Former FBI director James Comey tore into President Donald Trump and claims the bureau tried to prevent him from winning the 2016 election, calling the idea the "worst deep-state conspiracy ever."
Comey wrote an opinion piece for The Washington Post and called Trump a liar throughout.
"We must call out his lies that the FBI was corrupt and committed treason, that we spied on the Trump campaign, and tried to defeat Donald Trump. We must constantly return to the stubborn facts," wrote Comey, who then explained the process of how the FBI got involved in the Russia investigation.
Comey wrote that in June 2016, the FBI noticed Russia was trying to influence the presidential election. The bureau started investigating and eventually obtained a warrant to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Through it all, Comey wrote the FBI's actions remained a secret because it was a counterintelligence probe.
"Page was no longer with the campaign, but there was reason to believe he was acting as an agent of the Russian government," Comey wrote. "We asked a federal judge for permission to surveil him and then we did it, all without revealing our work, despite the fact that it was late October and a leak would have been very harmful to candidate Trump. Worst deep-state conspiracy ever.
"But wait, the conspiracy idea gets dumber. On Oct. 28, after agonizing deliberation over two terrible options, I concluded I had no choice but to inform Congress that we had reopened the Clinton email investigation. I judged that hiding that fact — after having told Congress repeatedly and under oath that the case was finished — would be worse than telling Congress the truth."
Comey argued claims of a conspiracy at the FBI to take down Trump are empty.
"There is a reason the non-fringe media doesn't spend much time on this 'treason' and 'corruption' business," Comey wrote. "The conspiracy theory makes no sense. The FBI wasn't out to get Donald Trump. It also wasn't out to get Hillary Clinton. It was out to do its best to investigate serious matters while walking through a vicious political minefield.
"But go ahead, investigate the investigators, if you must. When those investigations are over, they will find the work was done appropriately and focused only on discerning the truth of very serious allegations. 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."
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