Comey tried to reveal Russian plot before election — Obama admin. blocked…

Source: Raw Story | March 29, 2017 | Josh Saul

Comey tried to reveal Russian plot before election — Obama administration officials blocked: report

FBI Director James Comey attempted to go public as early as the summer of 2016 with information on Russia’s campaign to influence the U.S. presidential election, but Obama administration officials blocked him from doing so, two sources with knowledge of the matter tell Newsweek.

Well before the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence accused the Russian government with tampering with U.S. elections in an October 7 statement, Comey pitched the idea of writing an op-ed about the Russian campaign during a meeting in the White House’s situation room in June or July. “He had a draft of it or an outline, he held up a piece of paper in a meeting and said, ‘I want to go forward, what do people think of this?’” says a source with knowledge of the meeting , which included Secretary of State John Kerry, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security director and the national security adviser.

The other national security leaders didn’t like the idea, and White House officials thought the announcement should be a coordinated message backed by multiple agencies, the source says. “An op-ed doesn’t have the same stature, it comes from one person.”

The op-ed would not have mentioned whether the FBI was investigating Donald Trump campaign workers or others close to him for links to the Russian interference in the election, a second source with knowledge of the request tells Newsweek. Comey would likely have tried to publish the op-ed in The New York Times and it would have included much of the same information as the bombshell declassified intelligence report that was released January 6 and said Russian president Vladimir Putin tried to influence the 2016 presidential election, the source said.

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