He decided to try to blackmail Apple by taking the matter to the news when they didn't comply with his illegal orders. It's like the police coming by your work

He decided to try to blackmail Apple by taking the matter to the news when they didn't comply with his illegal orders. It's like the police coming by your work to arrest you for questioning as intimidation. To make the undue public attention worse, they (he specifically, as well) lied to the press about the facts of iphone issue, saying things he couldn't know as fact (the difficulty for Apple to crack the device) and inventing other details. Also, I know he had offers from security firms to crack the phone from day 2. He sat on what he claimed to have thought could have been important evidence in an attempt to force Apple's hand. He could have ruined the investigation and let terrorists escape because he thought it was a good time to showboat. Also, under his watch the FBI has pursued numerous stings against mentally handicapped Americans in America. Trying to create terrorists by inundating them with hateful propaganda, providing functional arms and ammunition, etc, and encouraging them to commit horrific crimes in an attempt to make the FBI look competent when they catch their creation. We've rarely had someone either so incapable of doing their job, or so efficient at destroying everything the agency has stood for. In the end what's left will resemble the political wing of the KGB.