McCain says lack of sleep affected his questioning of Comey

— -- After a line of questioning that even former FBI director James Comey found confusing, Sen. John McCain issued a statement seeking to clear up exactly what he had been asking Comey, and admitting that he might have gotten in his own way.

McCain said he wanted to point out that Comey commented on whether charges should be brought against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election but did not say in today’s testimony whether Trump should be charged with obstruction of justice -- even though Comey said in his opening remarks that he would not comment on that.

“Maybe going forward I shouldn’t stay up late watching the Diamondbacks night games,” the Arizona senior senator wrote in the statement.

During his questioning of Comey at the Senate intelligence committee’s hearing, McCain appeared fixated on how the FBI could have concluded its probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election remained open.

“So at the same time you made the announcement there would be no further charges brought against then secretary Clinton for any activities involved in the Russia involvement and our engagement and our election. I don't quite understand how you can be done with that but not done with the whole investigation of their attempt to affect the outcome our election,” McCain said.

“No,” Comey responded. “I'm sorry. We're not -- at least when I left, when I was fired on May the 9th, it was still an open active investigation to understand the Russian efforts and whether any Americans worked with them.”

“But you reached the conclusion that there was no reason to bring charges against Secretary Clinton,” McCain continued, before fumbling over the name of the president. “So you reached a conclusion in the case of Mr. Comey -- President Comey ... case of President Trump. You have an ongoing investigation.”

Staying on the topic, McCain added, “So both President Trump and former candidate Clinton are both involved in the investigation, yet one of them, you said there's going to be no charges and the other one the investigation continues. Well, I think there's a double standard there to tell you the truth.”

McCain tried to clarify what exactly he was trying to learn from Comey, writing in the statement that he believed that the former FBI director overstepped his role as an investigator when he stated his belief that “no reasonable prosecutor” would conclude that Clinton had done anything illegal.

McCain said he was trying to see if Comey would apply the same approach in the case of his conversations with President Trump, and make a public determination into whether President Trump’s conversations with Comey constituted obstruction of justice.