Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton endorsed a factually inaccurate attack on the FBI on Thursday that characterized the agency as politically biased.
Clinton and several of her prominent supporters shared a tweet from Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe, who is known for spreading anti-Trump conspiracy theories. Tribe claimed the FBI was harder on Clinton than Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. (RELATED: Growing Evidence Of A Politically Tainted Clinton Investigation)
According to Tribe, former FBI Director James Comey should have kept it from the public when the investigation into Clinton’s email server was briefly reopened shortly before the election. The law professor accused Comey of concealing a similar investigation into Trump during the election, even though Comey himself testified in June that — unlike Clinton — Trump himself was not under FBI investigation.
“Retweet if you agree it’s totally crazy to suggest that the FBI — having helped sink Hillary’s campaign by revealing that she was under investigation while concealing that Trump was being investigated — has secretly been anti-Trump all along,” Tribe wrote.
Retweet if you agree it’s totally crazy to suggest that the FBI — having helped sink Hillary’s campaign by revealing that she was under investigation while concealing that Trump was being investigated — has secretly been anti-Trump all along.
— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) December 28, 2017
Tribe’s tweet quickly went viral and was shared tens of thousands of times across Twitter.
Clinton supporters’ attack on the FBI resemble those that President Trump and his supporters have launched against the officials leading the Russia investigation following a pattern of bias from the investigators. (RELATED: Anti-Trump Text Messages Show Pattern Of Bias On Mueller’s Team)
Clinton and her supporters have consistently attacked the FBI’s credibility when it’s been in their political interests to do so. Then Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid accused Comey of violating the Hatch Act with his “partisan actions.”
“I am writing to inform you that my office has determined that these actions may violate the Hatch Act, which bars FBI officials from using their official authority to influence an election,” Reid said in a letter to Comey a week before the election. “Through your partisan actions, you may have broken the law.” Legal experts disputed Reid’s claim.
Two senior House Democrats, New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler and Maryland Democrat Elijah Cummings sent a letter to the Department of Justice earlier this month demanding any evidence of an anti-Clinton bias at the agency during the election.
In January, several prominent Democrats praised the Inspector General’s investigation into the FBI’s handling of political issues during the campaign.
That same investigation revealed two FBI officials discussing an “insurance policy” against Trump in case he won the election. (RELATED: ‘We Can’t Take That Risk’ — FBI Officials Discussed ‘Insurance Policy’ Against Trump Presidency)