WASHINGTON — Insisting his agents aren’t “weasels,” FBI Director James B. Comey defended his agency’s decision not to seek charges against Hillary Clinton during a congressional hearing yesterday, as GOP lawmakers grilled him about granting immunity to Clinton aide Cheryl Mills.

Comey told members of the House Judiciary committee that while they are free to disagree with the FBI’s decision not to recommend Clinton be prosecuted for using a private email server, which was found to contain classified documents, he took umbrage at the suggestion by several lawmakers that the FBI was trying to give political cover to the Democratic presidential nominee.

“I hope people will separate two things: questions about facts and judgment from questions and accusations about integrity,” Comey said. “As I said before, you can call us wrong, you can call me a fool. You cannot call us weasels.”

GOP lawmakers honed in on the role played by Mills, Clinton’s former chief of staff, who was granted immunity in exchange for turning over a laptop she used during Clinton’s tenure. They also questioned why Mills and another aide, Heather Samuelson, were allowed to be present during Clinton’s FBI interview as part of her legal team when they were also potential witnesses.

“To me the only way an interview takes place with two central witnesses and the subject of the investigation is if the decision has already been made that all three people in that room are not going to be charged,” said Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas).

Comey said immunity deals are common to gain helpful information, and at the time of the Clinton interview, the decision not to prosecute Mills or Samuelson had been made, though Clinton’s fate was still undetermined.

“Tell me what tools we have as prosecutors and investigators to kick out of an interview someone the subject says is their lawyer?” Comey said.

Democrats on the panel, meanwhile, questioned Comey over whether an investigation had been launched into possible ties between former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and the Russian government, and about repeated hacking incidents tied to Russian intelligence.

Comey said he could not confirm or deny whether the FBI was investigating Page, but assured lawmakers that the agency was doing everything it could to get to the bottom of recent hacking incidents.

“The FBI is looking into this very, very hard,” Comey said. “We take this extraordinarily seriously.”

Comey also said the FBI is working on creating a national database tracking police use of deadly force.