--- title: James Comey Hearing: 'Mildly Nauseous' About 2016 Influence description: FBI director James Comey said he's "mildly nauseous" about the possibility that he influenced the outcome of the election. canonical: https://time.com/4764972/james-comey-clinton-emails-election-hearing/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-03T15:15:24.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T04:43:39.897Z article:section: Politics og:title: James Comey Is 'Mildly Nauseous' About Possibly Influencing 2016 og:description: "There’s an election in 11 days, Lordy, that would be really bad" og:url: https://time.com/4764972/james-comey-clinton-emails-election-hearing/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt41fdfba48c2da21a/6988cbcc0b72e30e1a6eda26/james-comey.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3500 og:image:height: 1969 og:image:alt: FBI Director Comey prepares to testify at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: James Comey Is 'Mildly Nauseous' About Possibly Influencing 2016 twitter:description: "There’s an election in 11 days, Lordy, that would be really bad" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt41fdfba48c2da21a/6988cbcc0b72e30e1a6eda26/james-comey.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # James Comey Is 'Mildly Nauseous' About Possibly Influencing 2016 Election > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson May 3, 2017 3:15 PM UTC  James Comey prepares to testify before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on May 3, 2017. James Comey prepares to testify before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on May 3, 2017. Kevin Lamarque—Reuters  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson May 3, 2017 3:15 PM UTC FBI director James Comey said he’s “mildly nauseous” about the possibility that [his announcement](http://time.com/4549527/hillary-clinton-emails-fbi-reopen/?xid=homepage) about reopening an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails influenced the outcome of the election. “This was terrible. It makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had some impact on the election,” Comey testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday. “Even in hindsight, and this has been one of the world’s most painful experiences, I would make the same decision.” On October 28, 2016, 11 days before the election, Comey publicly announced the FBI was reopening a probe into Clinton’s emails after closing the investigation in July. He went into more detail about his decision in his testimony, explaining why he decided to announce the reopening of the FBI’s investigation. He said on October 27, a team presented him with evidence that thousands of previously undiscovered Clinton emails were found on former congressman Anthony Weiner’s laptop. Comey authorized them to get a search warrant for the emails. “And then I faced a choice,” he said. “I’ve lived my entire career by the tradition that if you can possibly avoid it, you avoid any action in the run up to an election that might have an impact, whether it’s a dogcatcher election or President of the United States. But I sat there that morning and I could not see a door labeled ‘no action here.’ I could see two doors, and they were both actions. One was labeled ‘speak,’ the other was labeled ‘conceal.’… ‘Speak’ would be really bad. There’s an election in 11 days, Lordy, that would be really bad. Concealing in my view would be catastrophic. Not just to the FBI, but well beyond. And honestly, between really bad and catastrophic, I said to my team, we gotta walk into the world of really bad.” Comey came under [intense criticism](http://time.com/4550453/hillary-clinton-james-comey-fbi-emails/?iid=sr-link3) at the time and Clinton has [blamed him](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-blames-russian-hackers-and-comey-for-2016-election-loss/2017/05/02/e62fef72-2f60-11e7-8674-437ddb6e813e%5Fstory.html?utm%5Fterm=.1e622d01823e) for her loss. “If the election had been on October 27, I would be your president,” she said this week. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4764972/james-comey-clinton-emails-election-hearing/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4764972/james-comey-clinton-emails-election-hearing/"},"headline":"James Comey Is 'Mildly Nauseous' About Possibly Influencing 2016 Election","datePublished":"2017-05-03T15:15:24.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T04:43:39.897Z","description":"He said he'd still do the same thing","url":"https://time.com/4764972/james-comey-clinton-emails-election-hearing/","keywords":["Congress","Hillary Clinton","FBI","James Comey"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt41fdfba48c2da21a/6988cbcc0b72e30e1a6eda26/james-comey.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tessa Berenson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt41fdfba48c2da21a/6988cbcc0b72e30e1a6eda26/james-comey.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"FBI Director Comey prepares to testify at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington","caption":"FBI Director Comey prepares to testify at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington","creditText":"Kevin Lamarque—Reuters","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/congress/","name":"Congress"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4764972/james-comey-clinton-emails-election-hearing/","name":"James Comey Is 'Mildly Nauseous' About Possibly Influencing 2016 Election"}}]}] ```