FBI Director James Comey may have broken typical protocol during the Hillary Clinton email investigation by making evidence public, but his Justice Department superiors made his job more difficult, former federal prosecutor and author Andrew McCarthy told Newsmax TV.
During an appearance on Friday's edition of "The Steve Malzberg Show," McCarthy said the Obama administration "hamstrung" the bureau as it sought to find out what happened and why during the lengthy investigation.
"[Comey] made a number of highly irregular statements," McCarthy told host Bill Tucker.
"Generally speaking, the government doesn't speak about cases, about the status of investigations, about the evidence gathered in investigations unless and until it's ready to file charges in court.
"In this case, he elected under the circumstances I think because he thought it was a great public importance.
"Where I think it really does become a witch hunt is that the problem with this investigation was not the FBI commentary about the investigation. The problem was the way the Justice Department hamstrung the FBI so that it couldn't do the investigation effectively."
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McCarthy said President Barack Obama's administration played a role in trying to influence the outcome of the FBI's investigation. Comey announced in July he was not recommending charges be brought against Clinton, and he said the same thing after taking a second look at the case shortly before the Nov. 8 presidential election.
"It's clear I think to anyone who looks at this objectively that the Obama Justice Department with Obama having endorsed Hillary Clinton put its thumb on the scale," said McCarthy, a contributing editor for National Review and author of "Faithless Execution."