Director Comey - Was he aware of the 'quid pro quo' in the FBI 302 report ?
Around May 2015, Patrick Kennedy finally called back.
"He said, 'Brian. Pat Kennedy. I need a favor,' " McCauley recalled in an interview Tuesday. "I said, 'Good, I need a favor. I need our people back in Baghdad."
Then Kennedy, a longtime State Department official, explained what he wanted in return: "There's an email. I don't believe it has to be classified."
The email was from Hillary Clinton's private server, and Kennedy wanted the FBI to change its determination that it contained classified information. McCauley and others ultimately rejected the request, but the interaction - which McCauley said lasted just minutes over maybe two conversations - has become the latest focal point of the bitter 2016 presidential campaign. The Democratic candidate's critics have suggested that the conversation between the State Department and the FBI demonstrated inappropriate collusion to benefit Clinton.
In an hour-long interview with The Washington Post, his first public comments on the matter, McCauley acknowledged that he offered to do a favor in exchange for another favor, but before he had any inkling of what Kennedy wanted. The FBI and the State Department have denied that McCauley and Kennedy ever engaged in a "quid pro quo."