With very few hours left for “October surprises” in the 2016 presidential election, another bombshell has dropped. Citing “a former FBI official,” CNBC reported late Monday afternoon that FBI Director James Comey expressed reservations about the October 7th announcement that Russia was suspected to be behind the various hacks believed to be executed with the goal of disrupting the election. Apparently, not only did Comey think a month out was too close to the election to reveal this, but he also made sure that the FBI wasn’t named in the memo along with the Department of Homeland Security and The Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
After this past weekend’s news cycle, you can probably guess where this goes next: According to the same source, “some government insiders” are confused as to why Comey was worried about the timing of the Russia announcement but not the release of his letter about the Hillary Clinton email investigation last Friday. That said, Comey did agree with the conclusion that Russia was behind the hacks, but he didn’t want the FBI mentioned in the public statement about said conclusion. The FBI declined CNBC‘s request for comment on the matter.
As for Clinton, she tweeted a pretty succinct reaction to this new report:
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