Sunday Talk Shows

Harry Reid slams Comey for Russia election meddling

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) blasted former FBI Director James Comey for not doing enough to stop Russian election meddling in 2016 in an interview that aired Sunday. 

“In the last Congress that I served in, I wrote a letter in August to the director of the FBI, Comey, and said, ‘Russia is meddling with our elections, and you need to do something about that,’ and by October he had done nothing,” Reid told radio host John Catsimatidis on AM 970 in New York.

Reid’s interview came days after special counsel Robert Mueller submitted his report on whether Russia had meddled in U.S. elections to Attorney General William Barr 

“The hindsight from his troops are ‘Well, he didn’t do it because he thought Hillary [Clinton] would win the election. He therefore thought it’d be too political for him to get involved,’” Reid added. {mosads}

Reid warned that the foreign power would try to meddle with elections again in the future. 

“The Russians interfered with our elections,” he said. “They’ve done it in the past. They’re doing it as we speak in European countries, and they’re going to do it again in America.”

Reid has been a frequent critic of Comey, who served as FBI director until President Trump fired him in 2017. After the election, Reid blamed Comey for Clinton’s loss and accused him of having “explosive” information on Russian election meddling.  

Mueller submitted the report on his investigation into whether Russia meddled in the election to the attorney general on Friday. The probe also explored whether there was coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. As of Saturday, it had not been released to Congress or made public. 

President Trump has insisted that the probe was a “witch hunt” and that his campaign did not collude with the foreign power.