“As I said, I see evidence of great carelessness, but I do not see evidence that is sufficient to establish that Secretary Clinton or those with whom she was corresponding both talked about classified information on e-mail and knew when they did it they were doing something that was against the law”, Mr Comey said. He said there was a “perceived gap” between the facts of the case and his recommendation against prosecution.
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“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.
Mr. Comey’s comments could reinforce what polls show are widespread public concerns about Mrs. Clinton’s honesty and trustworthiness.
In a stinging assessment of her email practices as secretary of state, Comey rebuked Clinton and her aides for being “extremely careless” in their handling of classified information and contradicted numerous defenses and explanations she’s put forward for months. They included eight email chains with top secret information, the highest classification, along with 36 containing secret information and eight with confidential information. Attorney General Loretta Lynch formally closed the inquiry Wednesday.
“One week after their two-year investigation into the Benghazi attacks turned up nothing new, House Republicans are launching yet another taxpayer-funded sham of an inquiry to try to hurt Hillary Clinton politically”.
“It’s possible – possible that she did not understand what (classified marking) meant, ” Comey said, referring to a small number of emails that were found to have been marked as classified. But he also said there was no evidence anyone willfully or intentionally mishandled classified information and that “no reasonable prosecutor” would pursue such a case. Secretary Clinton said there was nothing marked classified on her emails sent or received.
He said during a press conference on Tuesday that while FBI investigators found no “direct evidence” that Clinton’s email domain was successfully hacked, he assessed that “it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal email account”.
Clinton was also in Washington Thursday, huddling with senior advisers at her home just off Embassy Row.
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Hours after Comey’s hearing, the State Department announced it had reopened its probe into Clinton’s email use, an investigation that will focus on whether current employees involved in handling or sending and receiving Clinton’s emails should get disciplinary action. And Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who called for Clinton’s clearance to be revoked nearly immediately after Comey’s announcement, made his request formal on Thursday in a letter to James Clapper, the director of national intelligence.
