Trey Gowdy: James Comey didn’t tell Hillary Clinton to set up private email and lie about it

Rep. Trey Gowdy on Tuesday expressed little sympathy for Hillary Clinton’s renewed email predicament, saying FBI Director James B. Comey didn’t tell Mrs. Clinton to lie about the set-up and Mr. Comey didn’t force disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner to sext with underage girls.

“Well, to the best of my recollection, Director Comey did not tell her to set up her own private email server, he did not tell her to lie about almost every aspect of the email, he didn’t tell Huma Abedin not to turn over all of her devices,” Mr. Gowdy, South Carolina Republican, said on “Fox and Friends.”

“And he didn’t tell Anthony Weiner to sext with underage girls,” he said. “So I don’t know how Jim Comey is responsible for any of this.”

Mr. Comey informed Congress on Friday that the FBI learned of the existence of emails that appear to be relevant to its investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s private email set-up.

The FBI director had announced in July he didn’t think a prosecutor could successfully bring a criminal case against her, though he said Mrs. Clinton and her aides were extremely careless with the set-up.

The unrelated case that prompted Mr. Comey’s letter reportedly involved Mr. Weiner’s allegedly exchanging explicit messages with an underage girl. Mr. Weiner is the estranged husband of Ms. Abedin, one of Mrs. Clinton’s top aides.

Democrats have complained about the timing of Mr. Comey’s letter and say the FBI is sitting on explosive information about Donald Trump’s purported ties with Russia.

Mr. Gowdy, a member of the House oversight committee, said he viewed Mr. Comey’s recent move as a “notice document.”

“He told Congress the investigation is over,” he said. “So new evidence came to light. He could have either sat on it and been criticized afterwards for not telling us, or he could have done the transparent thing and said look, I’m notifying you.”

“He didn’t comment on the substance of the emails. He didn’t even say that it’s directly related to Secretary Clinton,” Mr. Gowdy said. “He just said the investigation has re-initiated.”

“The timing, again, is not Jim Comey’s fault,” he said. “It is not his fault this is coming up a week or so before the election. That is Secretary Clinton’s fault.”