--- title: James Comey Hearing: What Was Said About Clinton Email Probe description: "At one point the attorney general had directed me not to call it an investigation, but instead to call it a matter," Comey testified. canonical: https://time.com/4811380/comey-testimony-loretta-lynch-email/ author: Maya Rhodan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-06-08T17:41:46.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-13T07:06:12.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: James Comey Says Loretta Lynch Order Gave Him a 'Queasy Feeling' og:description: "The attorney general had directed me not to call it an investigation." og:url: https://time.com/4811380/comey-testimony-loretta-lynch-email/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltea48fa80a0b0af50/6988d0defb4eac88ec8925c5/gettyimages-693805090.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: James Comey Testifies At Senate Hearing On Russian Interference In US Election og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: James Comey Says Loretta Lynch Order Gave Him a 'Queasy Feeling' twitter:description: "The attorney general had directed me not to call it an investigation." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltea48fa80a0b0af50/6988d0defb4eac88ec8925c5/gettyimages-693805090.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # James Comey Says Loretta Lynch Order Gave Him a 'Queasy Feeling' > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### 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. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=0669f2ec-0698-4c04-bc02-499985d9e232&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Watch Former FBI Director James Comey Testimony's In Under 4 Minutes [Watch (HLS stream): Watch Former FBI Director James Comey Testimony's In Under 4 Minutes](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/2q2ri9od.m3u8) (3:58)  _Published 2017-06-08. Former FBI Director James Comey spoke in public for the first time about his relationship with President Donald Trump and the circumstances that led to his firing. He called White House descriptions of his firing as "lies, plain and simple."_ by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Updated: Dec 13, 2023 7:06 AM UTCPublished: Jun 8, 2017 5:41 PM UTC Former FBI Director James Comey spoke in public for the first time about his relationship with President Donald Trump and the circumstances that led to his firing. He called White House descriptions of his firing as "lies, plain and simple." by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Updated: Dec 13, 2023 7:06 AM UTCPublished: Jun 8, 2017 5:41 PM UTC [Former FBI Director James Comey](http://time.com/4809228/comey-testimony-donald-trump/?iid=sr-link1) said that Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server gave him a “queasy feeling.” Testifying before the Senate intelligence committee for the first time since he was [fired by President Trump](http://time.com/4776388/james-comey-fired-trump-interview/), Comey said that Lynch directed him not to describe the FBI inquiry as an “investigation,” calling it “one of the bricks in the load” that led to his public statement. “At one point the attorney general had directed me not to call it an investigation, but instead to call it a matter, which confused me and concerned me, “ Comey said Thursday. He later testified that the directive gave him “a queasy feeling.” He said he did not know whether or not it was “intentional,” but Lynch’s suggestion that the investigation be called a matter suggested to him that “the attorney general was trying to align how we describe our work” with the Clinton campaign’s rhetoric. The former FBI director had [previously disclosed his feelings about that meeting](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/05/03/comey%5Floretta%5Flynchs%5Ftarmac%5Fmeeting%5Fwith%5Fbill%5Fclinton%5Fforced%5Fme%5Fto%5Fgo%5Fpublic%5Fabout%5Fclinton%5Finvestigation.html) during an Senate hearing in May, back when he was still leading the FBI. On Thursday, he reiterated that a tarmac meeting between President Bill Clinton and Lynch “capped” his decision to come forward about the Clinton investigation. “ I had to do something separately to protect the credibility of the investigation, which meant both the FBI and the Justice Department,” he said Thursday. A person familiar with the discussions between Attorney General Lynch and former Director Comey, however, disputes Comey’s account. According to the person, in September 2015 the Director asked the AG and other officials at the Justice Department for guidance on discussing the email investigation in Congressional testimony. A primary question was whether to confirm the investigation’s existence, given DOJ and FBI’s policy of not doing so when the probe is ongoing. The person says Attorney General Lynch told Comey that she had used the term “matter” when responding to press questions. “She suggested that she and the director should be consistent in their language, and at the end of the meeting, she asked if everyone was comfortable with using the term ‘matter,’” according to the source. “No one, including the Director, contested that view.” At the hearing, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas later asked Comey why he did not suggest the appointment of a special prosecutor in the Clinton email investigation, which many members of Congress and then-candidate Trump had called for. The former FBI chief said he’d considered it after the tarmac meeting, but decided it would “ben an unfair thing to do because I knew there was no case there.” “We had investigated very, very thoroughly. I know this is a subject of passionate disagreement. But I knew there was no case there. Calling for the appointment of special counsel would be brutally unfair and would send the message there’s something there,” Comey said. ## Transcript You solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, the nothing but the truth, so help me God. I do. Please be seated. When I was appointed FBI Director in 2013, I understood that I served at the pleasure of the President. And although the law required no reason at all to fire an FBI Director, the adminstration then chose To defame me, and more importantly, the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple and I am so sorry that the FBI workforce had to hear them. And I'm so sorry that the American people were told them. I don't think it's for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct. I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, but that's a conclusion I'm sure the special counsel will work towards to try and understand what the intention was there, and whether that's an offense. I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, and so I thought it really important to document. You've seen the picture of me walking across the Blue Room, and what the President whispered in my ear was, " I really look forward to working with you ." So after those encounters... And that was just a few days before you were fired. Yeah, that was on the 20... the sunday after the inauguration. The next Friday I have dinner and the president begins by wanting to talk about my job. And so I'm sitting there thinking, wait a minute, three times we've already, you've already asked me to stay or talked about me staying. And my common sense, again I could be wrong, but my common sense told me what's going on here is Hes looking to get something in exchange for granting my request to stay in the job. My impression was something big is about to happen I need to remember every single word that is spoken and again I could be wrong I am 56 years old I've been I've seen a few things my sense was the attorney general knew. He shouldn't be leaving, which is why he was lingering. And I don't know Mr. Kushner well, but I think he picked up on the same thing. And so I knew something was about to happen, and I need to know very close attention to. So look I've seen a tweet about tapes, Lordy I hope they are tapes. President tweeted on Friday after I got fired, that I better hope there's not tapes I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night, cuz it didn't dawn on me originally, that there might be corroboration for our conversation. There might be a tape, and my judgement was, I needed to get that out into the public square. So I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. Didn't do it myself for a variety of reasons, but I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special council. And so I asked a close friend of mine to do it. And then you made a comment earlier about the attorney general, previous attorney general, asking you about the investigation on the Clinton emails saying that you'd been asked not to ask to call it an investigation anymore but to call it a matter. And you said that confused you. Can you give us additional details on that? Well it concerned me because we were at the point where we had refused to confirm the existence, as we typically do, of an investigation for months. And it was getting to a place where that looked silly because the campaigns were talking about interacting with the FBI in the course of our work. The Clinton campaign at the time was using all kinds of euphemisms. Security review, matters, things like that for what was going on. We were getting to a place where the attorney general and I were both gonna have to testify and talk publicly about it. And I wanna know what she gonna authorize us to confirm we had an investigation. And she said yes, but don't call it that. Call it a matter. And I said why would I do that? And she said, just call it a matter. And so that concerned me, because that language tracked the way the campaign was talking about the FBI's work, and that's concerning. All I can do is hope. The President, surely, knows whether he taped me. And if he did, my feelings aren't hurt, release all the tapes. I'm good with it. 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