FBI's Comey: People 'confused' by bureau's actions last year

Comey said FBI was misunderstood because people see the world through "sides."

ByABC News
April 13, 2017, 4:59 AM

— -- FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday said his organization is "not on anybody's side" but acknowledged that people were "confused" by its actions last year.

"We confused people. We did a lot last year that confused people, because they're seeing the world ... through sides," Comey said at an event in Washington, D.C., for a new television documentary about the FBI. "If you see the world through sides, the FBI doesn't make a lot of sense to people. Because you're saying, 'Why did they help this person and hurt that [person]?'"

"We don't see the world that way," he added. "We are not on anybody's side. We really don't care. We're trying to figure out what's true, what's fair, that's the right thing to do."

His comments, at the Newseum premiere of television documentary "Inside the FBI: New York," came the same day President Donald Trump told Fox News that Comey "saved" Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election. Trump also said that "it's not too late" to ask Comey to resign but that he nonetheless had "confidence in him."

"Director Comey was very, very good to Hillary Clinton, that I can tell you. If he weren't, she would be, right now, going to trial," Trump told Maria Bartiromo.

Comey said he allowed a production team led by Dick Wolf to record inside the New York FBI offices as a way to lift the curtain on the organization and help improve the bureau's image after a year of intense public scrutiny.

"I worry sometimes that people don't know us," said Comey. "We have to care what the people think of us, because the faith and confidence of the American people is the bedrock that allows us to be believed and, by being believed, to accomplish the good that they try to do in this country."

"We want to find as many different things as possible to show people what we're really like and — especially in a hyperpartisan country, which is what we are right now — to understand we are not on anybody's side."