Former FBI Director James Comey said the acting attorney general "may not be the sharpest knife in our drawer, but ... knows that if he acted in an extralegal way, he would go down in history for the wrong reasons." | Carsten Koall/Getty Images legal Comey on acting AG Whitaker: 'Not the sharpest knife'

Former FBI Director James Comey said Monday that acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker "may not be the sharpest knife in our drawer" but is savvy enough not to act outside the boundaries of the law in his position atop the Justice Department.

Questions of legality have embroiled Whitaker since he was named to the post immediately following former Attorney General Jeff Sessions' post-midterms ouster. Some critics — including George Conway, the husband of presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway — have argued that President Donald Trump may have circumvented the Constitution in naming Whitaker to the post. Others have worried that Trump's decision to place Whitaker and not Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein at the top of the Justice Department may be a sign that the president is looking to rein in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.


Comey, in an interview with Boston public radio station WGBH, predicted Whitaker won't be willing to rock the boat.

"He may not be the sharpest knife in our drawer, but he can see his future and knows that if he acted in an extralegal way, he would go down in history for the wrong reasons," the former FBI director said. "I’m sure he doesn’t want that."

Opponents of Whitaker's appointment as the acting head of the Justice Department have argued that his placement there would require the advice and consent of the Senate to advance. So far, the Justice Department has asked the Supreme Court not to weigh in on that question.

Asked by a reporter whether he wanted Whitaker to hamper Mueller's work, which the president has long criticized as a "witch hunt," Trump responded, "What a stupid question that is."

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Comey is himself immersed in a back-and-forth with House Republicans, who served him a Thanksgiving subpoena to testify behind closed doors over his handling of the investigation into 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's use of a private email sever during her tenure as secretary of State. Comey told WGBH that he "would never just ignore a subpoena," though he has expressed publicly that he would prefer a hearing that's open to the public, worrying that a private one could be politicized.

"I worry, from the conduct we've seen, that it's more about trying to create some false narrative that the FBI was on Team Clinton and against Team Trump," Comey said.

"The best antidote to that kind of distortion is to have sunshine. Ask me questions and let all of America watch," he added.