FBI Director Gives Congress A Four-Hour Lesson On Clinton’s Email

Separately, the U.S. State Department is reopening an internal investigation into whether Clinton and her top aides mishandled classified information when she was serving as the secretary of state under President Barack Obama.

He said during a press conference on Tuesday that while FBI investigators found no “direct evidence” that Clinton’s email domain was successfully hacked, he assessed that “it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal email account”.

His comments came after FBI Director James Comey said that the agency would not recommend criminal charges against Clinton over her private email use when she was secretary of state. Attorney General Loretta Lynch formally closed the inquiry Wednesday.

During the questioning of Comey before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, none of the Republicans on the committee raised this issue.

“We’re mystified and confused by the fact pattern you laid out and the conclusion you reached, ” Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told Comey Thursday in his opening statement, adding that any other “average Joe” facing the same scrutiny would likely be in “handcuffs”. The most serious is loss of security clearances, which could complicate Mrs Clinton’s naming of a national security team if she becomes president. “My judgment is that she did not”, Comey said.

He said Petraeus maintained “vast quantities of classified information, ” lied to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and engaged in obstruction of justice.

But Democrats commended Comey for weathering Republican attacks on the investigation, with Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tennessee, accusing some committee members of trying to be “armchair prosecutors” in a partisan fight.

House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republicans have asked Comey to release all unclassified findings of the FBI’s yearlong investigation.

“We assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal email account”, Comey said at his press conference.

Clinton insisted that she was communicating with professionals who understood the system well, saying that while people may think certain of those emails should have been classified, “they were not at the time”.

Comey refuted Clinton’s oft-repeated claim that she had never sent nor received classified information. The FBI recovered three such emails with classified markings during its review.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee called an emergency hearing Thursday where members questioned Comey for nearly five hours about his recommendation to the Justice Department not to prosecute Clinton.

A number of Republicans suggested there was a double standard for charging everyday people accused of crimes as opposed to high-level people like Ms Clinton.

Gowdy serves on the Oversight panel and is chairman of the Benghazi committee.

Clinton testified for almost 11 hours as the star witness called by the Benghazi panel during its investigation of the deadly 2012 attacks that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.