As FBI Director James Comey testified before the House Oversight Committee on his decision to let Hillary Clinton escape a criminal indictment for her mishandling of classified information, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy was incredulous that Republicans in Congress hadn’t called a special counsel to investigate the matter, rather than rushing to question Comey themselves.

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“I testified before this committee a couple weeks ago and let’s just say when the hostile questions come, I wasn’t exactly shaking in my shoes,” McCarthy said Thursday on “The Laura Ingraham Show.” “I don’t mean any disrespect to them by saying that. I was trained to do this, [members of Congress] weren’t.”

“You don’t send the junior varsity pitcher out to pitch to Derek Jeter,” McCarthy said, “And I think that’s kind of what they’re in the position of doing here.”

McCarthy called Comey incredibly capable on his feet and questioned the ability of GOP members of Congress to make significant progress in getting to the bottom of why Clinton was spared indictment — despite having clearly broken federal law.

“You don’t send the junior varsity pitcher out to pitch to Derek Jeter,” McCarthy said, “And I think that’s kind of what they’re in the position of doing here.”

Instead, McCarthy pointed to the importance of getting a special counsel to handle the matter, someone experienced with cross examination. An expert on these matters and in cross examination, McCarthy said, would be much more prepared to get answers from Comey on two of the most important unanswered questions from the Clinton email case, including: “What was Congress’ intent” in passing the statute to include gross negligence; and “What was the harm done by [Clinton’s] crime?”

McCarthy noted the answers to those questions would be critical to understanding how Comey could let Clinton off the hook, even after extensively detailing her “carelessness” and the potential access to classified information for hostile actors because of that “carelessness.”

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Former U.S. Attorney Joseph DiGenova shared similar sentiments about the need for a special counsel, and the folly of rushing to question Comey Wednesday on “The Laura Ingraham Show.”

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“I think that by rushing to bring him up there may be a mistake because they run the risk of making a martyr out of him,” DiGenova said, “They should wait, they should plan on this, they should allow it to gnaw on the conscience of the American people for a while, let it sink in how bad a decision this was rather have him come up and look like Mr. Smartypants — which is exactly what he will try and do.”

“The problem is we’re going to be left with a panoply of idiots asking all the wrong questions,” DiGenova said.

LifeZette Editor-in-Chief Laura Ingraham agreed and noted it would not be difficult to find a well-armed special counsel and prepare to take on the Comey decision from a much better position.

“Washington is actually full of lawyers who know how to do this,” Ingraham said, “Get a professional who knows how to do this, don’t rush. God bless Jason Chaffetz but he’s not gonna be able to take down Jim Comey — I mean, Comey’s really smart.”

Asked by Ingraham if he agreed an expert counsel would have been better prepared than GOP members of Congress to look into Comey’s decision, Former FBI Director James Kallstrom came to the same conclusion as McCarthy and DiGenova.

“You’re 100 percent correct,” Kallstrom said. “They should have someone who really knows their business doing this.”

“I don’t think there’s a rush to do it tomorrow … This is going to blow up on them because they’re not doing this the right way.”