Hillary Clinton’s camp has blasted FBI Director James Comey for “blatant double standards” over the new inquiry into the Democratic candidate’s email use.
The comments came after media reports that James Comey had urged against publicly accusing Russia of interfering in the US election, including alleged email hacking.
James Comey’s concern about releasing the information was due to the proximity to the election, reports say.
The statement that James Comey reportedly declined to sign off on was released by the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on October 7.
It said: “The US intelligence community is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of emails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations… these thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process.”
James Comey agreed with the statement but was against making it public before the election, according to media.
There have been allegations that Russian hackers have targeted the Democrats in an effort to skew the election in favor of Donald Trump.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook said: “It is impossible to view this as anything less than a blatant double standard.”
He also called on James Comey to “immediately explain this incongruence and apply the same standard to Donald Trump’s associates as he has applied to Hillary Clinton’s.”
James Comey has faced a fierce backlash for announcing on October 28, just 11 days before the presidential election, that the FBI is investigating new emails that may be linked to its probe into Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
In March 2015, it emerged that Hillary Clinton had been breaking federal rules by operating a private email server while she was secretary of state from 2009-2013.
Hillary Clinton’s lawyers combed through the server and provided the State Department with 30,000 work-related emails, but her campaign deleted another 33,000 messages, saying they were personal in nature.
James Comey concluded in July that Hillary Clinton had been “extremely careless” in handling classified information, but there were no grounds for any charges.
