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96 administration or the Russian Government.

Can you get into that a little bit? I know you did earlier, but there is still -- you're getting shots from both sides of the aisle and on some of the decisionmaking. And my constituents are really interested in that response.

Mr. Comey. Yes. It's a reasonable question, yes. Everybody seems to think I'm on somebody else's side, but the treatment of the two cases illustrates the rule.

In the Clinton investigation, we didn't say anything about that investigation for a year, except simply 3 months in to confirm that we had an investigation. And that was an investigation that began publicly, with a public referral. So the whole world knew we had it. We formally confirmed it after investigating for 3 months, then we said nothing until it was done.

That's the way we treated the Russian counterintelligence investigations. We opened them in late July, didn't know whether we had anything. In fact, when I was fired as director, I still didn't know whether there was anything to it. And so we would never consider making a statement about classified investigations that were just beginning.

The problem in late October was we -- me and Loretta Lynch -- had told the world, "We're done with the Clinton email investigation. Move on." And I got hammered in this room by Republicans, and in many other rooms. And I stood my ground and