Former FBI Director James Comey told USA Today, in an interview published Monday, that he hopes Hillary Clinton reads his book, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership,” so she would see him as “kind of an honest idiot.”
Comey discussed the decision-making that went into announcing just days before the election that the FBI was re-opening the Clinton email investigation.
“It was just a series of no-win decisions,” he told USA Today, “and so, ‘which would be the least-bad decision?’ is constantly what we’re thinking in the book.”
"I even hope that Hillary Clinton at least reads those parts of the book,” he emphasized, “because I think she will walk away saying, 'You know what? I still think that guy is an idiot, but, you know, he's kind of an honest idiot. He's trying to do the right thing here and I kind of get actually what he was faced with.'"
Clinton had strong feelings about the timing of Comey’s announcement and has publicly assigned him blame for her election loss. She wrote in her book that he “shivved” her.
In a Sunday interview with ABC, Comey admitted that his belief that Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 election was a factor in his decision to reopen the email probe.
"Wasn't the decision to reveal influenced by your assumption that Hillary Clinton was going to win, and your concern that, she wins, this comes out several weeks later and then that's taken by her opponents as a sign that she's an illegitimate president?," George Stephanopoulos asked.
"It must have been," Comey acknowledged, "I don't remember consciously thinking about that, but it must have been. I was operating in a world where Hillary Clinton was going to beat Donald Trump. I'm sure that it was a factor. I don't remember spelling it out, but it had to have been. That she's going to be elected president, and if I hide this from the American people, she'll be illegitimate the moment she's elected, the moment this comes out."