Thursday at a House Oversight Committee hearing on the FBI’s investigation and conclusions into presumptive Democratic presidential front nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of private unsecured email servers during her tenure as secretary of state, FBI Director James Comey said it would be a “double standard” if Clinton were prosecuted for gross negligence.
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He said it was an appropriate sanction for her improper handling of classified emails while serving as President Barack Obama’s first secretary of state.
“Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues meant to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information”.
Noting the many “inconsistencies” in Comey’s announcement on Tuesday that he would not recommend criminal charges against Clinton, Grassley’s July 6 letter stated that “in light of these inconsistencies, it is even more troubling that the Federal Bureau of Investigation tried to gag its agents with a non-disclosure agreement on this matter, in violation of whistleblower protection statutes”. But Comey said that FBI investigators uncovered “several thousand” work-related emails that she hadn’t handed over – including three that were classified at the time they were sent, though not marked as such.
“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.
Comey explained that they take into consideration the “strength of the evidence, the context of actions, intent” [such as covering up what she knew to be wrong by lying both in public and under oath] and how similar situations have been handled in the past. Did you look at the Clinton foundation?
“It concerns me a great deal and that’s why we spent so much time to see if we could figure out, see fingerprints of that”, Comey responded. Like I said, I understand why people are confused by the whole discussion.
Mr. Chaffetz repeatedly questioned Mr. Comey why there shouldn’t be consequences for Mrs. Clinton or her lawyers for that breach of security. “In my mind, it illustrates importantly the distinction to this case”, Comey said of the Petraeus case.
A group of Republicans senators has introduced legislation to strip Clinton of her security clearance.
Comey added that because those emails were not marked at the headers, it might have been reasonable for Clinton not to know that those parts were classified.
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Says she “never received nor sent any material that was marked classified” on her private email server while secretary of state.
