“Conclusion first, fact-gathering second—that’s no way to run an investigation,” Sens. Chuck Grassley (right) and Lindsey Graham wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray. | Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images GOP senators: Comey drafted statement clearing Clinton before her interview Grassley, Graham say evidence suggests decision not to file charges was 'prejudged'.

Former FBI Director James Comey began drafting a statement rejecting the idea of criminal charges against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton over her private email account about two months or more before Clinton was interviewed in the FBI probe, according to partial transcripts of interviews released Thursday by two Republican senators.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Sen. Lindsey Graham said they obtained the transcripts from the Office of Special Counsel, a government watchdog agency that launched an investigation into whether Comey's actions violated a federal law against government employees engaging in political activity while on duty.


In a letter sent Wednesday to Comey's successor, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Grassley and Graham said Comey's move to start preparing the statement sometime in April or early May reflected a premature conclusion that Clinton shouldn't be charged.

"Conclusion first, fact-gathering second—that’s no way to run an investigation. The FBI should be held to a higher standard than that, especially in a matter of such great public interest and controversy," Grassley and Graham wrote as they demanded all FBI records of the drafts Comey prepared as well as other materials related to the OSC probe.

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Grassley and Graham said the OSC—a permanent, independent executive branch agency unrelated to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Trump-Russia probe—shut down its investigation after Comey was fired in May by President Donald Trump. That's because the key law prohibiting use of an official position for political purposes, the Hatch Act, is not a criminal statute. As a result, there's no action that can be taken against people who are no longer government employees.

A spokeswoman for the Office of Special Counsel declined to comment on the senators’ claims or to discuss the agency’s inquiry into Comey’s conduct.

An FBI spokeswoman confirmed receipt of the senators' letter and said the agency will provide any response to the lawmakers' directly.

On Friday morning, Trump jumped on the disclosure as evidence that the fix was in on the Clinton email probe from the beginning.

“Wow, looks like James Comey exonerated Hillary Clinton long before the investigation was over...and so much more," he tweeted. "A rigged system!”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday that if the senators' claims are true, they support Trump's decision to dismiss Comey.

"If it is as accurate as they say it is, that would certainly give cause and reason that Jim Comey was not the right person to lead the FBI," Sanders said, before urging reporters to dig into the story.

Congressional Republicans have long suspected that Comey had already decided Clinton would not be charged when a team of FBI agents and prosecutors met with her for three-and-a-half hours at FBI headquarters on Saturday, July 2, 2016. Comey's unusual and controversial public statement concluding the investigation came just three days later, on the Tuesday following the Independence Day holiday.

However, the senators say the OSC interviews indicate Comey began drafting the statement at least six weeks earlier, well before FBI agents finished interviewing key witnesses in the investigation, including Clinton lawyers Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, State Department tech aide Bryan Pagliano and State information technology manager John Bentel.

At a House hearing last September, Comey vehemently denied any decision had been made not to charge Clinton before the July 2 interview. He was not asked when he began preparing his public statement.

"If colleagues of ours believe I am lying about when I made this decision, please urge them to contact me privately so we can have a conversation about this," Comey said. "All I can do is tell you again, the decision was made after that because I didn't know what was going to happen in that interview."

The then-FBI chief said it was possible Clinton might lie in the interview, although he also said there was no indication she did.

The GOP senators referred to Comey's statement as "exonerating" Clinton, but it was so critical of her and her aides that it subsequently led Democrats to write to the Office of Special Counsel to seek a probe of whether his comments were intended to damage her prospects in the presidential race.