Comey explained that, in his view, Petraeus had gotten off easy after committing a far more egregious act than Clinton had when she chose to use a private email server while serving at the State Department, The Huffington Post reports.
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House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, the highest-ranking elected Republican, said in a statement that Mr. Comey’s announcement “defies explanation”.
He also said she may not have been “sophisticated” enough to understand classified markings within an email.
But the window for prosecution slammed shut Wednesday – when Attorney General Loretta Lynch effectively closed the case, in part saying: “no charges [will] be brought against any individuals within the scope of the investigation”.
Of some 30,000 emails Clinton turned over to the FBI, Comey said 110 contained classified information – Clinton had said none was classified at the time they were sent. If officials throughout the State Department believed that the information was not classified, Clinton can reasonably continue to insist that she didn’t know, either. “I am certainly relieved and glad that the investigation has concluded”.
How about that claim that she only used one device?
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.
For most of the almost three decades Hillary and Bill Clinton have been at the heart of American public life, and Republicans have hunted them with Captain Ahab-like zeal, launching years-long investigations by congressional committees and independent counsels at every sign of a misstep – no matter how big or small, real or imagined. Comey said there was nothing he could do.
House Republicans Thursday accused FBI Director James Comey of setting a “dangerous precedent” by refusing to recommend charges against Hillary Clinton for her mishandling of State Department emails.
Cynics may say that Comey will only apply the same logic: that Hillary didn’t really know the situation, and so she had no mens rea responsibility for the untruths she spoke.
But without a transcript of what Clinton said, it would be hard to prove her words were false.
That created the potential for a case that Clinton lied to Congress, because during her October testimony to the House Select Committee on Benghazi, Clinton said, “There was nothing marked classified on my e-mails, either sent or received”.
“We found work-related emails, thousands that were not returned”, he said.
The panel’s chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said lawmakers may seek a federal investigation into whether Clinton lied to the committee in testimony past year.
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Mica said he wants the Oversight Committee’s members to see a copy of the analysis. The oversight committee will also hold another hearing to examine the “lax security culture” at the State Department under Clinton.
