Perhaps the biggest news, however, came when committee chairman Jason Chaffetz said he would instruct the FBI to investigate whether Mrs Clinton lied when she told Congress under oath that she did not email classified information.
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His testimony lasted more than four hours. Ryan wants to know Clapper’s “rationale” if he declines to keep classified information from Clinton, CBS News reports.
“What does it take for somebody to misuse classified information and get in trouble for it?” he asked Comey.
“Well, no, there is evidence of mishandling here”, Comey said.
Comey told lawmakers the interview with Clinton was conducted by investigators and that he was not personally in attendance, but was briefed afterward. Comey just kept making his case: The FBI could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Clinton acted with criminal intent.
Clinton has been under fire from Republicans this week after Comey announced that she mismanaged classified material.
GOWDY: So it was not true?
Clinton brushed off this characterization today, arguing the State Department may have marked material classified that shouldn’t have been marked as such.
“Isn’t she an original classification authority though?” asked a stunned DeSantis.
COMEY: No. We found work-related e-mails, thousands that were not returned.
Comey says he did not hold Hillary Clinton to a different standard when he recommended no charges over her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.
“He admitted he knew that was the wrong thing to do”, Comey said. “No reasonable prosecutor would bring this case”. But it is now what Hillary Clinton is stuck with – deservedly.
At the same time, however, Clinton’s GOP foes demonstrated with equal effectiveness that Clinton repeatedly lied to the public about both her behavior in office and her response to probes.
“That’s a question I’m not qualified to answer”. FBI Director James Comey was correct Tuesday in not recommending criminal prosecution for her. But he was also correct in calling her out for recklessness.
“Not to my knowledge”.
“That’s not what I said”, Comey said.
“Do you need a referral?”
“You’ll have one”, he said.
Mr Comey specifically rebutted a litany of Republican charges including that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had been biased, ignored the law, applied it unjustly or co-ordinated the decision with Mrs Clinton’s campaign.
“You’ll have one”, Chaffetz promised.
Comey made a public statement of the facts of Hillary’s use of a personal email account and his opinion that “no charges are appropriate in this case”.
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Judicial proceedings in the case were officially ended on Wednesday after Attorney General Loretta Lynch confirmed that the Justice Department would not file charges against the former first lady according to the FBI’s recommendation. Comey concluded that she did not.
