Former FBI Director James B. Comey denounced Attorney General William P. Barr’s appearance on CBS News as irresponsible.
“Bill Barr on CBS offers no facts. An AG should not be echoing conspiracy theories. He should gather facts and show them. That is what Justice is about,” Mr. Comey tweeted over the weekend.
While it’s not clear which comments Mr. Comey was calling out, the attorney general hinted the ex-FBI director made mistakes while investigating alleged ties between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Mr. Barr did not refer to Mr. Comey by name, however.
“I think the activities were undertaken by a small group at the top, which is one of the, probably, one of the mistakes that has been made, instead of running this as a normal bureau investigation or counterintelligence investigation. It was done by the executives at the senior level, out of headquarters,” Mr. Barr told CBS News in the interview Friday.
When asked if he was talking about Mr. Comey or former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Mr. Barr declined to be specific.
“I’m just not going to get into the individual names at this point,” the attorney general said. “But I just view that — I don’t view it as a bureau-wide issue. And I will say the same thing for other intelligence agencies. And they’re being very cooperative in helping us.”
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It was revealed last month that Mr. Barr had tapped John Durham, the U.S. attorney for Connecticut, to review the origins of the Russia investigation, which will include looking into decisions made by Mr. Comey and others.
President Trump has accused Mr. Comey of committing “treason” for his role in managing the beginning of the counterintelligence instigation into the campaign.
In an op-ed last week, Mr. Comey vehemently denied any wrongdoing, defending his actions as trying to do the best he could with the information he had. He also called allegations of anti-Trump bias at the FBI nothing but “dumb lies.”
“There was no corruption. There was no treason. There was no attempted coup. Those are lies, and dumb lies at that. There were just good people trying to figure out what was true, under unprecedented circumstances,” he wrote in The Washington Post.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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