Morning Joe panelist Mark Halperin slammed FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday for acting like an "arm" of the Hillary Clinton campaign in releasing the FBI report on the private server investigation the Friday before Labor Day weekend.
Host Joe Scarborough also hit the bureau for its "sloppiness," pointing to details of the report where the FBI didn't follow up. Among the revelations on Friday were that Clinton used up to 13 different mobile devices to send email and her aides destroyed some of them with hammers.
"There's so much to say about the FBI's conduct here," Halperin said. "Those who are skeptical about how he's done this, look at the Friday release. The guy's not had a press conference. He talks about transparency. I've become increasingly critical of him. I know he's got a sterling reputation."
"Not anymore with me. This was pathetic," Scarborough said.
"To release this on a Friday as if he's an arm of the Clinton campaign, I'm just stunned, because there's a lot of information in here that's of great public interest," Halperin said. "And if you really cared about transparency, you would say to yourself, is the best time to release this, to get a full public hearing, on Friday before Labor Day? No, it's not."
Scarborough added that the FBI interview with Clinton was conducted over the 4th of July weekend.
"I really believe that he has called his own impartiality into question by what he's done, and the number of legitimate questions ... raised by this material ... we could fill three hours talking about it," Halperin said. "It doesn't mean she should have been indicted necessarily, but it does mean there are a lot of questions that the FBI didn't follow up on."
Comey announced he was not recommending charges against Clinton last month for her use of a private email server, but he did castigate her as "extremely careless" with classified material.