FBI director James Comey may be under investigation

FBI Director James Comey was once known as "Man of justice." It is widely known that when serving as assistant attorney general of the Justice Department, he opposed the National Security Agency’s wiretapping policy in 2004, and blocked White House officials on behalf of Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was hospitalized, to reject signing of the controversial policy to reapprove it.

Comey is now facing a situation wherein he is being compared to former FBI Director John Edgar Hoover, who is considered the symbol of law enforcement authority’s unethical intervention in politics. When he announced results of additional investigation into Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s private email scandal on October 30, just eight days ahead of the election, critics have blasted FBI as the bureau is repeating its past when it broadly intervened in politics by using its classified intelligence.

In a New York Times report on Monday, veteran journalist Sanford Ungar said, “Hoover would weigh in on issues without warning or expectation,” noting that Comey is similar to J. Edgar Hoover. Richard Painter, who served as attorney for ethics at the White House named by the George W. Bush administration, filed a lawsuit against FBI with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel and the Office of Government Ethics, claiming that Comey violated the "Hatch Act" that bans public servants from intervening in politics by abusing his or her power.

The New York Times criticized FBI, saying that the agency’s announcement of additional results from its investigation into Clinton’s email scandal constitutes violation of ordinary practice. As a reason the case gives the impression that FBI is intervening in the presidential election, the daily cited FBI’s failure to publicize former Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s suspected connection with Russia and its failure to reveal the outcome of FBI’s investigation of the Clinton Foundation in August. The newspaper also conveyed voices of outsiders, saying that headwinds facing FBI is so strong that they are unprecedented in recent years.

HAN GI JAE record@donga.com