trusted as people who care 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:56.439 only about the facts. And so, despite the way you 0:11:56.480 --> 0:11:58.080 were raised, I'm sure you're raised the same way my 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:00.319 mother said, you can't care what other people think. When 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:02.600 you're director of the FBI. You have to because you 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:07.280 run a public institution. So transparency is incredibly important. I 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:10.720 believe the American people were due transparency here, fair and 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:13.680 open description of why there was no criminal case. Here, 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:18.480 you called Hillary Clinton's behavior extremely careless, placing a value 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:21.760 judgment on her. Can you give me another example of 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:26.080 an FBI agent or prosecutor coming forward to publicly maligned 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:30.800 someone they decided not to prosecute. Lowest learner I r 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:34.719 S executive the f the Department of Justice described her 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:37.880 as a poor manager, but not engaged in criminal wrongdoing. 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:40.760 When they closed the investigation of the so called targeting 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:44.000 of the Tea Party Jose Padilla, who was a so 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:46.400 called dirty bomber in two thousand and four, I was 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:49.200 at the Justice Department. We did a public announcement of 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:53.239 why he had been detained and not prosecuted, and described 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:56.240 in great detail his conduct. It is part of the 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:59.640 norm to do that when the public interests requires it. 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.720 Now I've struggled with this. I wasn't trying to attack 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:04.800 Hillary Clinton. I was trying to be transparent with the 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:08.360 American people and describe the conduct. I don't think I 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:12.440 could have credibly describe the closure of an investigation in 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:16.160 which the former Secretary of State discussed top secret information 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:19.800 eight times in emails and secret information fifty sometimes in 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:23.880 emails without offering some evaluation. Now I screwed it up 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:26.800 because extremely careless was a stupid term to use. I 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:31.760 should have said really sloppy, not being facetious, because I 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:34.400 was trying to explain to the American people. Look, there's 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:39.160 ordinary sloppiness you leave a documented the Starbucks. There's criminal 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:42.040 misconduct where you know you're doing something you shouldn't do. 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:45.319 David Petras is an example of that, and that's prosecuted. 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:49.000 You don't get prosecuted for this, you know, you get 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.760 prosecutor for this. Hillary Clinton was not this. It was 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:54.640 something much more seriousness. It was really sloppy, but it 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:57.960 didn't rise to the level of something that would be prosecuted, 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:01.640 and so I needed to describe that why we thought 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:05.880 the conduct fell short of this threshold for prosecution. But frankly, 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:08.760 if I described it as Starbucks documents stuff, the result 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:11.480 would have no credibility. Let's talk about the second big 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:14.679 decision you made, one that has made many Hillary Clinton 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:19.520 supporters angry to this day. On October two thousand, sixteen, 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:22.360 eleven days before the election, you sent a letter to 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:24.800 Congress that leaked to the public I believe nine minutes 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:28.840 later that said the FBI found new emails that could 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:32.200 be pertinent to the Clinton investigation, and you were reviewing them. 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:35.120 According to the IG report, these eight emails were actually 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:38.760 found more than a month earlier, and the FBI failed 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:41.520 to act. You were told about these emails either in 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:45.120 late September or early October, and you didn't act. Why 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:48.320 the delay? I don't know why the delay. The investor, 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:52.440 the investigators in New York, we are investigating Anthony Weener. 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:54.720 I'm gonna assume you all know who all that is 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:59.000 and everything. Um. They had seized his laptop in a 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:03.760 criminal investigation and of him for improper sexual contact with 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:07.200 a young woman. And it was apparent to the investigators 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:09.200 there that there looked to be hundreds of thousands of 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:13.520 Hillary Clinton's emails on there. And that's late September. Sometime 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:16.520 in early October. Somebody mentioned it to me in passing, 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:19.320 and I don't remember it because I wouldn't index on it. 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:21.920 Why would there be a connection between Anthony Weiner's computer 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:25.840 and Hillary Clinton's email case. I don't know what the 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:28.440 FBI did. Until I read the Inspector General's report in 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:31.280 that month, I know what happened with me. I walked 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:35.440 in on October to the investigative team sitting there telling 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:37.880 me exactly what they had found and asking me for 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:41.000 a decision. Had they told me the same thing a 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:43.320 month earlier, I'm confident I would have done the same 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.160 thing a month earlier. And I wish that's one piece 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:48.000 of time I wish I could go back and fix. 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:52.800 You said that, once you were aware of these emails 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:54.600 and the fact that they needed to be reviewed, you 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.320 had two choices, in your words, speak which was bad, 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:01.400 or conceal which was catastrophic. So you chose bad. But 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:06.040 the IG report says this miss mischaracterizes your two choices, 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:10.040 which were actually follow policy and practice or depart from 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:13.320 policy and practice, and that you chose to make your 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:16.520 own rules. Yeah, this is where I disagree with them. 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:18.880 And I really like these people and know them. I 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:21.720 think just framing it as follow the norms or depart 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:23.400 from the norms, it's just another way of saying you 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:26.520 have a decision to make right. Norms, as I said, 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:31.520 produced reliably good results in normal circumstances. But isn't it 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:36.920 important to adhere to norms and abnormal circumstances, particularly in 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:40.000 fact the I G went on to write Jim to 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:45.200 protect the institutions from allegations of abuse, political interference, and 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:48.480 biased enforcement of the law. The Department and the FBI 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:52.680 have developed policies and practices to guide their decisions, and 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:55.120 the vast majority of cases they are followed as a 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:58.240 matter of routine, but they are most important to follow 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:01.360 when the states are the highest and when the pressures 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:04.879 to divert from them, often based on well founded concerns 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:09.360 and highly fraught scenarios, are the greatest. And I think 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:12.200 as a as a statement of the importance of norms, 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:16.639 that's reasonable. They can't mean it, though, right. They can't 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:19.920 mean that in every circumstance you do what you would 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:23.040 always normally do. And this is where I disagree with 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:26.000 with their framing of it. That's you can't think about 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:27.680 it that way. As a lawyer and a leader, you 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:30.760 should always say, so, what's the norm? I love the norms? 