Top Hillary aide called James Comey a 'bad choice' for FBI director a year before he dropped email bombshell

  • Clinton aide Jennifer Palmieri was a senior White House staffer in 2013
  • President Barack Obama appointed James Comey FBI director in 2013 
  • Comey, who is a life-long Republican, re-opened the Clinton email probe 
  • He was heavily criticized over the timing of his public announcement  

Hillary Clinton's top spin doctor Jennifer Palmieri privately dismissed FBI Director James Comey's appointment as 'a bad choice' according to a batch of recently leaked emails. 

The email from Palmieri  to several prominent Democrats was released by WikiLeaks.

President Obama appointed life-long Republican Comey to the FBI's top job to ease the nomination through Congress. 

Jennifer Palmieri, pictured, described James Comey as a poor choice to lead the FBI 

Barack Obama appointed James Comey,  as FBI Director, even though the former prosecutor, pictured, was a self-confessed life-long Republican who made political donations in the past

However, officials on Clinton's staff admitted it was a poor decision. 

Palmieri forwarded a news story where Comey was quoted about police becoming less aggressive as a result of the 'Ferguson effect'.   

She wrote, 'Get a big fat "I told you so" on Comey being a bad choice.'

She sent the email to Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, and to the private email address of someone who appeared to be White House spokesman Eric Schultz. 

Neither responded, and Palmieri did not appear to write further about the subject. 

Palmieri was the White House director of communications when Comey was appointed FBI director by President Barack Obama in September 2013.

The disclosure came days after Comey notified Congress that during an investigation of Clinton aide Huma Abedin's now-separated husband,  Anthony Weiner, FBI agents found indications that a laptop used by Weiner contained some emails related to the FBI's earlier probe of Clinton's private computer server and emails. 

Comey's announcement last week of fresh probes into Clinton's emails has been attacked by Democrats as attempting to influence next week's presidential election

The disclosure disrupted the presidential campaign, and last week Palmieri openly criticized Comey about the notification.

She said: 'By taking this highly unusual, unprecedented action this close to the election, he put himself in the middle of the campaign.'

Comey had announced in July that he was recommending against criminal charges in the investigation of Clinton's use of her private server, but the FBI director also delivered blistering criticism that Clinton and her colleagues at the State Department were 'extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information'.

The Palmieri email was among more than 2,000 new messages published last week by WikiLeaks. The emails were hacked from Podesta's private account.

The US government has said the Russian government was responsible, although WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said earlier in the day that no government or any other state parties had given the stolen emails to WikiLeaks. 

He offered no evidence to support his denials, and the wording of his statement did not rule out the possibility that the emails were obtained by a state actor and then provided to another party who then passed them to WikiLeaks. 

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