sure why not
The description of Clinton’s handling of classified information was changed from “grossly negligent” to “extremely careless;”
[N]ot to notify Congress is…an action because it also potentially could have an impact on the election…so for example, [imagine] we don’t say anything. We push past the election, and then we announce that, well, by the way, we’ve authorized a search warrant, and we found all these emails. Let’s imagine, right? Because we don’t know what the facts are. We find all these emails. You guys have probably heard this story, but I’ll just say it again. And it turns out that, oh, my God, there were more classified emails of a different type, or there’s clear evidence that she knew what she was doing. It kind of pushes us from the probable cause thing up to the beyond a reasonable doubt. And now we’re going to change our view about charging her…. If she’s been elected president of the United States, then Donald Trump would say, oh my God, these people knew this beforehand and didn’t say anything. This is a rigged system. This is, this, these people intentionally hid that
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until after the election so that they could get her elected and, and thwart me.
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Protecting the Legitimacy of a Clinton Presidency
Comey told us that he was concerned about the perceived illegitimacy of a Clinton presidency that would follow from a failure to make the October 28 disclosure. Comey stated:
I don’t remember thinking this explicitly, but I’m sure I was operating in an environment where she was going to be the next president, and I was in a position to have her be an illegitimate president the moment she was elected because I would have concealed a material development in her investigation. And the moment she took office, the FBI is dead, the Department of Justice is dead and she’s dead as president….
FBI Attorney 1 expressed similar concerns to us, but said she did not express them at the time. FBI Attorney 1 stated:
I also think it would have been detrimental…. I was careful not to discuss this. But in my mind, it was detrimental…if Secretary Clinton was elected president, then…it would have come out. It would have definitely come out that we had done the search warrant. And then, then it would have been an illegitimate, like it would have been grounds for, you know, you couldn’t have elected her. She was under investigation. All of those sorts of things that would have…had more of an impact if you didn’t say anything.