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:33.000 I should try to adhere to the norms, which is 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:35.199 why to me, they're framing of follow the norm or 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:38.000 depart from the norm just tells yourself you have to 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:40.160 ask a question. And so the next question is, okay, 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:43.240 if I follow the norm, what happens to the institution? 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:46.560 I love? What's the damage that flows if I depart 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:48.719 from the norm, what happens to the institution. So let 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:50.959 me just finish, Katie, And so you have to still 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:53.560 ask the question. I believe, and I don't mean this 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:56.560 to be facetious. If I had concealed from the American 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:59.280 people that what I and Laretta Lynch had said under oath, 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:02.719 repeated in the summer that we're done with Hillary Clinton, 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:04.760 American people, you can take that to the bank. You 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:09.720 can vote knowing this is over. And Hillary Clinton were 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:12.760 elected president, and it came out that the FBI had 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:15.679 hidden the restarting of that investigation. And I don't mean 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:17.600 this to be facetious. There would be an inspector General 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:20.600 report about me and how I had destroyed the institution 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:24.520 by departing from another norm, which is candor with a tribunal. 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:26.879 When you make a statement under oath to a tribunal 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:29.720 and you know it's not true, another norm in the 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:33.160 FBI and the Department Justice, you corrected. So I honestly 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:35.800 think this was a nightmare. But if I had chosen 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:38.120 to conceal that, I actually think there be an Inspector 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.639 General report ripping me for being a slavish adherent to 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:44.520 following what we always do in all circumstances. But a 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:47.160 lot of this was timing. Eleven days before the election. 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:49.480 You said you put out the letter because you had 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:52.359 a duty to correct the record, because you told Congress 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:56.040 and the public the investigation was closed, and you now 0:18:56.160 --> 0:19:00.000 knew evidence had emerged. But wouldn't any prosecutor or investor, 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:03.600 stigator or his or her sault wait to see if 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:07.840 the new evidence was significant enough before charging out and 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:11.440 announcing it, knowing that it was such a political grenade 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:14.960 you were throwing. That's a reasonable question. But here's the problem. 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:16.800 You're sitting there as the director of the FBI and 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:18.560 the Attorney General. By the way, I offered her the 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:21.160 opportunity to weigh on in this decision, and she passed. 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:24.720 I said, here's what we and that's the truth. Here's 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:27.800 what we face. The investigative team is telling me, not 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:30.119 only are the hundreds of thousands of Hillary Clinton's emails 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:32.880 on Anthony Weiner's laptop for reasons we can't possibly explain, 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:36.800 but we may have found the missing emails. Remember this 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:39.960 what I described. The reason there was no prosecution here 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:41.840 is there was no evidence that she knew she was 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:45.000 doing something wrong. If there was going to be that evidence, 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:48.040 it would come at the beginning of her tenures secretary 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:50.880 of State. We never found any emails from her first 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:54.000 three months of secretary because those are on a BlackBerry device. 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:57.879 That morning, October, the investigative team says to me, not 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:01.800 only are there hundreds of thousands of her Clinton Domain emails, 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:04.760 there are tens of thousands of her BlackBerry emails on 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:08.000 Anthony Leener's laptop. So they said to me, so the 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:12.760 result may change, so you may decide to wait, maybe 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:15.000 wait and see. They're also telling me, we can't possibly 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:17.719 finish before the election. So what do I do? Do 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:19.879 I wait and see if we can get a peek? 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:23.720 Do I wait till after the election. That's what they're saying. 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:26.760 They couldn't finish before the election because they did well. 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:28.600 That the reason they were saying it made complete sense 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:32.119 to me. You couldn't bring in recruits from Quantico like 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:33.879 you would if you're looking for a bullet in a 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:37.119 hay field, because people who knew the context had to 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:40.920 actually read these emails to see if they contain classified 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:44.640 information or if they contain clues to her intent. They said, 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.359 we can't possibly do that in the eleven days left, 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:51.200 and we can't use de duplicating software that's commonly available 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:54.240 law firms use because the emails are all and have 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:57.719 to be on our classified networks. We have no capability 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:00.480 on the classified networks. And then what they did over 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:04.399 that frantic week was our software engineers built de duplicating 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:07.480 software for the classified networks and cut it down to 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:10.639 six thousand or so they had to read individually, and 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:12.800 so a team of about half a dozen read them 0:21:13.080 --> 0:21:16.320 night after night after night, and finished on the Sunday 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:18.920 before the election, and they found lots of new stuff. 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:22.040 But they said to me on Sunday morning before the election, 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:25.760 our view of her culpability has not changed. And I 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:29.760 think you have done that though before making that writing 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:32.600 that letter. But how would I do that though? I mean, 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:36.320 the team is telling me credibly we can't possibly finish 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:39.119 before the election, and so what would be my reason 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:42.600 to wait? Now? There's been a lot of speculation out there, like, well, 0:21:43.040 --> 0:21:46.719