Conservative lawmaker: Comey’s letter ‘probably not the right thing’ to do

One of the biggest congressional critics of the Obama administration questioned the FBI’s decision to disclose a new chapter in the investigation of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on Monday.

{mosads}“I think this was probably not the right thing for [FBI Director James] Comey to do — the protocol here — to come out this close to an election,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told Fox News Radio host Brian Kilmeade.

“But this whole case has been mishandled, and now it is what it is.”

“He probably felt in light of what he did before, he had to bring this out. Quite frankly — because he had done the press conference and all the things he had before — he probably did have to send a letter to Congress like he did last week,” he added. “But I would argue all of this has been wrong from the get-go in the way it’s been handled.”

The comments from one of Congress’s most vocal conservatives suggest a widespread unease with Comey’s decision to notify Congress about new emails discovered months after the FBI had concluded its investigation into Clinton’s private system.

The letter Comey sent to Congress on Friday has come under attack from critics on both sides over its ambiguity with less than two weeks until Election Day.

Comey’s letter indicated that the FBI was unsure what was in the newly discovered emails or if they contained sensitive material, though they might be pertinent to the investigation into the former secretary of State’s potential mishandling of classified information.

The emails were discovered during a separate investigation into former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) over an alleged online relationship with a 15-year-old girl. Weiner is the estranged husband of longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin.