hillary clinton obviously and helped donald trump, but what s very important now is that we not allow the president or any of his allies to use the findings of the report to try to interfere with this separate investigation by mr. mueller, which is under way and serious and i think the president s going to just continue to attack the department and attack the fbi and attack robert mueller and we have a responsibility to stand up and be sure that that investigation is completed. on your first point going back to comey, u talk about this disadvantage, do you believe comey s actions cost hillary clinton the election? i don t know that we re ever going to know that but for sure they put her at a very incredible disadvantage. this was a a very close election. it was certainly a departure from the usual actions of the fbi. it was a very serious departure
you you re. this report does not say that. again, a day of reckoning for the fbi. there s a lot to learn but it certainly we ve been looking forward to. that is just not true. let me give you an actual quote from the report that refutes that exactly. i m not talking about comey, i m talking about strzok and page, what the head of counterintelligence, not a minor figure, what he was texting to his mistress quote, willingness to take official action to impact the candidate s electoral process. the report ffl refutes exactly what you re saying. what does it say before and after that, steve? actual bias. is it criminal? i don t know. i m not biased. look, steve, we re sitting here in the middle of breaking news trying to unpack a 568 page documents.
saying ethey found there would have been no charges against hillary clinton when he came out, you know, controversially when he did and said no charges. i think he s dead on on that one. if you had looked over the past five to ten years, length, i d hate to know what you d see. when i esaw the judgment in that summer when comey came out, i looked at it and said if it weren t hillary clinton, you wouldn t have much to debate about this. i think the real issue was clinton herself and varying explanations. i didn t think the case was very significant. also, it wasn t just comey s decision. this was a considered judgment by a lot of senior officials in the fbi, not the problem wasn t necessarily the conclusion.
announcer: this is cnn breaking news. we re back. you re watching cnn here. 18 months of waiting and now the breaking news in a much-anticipated report. the justice department s internal watch dog says firing james comey into how he handled the hillary clinton private e-mails claimed comey was not politically motivated. let s go to jim acosta ahead of this first briefing since he s been back from north korea. on this i.g. report, what are you hearing from the white house? they just pushed the briefing back to 2:45. i think they re loading more cannon balls into the cannons over here to respond to this i.g. report. obviously this is a big embarrassment for the fbi to have these texts going back and forth, talking about stopping trump during the 2016 election. that is obviously an embarrassment for the fbi and
reaction over on capitol hill from democratic congressman david cicilline. i think what s very important is the president will try to conflate the two to undermine the ongoing investigation. this was about the handling of the clinton investigation. i think mr. comey departed from the practices and the norms of the department and that s clear and i think it disadvantaged