FBI Director James Comey told USA 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.
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Comey said that prosecutions for classified material have historically been reserved for cases of intentional or willful wrongdoing, obstruction of justice or disloyalty to the U.S. He drew distinctions between the Clinton probe and last year’s prosecution of former CIA Director David Petraeus, who pleaded guilty to sharing classified information with his biographer.
The FBI may have let Clinton off the hook for her email actions- but this certainly isn’t the last we’re going to hear of the scandal. “I don’t think that’s for me to recommend”, he said.
Remember what Comey said about “criminal intent?“.
“They might get fired, they might lose their clearance, it might get suspended for 30 days”, Comey said.
He explained that under relevant statutes, prosecutors would have to prove Clinton clearly knew she was breaking the law to win a case. Here are 22 times Clinton swore to voters that she didn’t.
FBI Director James Comey testifies before a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the “Oversight of the State Department” in Washington. “And my judgment here is there is not”, Comey said.
“And it wasn’t one innocent mistake”, Chaffetz said of Clinton’s use of private email.
During an exchange with Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., Comey confirmed that the FBI’s investigation found at least three emails with classified markings on Clinton’s server, despite Clinton’s assertion during the Benghazi hearing that she had neither sent nor received any items marked classified.
Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the senior Democrat on both the Benghazi and Oversight panels, said an Federal Bureau of Investigation referral was “unwarranted”, since Comey said only three emails out of more than 30,000 sent or received by Clinton contained classified markings. “There would be a security review and determination of suitability”, he said, reciting the FBI’s own security review process.
Saying he wanted to “better understand the resources that the FBI employed during” the investigation, Johnson also asked Comey to provide the total number of FBI personnel that were assigned to the case as well as a list of resources used or consulted.
“We try very hard to apply the same standard whether you’re rich or poor, white or black, old or young, famous or not known at all”, he added.
“I don’t have 100 percent confidence”, Comey replied. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump complained that the system was “rigged”.
The committee’s top Democrat, Elijah Cummings of Maryland, accused Republicans of politicizing the investigation.
Ryan, who has been critical of Trump at times, said Trump and Republican House members had “a great meeting”.
Comey’s recommendation was met with considerable skepticism by committee Republicans.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced prior to the hearing that the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee would not be criminally charged.
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What should really be getting asked, by government investigators, political critics and by any real journalists left out there, is why Clinton, as Secretary of State, was so insistent – even to the point of violating laws and State Department policies – on avoiding the reach of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Although there is a law that allows for felony prosecution for mishandling classified information due to gross negligence, that law has been used only once in the 99 years since it was enacted – and that was in a case involving espionage, Comey said.
