Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island dug in by asking Sessions about his past praise for Comey.

He then questioned him specifically about the decision-making process for Comey’s public announcements regarding the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email use. Comey’s October announcement that the FBI would reopen its probe has been cited by Clinton herself as derailing her campaign at a crucial moment.

Sessions said the reason Comey needed to announce reopening the investigation was because he’d already come out with other developments.

Sessions' larger takeaway? The investigation should never have been discussed publicly at all.

“It would have been better… never to have talked about that investigation to begin with,” Sessions said.

“It went against classical prosecutorial policies that I learned when I was a U.S. Attorney and an Assistant U.S. Attorney.”

— Joy Y. Wang