Mr. Jordan. Okay. So who is number three at the Justice Department? Why not share it with them?
Mr. Comey. I don't know who was number three at that point. There was an acting -- there was a U.S. Attorney acting as the Deputy Attorney General, who we knew would be in the seat only until Rod Rosenstein was confirmed. And so it didn't make sense to brief a matter like that to him, it was our judgment, and so we would just hold it.
And there was no -- we saw no investigative urgency. If there was something we had to do right away, we might have thought about it differently, but given how we thought about the investigative state in which it was, it made sense to hold onto it.
Mr. Jordan. I just want to be clear. So you knew at the time that there was no Deputy Attorney General; Ms. Yates had stepped down. You knew at the time that Jeff Sessions was the Attorney General, but you thought he may be recusing himself at some point in the near future. And you also knew at the time Rod Rosenstein had been nominated to fulfill or to fill the DAG position. Is that all right?
Mr. Comey. Correct.
Mr. Jordan. That was what you knew and assumed at the time. And so you made a decision we're going to wait until Mr. Rosenstein has the position and we're going to go talk to him?
