(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Evidence released last week in the case against disgraced former FBI Director James Comey showed what appeared to be intentional misspellings to circumvent public-information requests as he tried to cover for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
A confidential email dated Oct. 28, 2016, showed an exchange between Comey, using the alias Reinhold Niebuhr, and Columbia University law professor Daniel Richman about the discovery of Clinton’s classified emails on the laptop of former congressman Anthony Weiner.
Comey’s email sought to justify his decision to reopen the Operation Mid-Year Exam investigation into Clinton’s mishandling of her emails, which included routing them through a private server in the bathroom of her New York home.
“What am I gonna do,” he asked. “I gotta authorize the work and correct the record with congress. Imagine what I would have done to my institution if I didn’t do both of those things. Not a hard call although I hate having to do it.”
Clinton was accused of circumventing the normal government channels during her time as secretary of state for the Obama administration in order to avoid FOIA requests that might jeopardize her political aspirations.
But it appears that Comey, while investigating Clinton, was using the very same tactics to avoid scrutiny himself.
In his email correspondence to Richman, Comey misspelled Weiner’s name as “Weiser,” Clinton’s as “Clinin” and that of Huma Abedin (Clinton’s personal assistant and Weiner’s then-wife) as “Abeddin.”
No other misspellings were evident in the email.
Social-media influencers, including watchdog Robby Starbuck, pointed out that the trick “makes it much harder for a FOIA to find.”
Notice how the FBI misspells Clinton, Weiner and Abedin. Makes it much harder for a FOIA to find. In this one I’d bet the use of HRC is how it was found. Think about how messed up this is. The FBI has long behaved as if it should be allowed to do whatever it wants. This must end. https://t.co/mmpSvwhu4m
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) November 14, 2025
Starbuck slammed the FBI leader for presuming himself above the law, even while being tasked with policing the crimes of others.
“Think about how messed up this is,” Starbuck wrote. “The FBI has long behaved as if it should be allowed to do whatever it wants. This must end.”
Comey currently faces charges of obstruction and making a false statement to Congress after he denied, under oath, having leaked information to the New York Times to undermine President Donald Trump.
Richman is presumed to have been his pass-through conduit to the newspaper, although it is unclear whether he currently faces any charges.
The email disclosure was one of many damning revelations that have come to light recently.
U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, who is overseeing Comey’s prosecution, released several pieces of evidence in response to his attempt to have the case dismissed.
Among them was a handwritten note dated Sept. 26, 2016, in which Comey referenced an “HRC [Clinton] plan to tie Trump” to phony allegations of Russia collusion during an apparent meeting with then-CIA Director John Brennan.
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Trump U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan files public response to James Comey's motion to dismiss his indictment for vindictive prosecution.
Exhibit 13 includes bombshell, damning evidence of then-FBI Director Comey's handwritten note–on FBI director letterhead–evidencing… pic.twitter.com/IsRwSZDg7P
— 🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸 (@mrddmia) November 3, 2025
On Thursday, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, also released a tranche of documents from the Senate Judiciary Committee showing that Comey’s FBI had refused to open investigations into Clinton and the Democratic National Committee for concealing payments in the Russia-gate hoax.
“Courageous whistleblowers came to my office years ago to sound the alarm that the Justice Department inappropriately interfered in efforts to investigate potential criminal activity committed by Hillary Clinton and her campaign,” Grassley said in a statement.
“These records show the same partisans who rushed to cover for Clinton rabidly pursued Arctic Frost, which was a runaway train aimed directly at President Trump and the Republican political apparatus,” he added.
Other recently released documents detailed the FBI’s correspondence with a left-wing journalist seeking to launder the discredited Steele dossier that the Clinton campaign used to smear Trump.
If she's not already looking at this email from Benjamin Wittes sent to @Comey and then forwarded to sinister FBI criminals Andrew McCabe and @thejimbaker less than two weeks before the January 2017 ICA, please let her know about it. This is crucial to the @BarackObama plot. pic.twitter.com/TRro6MhCqd
— Crowdsource The Truth (@JG_CSTT) July 23, 2025
Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.
