A group of Republican senators on Thursday asked the State Department to immediately suspend clearances for Clinton and several current and former aides based on the agency’s findings.
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Lawmakers may take a fresh look at Clinton’s testimony that she never sent or received emails marked as classified when she served as secretary of state, and her claims that she only used one mobile device for emails and turned over all of her work-related emails to the State Department. FBI Director James Comey told US lawmakers on Thursday that FBI employees who mishandled classified material in the way Hillary Clinton did as secretary of state could be subject to dismissal or loss of security clearance, APA reports quoting Reuters. Clinton used a private email server for some of her official business as secretary of state, which may have compromised sensitive information.
In announcing that FBI’s decision not to recommend charges be brought against Clinton, Comey stated on Tuesday, “To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences”.
Chaffetz hinted to Comey that he can expect a congressional referral to investigate whether Clinton lied under oath very soon.
But Petraeus clearly did show evidence of intentionally violating the law, Comey said.
Comey said the FBI investigation did not find evidence of actions that would warrant criminal charges.
“You can disagree with us, but you cannot fairly say we did it in any kind of political way”, Comey said. Last October, Clinton, already a Democratic presidential candidate, calmly deflected harsh Republican criticism of her handling of the attack during a testy 11-hour hearing before Gowdy’s committee. “But if I came up to you and said this person was extremely careless with classified information, exposure to hostile actors and used, despite a warning, created unnecessary burdens in exposure, if they said that they had one device and you found out that they had multiple devices, if there had been e-mail chains with somebody like [former Clinton aide] Jake Sullivan asking for classification changes, you’re telling me that the Federal Bureau of Investigation would grant a security clearance to that person?” “There were a small number of portion markings on, I think, three of the documents”. “In their eyes, you had one job and one job only, to prosecute Hillary Clinton”.
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Testifying about Hillary Clinton’s emails on Thursday, Comey was questioned about the case of Petraeus in which he was prosecuted for mishandling classified information. Ryan also has asked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to bar Clinton from receiving classified briefings for the rest of the campaign.
