Petraeus did not hide papers in insulation — Federal Bureau of Investigation director

FBI Director James Comey said this week there weren’t grounds to prosecute Clinton but that she and her aides had been “extremely careless” in their handling of classified information.

Comey addressed the issue at a House of Representatives committee hearing that lasted almost five hours after House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a letter to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper that Clinton should be denied classified briefings during her campaign for the presidency.

The US Department of Justice on Wednesday said it was closing the case over Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email system when she was secretary of state, and that no charges will be pressed against anyone.

Comey’s recommendation was met with considerable skepticism by committee Republicans. The interview, coming after the report, is unnecessary and excessive, Democrats said.

Comey: “There was classified material emailed”. “‘Even if information is not marked ‘classified” in an e-mail, ‘ Comey stated, ‘participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it'”. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has said Clinton is guilty at least of “stupidity and bad judgment” and has said he thinks the justice system is “rigged”.

“The Petraeus case, to my mind, illustrates perfectly the kind of cases the Department of Justice is willing to prosecute”, Comey told the committee. Comey said he hadn’t reviewed that testimony, but was aware of its existence, and noted that there hadn’t been a referral from Congress to investigate the veracity of the testimony.

Clinton on Friday maintained she was unaware at the time that she had sent classified information.

Clinton and the State Department have said those privately managed emails did not contain any information that was classified at the time they were sent.

As you might expect, Comey was grilled by Republicans on whether Clinton lied and whether he had made a political decision.

In her interview Friday Clinton deflected some of the blame toward “people in government, mostly in the State Department” with whom she communicated “who did not believe they were sending any material that was classified”.

Before Thursday’s hearing even began, Republican leaders intensified their efforts to seek administrative sanctions against Clinton.

Several Republican senators have also introduced legislation to revoke Clinton’s security clearance.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus announced that the committee was filing a freedom of information request for access to the emails referenced in the FBI investigation before the November general election.

Connolly asked Comey if Clinton was untruthful or evasive during the investigation. He was appointed in 2013 to a 10-year term as Federal Bureau of Investigation director by President Barack Obama.

U.S. Virgin Islands Rep. Stacey Plaskett called the criticism of Comey “utterly offensive”. That evidence did not exist in this case, Mr Comey said.

Comey also said Clinton knew that her email server at her home in Chappaqua, N.Y., was not authorized to receive classified information. Lynch is likely to face questions of her own next week at a separate oversight hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.

Comey said his staff told him that Petraeus didn’t hide materials in his attic insulation, but that investigators found classified material in an unlocked drawer of a desk in a ground-floor study. “I did not coordinate that (announcement) with anyone”. At Thursday’s hearing, he acknowledged again the widespread scrutiny that’s come in the wake of the case’s resolution.

“I’m not surprised by the intense interest and debate, ” Comey said. “We’ll just continue to have the conversation”.