Federal Bureau of Investigation director says Clinton did not lie, break law in email handling

He was referring to the charitable non-profit organization run by Bill and Hillary Clinton that has been rumored to be under FBI investigation for improper ties to Clinton’s Secretary of State office.

Chaffetz added that he would forward Clinton’s testimony before the House Benghazi Committee to the FBI to investigate whether or not she lied under oath to Congress.

Comey will field questions Thursday from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about an Federal Bureau of Investigation announcement that dispersed the threat of criminal charges but also revived public scrutiny of Clinton’s handling of classified information.

In a letter to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Ryan requested that the intelligence community refrain from providing any classified information to Clinton.

In response, Chaffetz promised such a referral would be made “within hours”.

Trump invoked a almost identical line Tuesday, after Comey announced his recommendation to bring no charges against Clinton. Eight of those email chains had top secret information. “Look, the advent of email and texts and smartphones is just generating just enormous amounts of data”, he said.

“It is hugely convenient”, he said, but it adds “enormous pressure on the department to sort through it, classify it properly”.

He defended his agency against Republican criticism Thursday at a hearing of the House Oversight Committee. “I know that frustrates people”. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C.

Chaffetz said lawmakers would now ask the FBI to investigate whether Clinton lied to the committee. “Now I’m not so sure”. In his opening statement, the ranking Democrat on the committee, Representative Elijah Cummings, said the point of the hearing was for Comey to “fill the gap”.

According to Comey, while Clinton did make statements that proved to be untrue, the case did not warrant the Justice Department’s second prosecution on charges of “gross negligence” in a century.

Comey: She used multiple devices during the four years of her term as secretary of state.

But Comey insisted that Clinton did not break the law. “That would be treating this person differently than John Doe”. However, it would be a reason to drag Clinton up to Capitol Hill for more embarrassing hearings – hearings that would probably sound a lot like the one conducted by Chaffetz and his colleagues today.

However, he went on, the evidence also suggested that the former Secretary of State was not “particularly sophisticated with respect to classified information and the levels and treatment”, nor was she “as technically sophisticated as others might assume”, given her status.

“Were there or were there not classified emails that Hillary Clinton’s attorneys read?”

Mr Comey called her and her staff “extremely careless” and said that any “reasonable” government employee should have known such information should not be aired in emails. “Everybody knows that, director, everybody knows that”.