The DoJ manual BARS prosecutors from smearing unindicted people, like Comey did.
No wonder he chose to have the presser on his own, without notice.
Loretta Lynch would have reminded him of the basic legal principles he chose to violate.
Here is a link to the US attorney's manual, if anyone cares to dig.
https://www.justice.gov/usam/united-states-attorneys-manual
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/fbi-director-james-comey-breaks-federal-prosecutor-rules-smearing-not-indicting
The Department of Justice’s voluminous U.S. Attorneys Manual has sections restricting press comments when there’s no indictment in all but the most exceptional cases, barring prosecutors from interfering in political campaigns. It states that prosecutors should not name unindicted defendants, and even cites federal court rulings chastising prosecutors for doing exactly that.
Comey, a Republican appointed as FBI director by President Obama, crossed all three of those lines. Very few commentators noted that Comey shouldn’t have said anything at all, and how unusual it was that he did. One exception was Benjamin Wittes, editor in chief of the Lawfare blog and a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution.
“The first notable thing in FBI director Jim Comey's statement on the Clinton email flap is that he issued it,” he wrote. “Normally, the FBI does not issue reports on its investigative findings separate from Justice Department decisions regarding what to do with those findings. Much less does it make public its recommendations, particularly in a fashion that effectively preempts the Justice Department's prosecutorial decisions with respect to those recommendations.”
SNIP
“The Department of Justice policies are you don’t comment on people you don’t indict. You don’t punish them in the press,” said an ex-Connecticut public defender. “The other thing is the DOJ policy is you don’t do things to affect elections, period. I don’t see anybody questioning this. Everybody thinks the FBI is sacrosanct.”
“I think it was highly inappropriate,” said John Williams, a civil rights lawyer from New Haven, Connecticut. “I suppose he will get away with it because [as FBI director] he is not a prosecutor. And you do get that all too often. Law enforcement will issue a press release and the prosecutor will not say anything.”
“It’s like a perp walk, but this is worse, because they’re saying we will not arrest them,” Williams said. “To hold a press conference where he [Comey] makes comments on the behavior of the person who will not be indicted? That’s not appropriate. I don’t recall ever seeing that by a FBI director. It harkens back to J. Edgar Hoover’s days.”
SNIP
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