Friday, June 8, 2018

the last book I ever read (A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership by James Comey, excerpt eleven)

from A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership by James Comey:

Like many others, I was surprised when Donald Trump was elected president. I had assumed from media polling that Hillary Clinton was going to win. I have asked myself many times since if I was influenced by that assumption. I don’t know. Certainly not consciously, but I would be a fool to say it couldn’t have had an impact on me. It is entirely possible that, because I was making decisions in an environment where Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next president, my concern about making her an illegitimate president by concealing the restarted investigation bore greater weight than it would have if the election appeared closer or if Donald Trump were ahead in all polls. But I don’t know.

I have seen and read reports that Hillary Clinton blames me, at least in part, for her surprising election defeat. I know that at one point in her book she wrote that she felt she’d been “shivved” by me. She had worked for much of her professional life to become the first woman president of the United States, and quite understandably that loss, as unexpected and unpredicted as it was, hurt her badly. I have read she has felt anger toward me personally, and I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry that I couldn’t do a better job explaining to her and her supporters why I made the decisions I made. I also know many Democrats are similarly baffled—even outraged—by the actions I took.



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