Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Tuesday she won’t answer any more questions about her decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton for her mishandling of classified information, saying only that it would be “inappropriate” for her to get into details.
Advertisement
Attorney General Loretta Lynch repeatedly dodged and deflected specific questions Tuesday on the FBI’s probe of Hillary Clinton’s email use, referring Republicans to the Federal Bureau of Investigation director instead of answering them herself – and leading to heated exchanges with top Republicans over the course of several hours of testimony.
Last week, Comey issued a harsh assessment of Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server, calling her handling of classified data “extremely careless” and suggesting that it was possible her home-based mail server had been breached by hackers.
House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlate, a Virginia Republican, rejected the FBI’s conclusion, saying, “the FBI’s conclusion leaves many more questions than answers”.
Goodlatte, R-Roanoke, said if Lynch does not want to answer questions about the investigation, “she should have appointed a special prosecutor at the start of the investigation”. He called the Republican-led hearing a “fishing expediton” and a “reckless legislative joy ride” created to “crash and burn”.
In case you weren’t aware, lawmakers were not happy with Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s sanitized script at Tuesday’s House Oversight Committee hearing.
Goodlatte and another House Republican have formally requested the Department of Justice investigate whether Clinton lied to congressional committees under oath.
Democrats criticized Republicans for their focus on Clinton’s emails instead of trying to pass legislation on guns or deal with issues of policing. She has said it was an unscheduled encounter and the two did not discuss the Hillary Clinton email investigation, but Lynch also previously expressed regret and acknowledged the meeting had “cast a shadow” on the public perception of the Justice Department’s independence.
Secretary Clintons extreme carelessness possibly jeopardized the safety and security of our citizens and nation, Goodlatte said.
Before beginning his questioning of Lynch, Gohmert took moment to express “outrage” at his Democrat colleagues’ used the hearing to insinuate that Republicans do not care that five police officers had been killed in Dallas last week.
Pushed to elaborate, she said, “Again, I would have to refer you to Director Comey’s statements with the basis for his recommendations”.
She reiterated that a brief conversation she had with Bill Clinton at the Phoenix airport last month, after he saw her airplane and asked to board to say “hi”, was social in nature and “there was nothing about any investigations or any specific cases”.
The year-long FBI investigation found Clinton sent and received classified material on her private email server and failed to turn over all her work-email to the department.
Lynch was asked about her email practices by Rep. Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican, during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday.
I think your actions made it worse, I really do, said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.
Advertisement
“We asked her to apply the facts to the law…”
