Petraeus case worse than Clinton’s emails — Federal Bureau of Investigation director

The FBI director, James Comey, is to be questioned in Congress on Thursday and Lynch herself will be quizzed next week.

When agents investigate allegations of criminal wrongdoing, they look for evidence not only that a statute was violated but also that a person knew that what he was doing was wrong.

“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”, Chaffetz told Comey. The panel’s chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said lawmakers may seek a federal investigation into whether Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, lied to the committee in testimony previous year.

Senator Kelly Ayotte, a former attorney general in her state who is in a tough re-election race, complained: “The lives of Americans depend on the protection of classified information, and failing to enforce the law in this case sets a unsafe precedent for our national security”.

Mr Comey delivered a stinging assessment of Mrs Clinton’s handling of classified emails, saying she should have known not to have sensitive discussions on an unclassified system and that she sent and received emails that were classified at the time, contrary to her claims.

The 800-page report by the GOP-led House Benghazi Committee found no wrongdoing by the former secretary of state, but the two-year inquiry had revealed that she used a private email server for government business, setting off intense scrutiny that continues to dog Clinton’s presidential campaign.

“So you have obstruction of justice, you have intentional misconduct and a vast quantity of information”, Comey said.

The committee’s top Democrat, Elijah Cummings of Maryland, accused Republicans of politicizing the investigation. 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.

Comey appeared Thursday morning before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, reiterating his contention that the FBI’s recommendation was not at all tinged by political considerations.

And Wednesday’s expected announcement that the Justice Department will not file charges against the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee left Republicans that much more dissatisfied. He said that three of the emails in question bore classification markings in the body despite Clinton’s assertions that nothing she had sent or received was marked classified.

“Although there is evidence of potential violations regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case”, he said during a news conference.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has said “there are a lot more questions that need to be answered” and, in a letter to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, requested that Clinton be barred from receiving classified briefings for the rest of the campaign – a move that “certainly constitutes appropriate sanctions”.

He added: “In my mind, it illustrates importantly the distinction to this case”.

The hearing served as a means to energize a conservative base that might be disillusioned with Trump, as Republicans are working to hold onto their majority in Congress.

But he repeated his earlier contention that “no reasonable prosecutor” would have pursued criminal charges against Clinton, saying at one point, “We went at this very hard to see if we could make a case”.

Fifty-four percent of voters disagreed with the FBI’s decision not to indict the former Secretary of State for her use of a private, personal email server where the Federal Bureau of Investigation concluded that she exposed confidential information, creating a national security risk.

This story has been corrected to.