Clinton book: Not going after Comey ‘was a mistake’

Hillary Clinton believes that it “was a mistake” for her not to go after FBI Director James Comey during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to a newly released excerpt from her upcoming book, “What Happened.”

Clinton wrote that she wanted to “hit back hard” at Comey for calling her “extremely careless” for using a private email server as secretary of State but that her campaign advised her against it, according to excerpts of the book published by The Daily Beast Wednesday.

“My first instinct was that my campaign should hit back hard and explain to the public that Comey had badly overstepped his bounds — the same argument [Deputy Attorney General] Rod Rosenstein would make months after the election,” Clinton wrote.

{mosads}“That might have blunted the political damage and made Comey think twice before breaking protocol again a few months later. My team raised concerns with that kind of confrontational approach.

“In the end, we decided it would be better to just let it go and try to move on. Looking back, that was a mistake.”

Comey later reopened the investigation into Clinton’s use of private server weeks before the election as part of the investigation into former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s (D-N.Y.) underage sexting scandal, which Clinton wrote caused longtime aide and Weiner’s then-wife, Huma Abedin, to “burst into tears,” in a previously released excerpt.

“What Happened” is set to be released on Sept. 12.