FBI Head to Face Congress Over Clinton Email Investigation
In his first public remarks since announcing the recommendation, Comey told U.S. lawmakers that the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee did not lie to Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, did not break the law and that the decision not to proceed with criminal charges was the unanimous assessment of a group of investigators whom the director described as an “all-star team” assembled by the Justice Department.
Rep. John Duncan, R-TN, asked Comey if he had heard that “there is one standard of law for the Clintons and another for everybody else”.
GOWDY: Secretary Clinton said neither she nor anyone else deleted work-related e-mails from her personal account. “I don’t think there’s been a referral from Congress”, Comey replied.
Comey said Petraeus’ conduct was “clearly intentional” while Clinton’s was not.
“They have grave concerns about whether it’s appropriate to prosecute someone for gross negligence”, he said of department officials.
The FBI and Justice Department later recommended felony charges against him for sharing classified information with Broadwell.
Thursday’s letter comes amid growing pushback from Senate Republicans over the FBI’s recommendation that Clinton face no charges for her mishandling of classified information. “To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions”.
FBI Director James Comey strongly defended his decision not to prosecute presidential candidate Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server during a congressional panel hearing on Thursday.
Cornyn added in his letter to Lynch that the FBI’s conclusions “directly contradict numerous public statements that former-Secretary Clinton and her supporters have made in the defense of her unprecedented conduct”.
Representative Jason Chaffetz, the chairman of the committee, asked Comey directly whether Clinton lied under oath about her email practices. “I can speak about what she said to the FBI”, Comey said.
The Republican Congressman called Comey’s recommendation not to charge Clinton “surprising and confusing”.
CHAFFETZ: Do you know who paid for that?
He added, “I firmly believe that your decision was not based on convenience but on conviction”. But he suggested that Comey had contributed to that by leaving “a perceived gap” between his public criticism of Clinton and his conclusion not to prosecute.
GOWDY: Okay, well I’m looking for a little shorter answer so you and I are not here quite as long. “Because when the gap is not filled by you, it will be filled by others”, Cummings said.
Senate Republicans, including Cornyn, have pressed for Lynch to appoint a special counsel to investigate Clinton’s email server, though the administration has shown no signs of considering that request. Only three of the FBI-reviewed emails were explicitly marked as classified and those were marked with a “C” in the body of the email, not in the header, he said.
“It seems to a lot of us that the Average Joe, the average American, that if they had done what you laid out in your statement, that they would be in handcuffs and they might be on their way to jail”.
Clinton and Trump are set to claim their parties’ presidential nominations later this month.
He drew distinctions between the Clinton probe and last year’s prosecution of former CIA Director David Petraeus, who pleaded guilty to sharing classified information with his biographer.
“They might get fired, they might lose their clearance, it might get suspended for 30 days”, Comey said. “It illustrates importantly the distinction to this case”. We did not find evidence sufficient to establish that she knew she was sending classified information beyond a reasonable doubt to meet that – the intent standard.