Was then-FBI chief Jim Comey spying on his boss, Attorney General Loretta Lynch? He apparently had a “highly placed informant” in her office reporting on her doings as of May 2016, which is pretty darn close to “spying” in most books.

We know: Comey famously considers it an “investigation,” not “spying,” when it’s official FBI business — but it’s hard to see how secretly monitoring the AG’s office could be official work for the Bureau.

And secretly monitoring Lynch is exactly what the new book from Pulitzer-winning reporter James B. Stewart indicates Comey was doing.

It was the peak of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, and Comey (as he’s said) was “troubled” by Lynch’s attitude — such as her September 2015 directive that the FBI not call its criminal investigation of Clinton “an investigation” (let alone “criminal”), but simply “a matter,” which was exactly what the Clinton campaign wanted.

Lynch had made major career advances in the 1990s under President Bill Clinton — and her boss, President Barack Obama, plainly supported Hillary’s candidacy. Plus, Obama was also implicated in the scandal, since he’d exchanged multiple emails with Clinton at her non-government address — a fact they were all keeping from the public.

Stewart reports that Comey’s “highly placed informant” indicated that Lynch wouldn’t let the FBI investigation add to Clinton’s woes. An email reportedly from the head of the Democratic National Committee assured a civilian that “Lynch wouldn’t let the Clinton investigation get very far, suggesting that Lynch would protect Clinton,” Stewart writes.

All this, plus Lynch’s tarmac tête-à-tête with Bill Clinton as the investigation … er, “matter” was coming to a close, led Comey (by his own account) to hold his remarkable press conference where he declared that Clinton shouldn’t be prosecuted for her “extremely careless” behavior.

“Extremely careless” being the term he settled on after his staff found that “grossly negligent,” the phrase in Comey’s draft, would make Clinton’s conduct criminal under the relevant statutes.

That press conference, as Justice’s inspector general and others later noted, was a gross violation of Comey’s ethical duties.

More recent Washington history seems to suggest that, if he had concerns about his boss’ ethics, Comey should have filed a whistleblower report and leaked it to the opposition party in Congress.