Lynch will appear at a separate hearing next Tuesday.
Advertisement
“I beg you to fill the gap”. “I thought the Federal Bureau of Investigation was looking at this, but evidently, they’re not”. It’s even less clear what they’d get out of it. What is clear is that the risk of political backfire is very, very real. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Rep. James Sensenbrenner (Wis.) – while Bill Clinton is more popular than his wife and the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump. He said three of the emails in question bore classification markings in the body despite Clinton’s assertions that nothing she had sent or received was marked classified. “Was that true?” Gowdy asked.
Chaffetz was skeptical that the investigation had found no proof Clinton was willfully careless with classified materials. He said his team found no evidence that she lied under oath or broke the law by discussing classified information in an unclassified setting.
Perhaps in earlier cycles, allegations that a national leader had proven at the bare minimum to be “extremely careless” in national-security matters would have ended his or her career. And next week, Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch will appear before the House Judiciary Committee. “What we can’t establish is that she acted with the necessary criminal intent”.
Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said lawmakers would be investigating whether they could take action over Clinton’s email practices.
Prosecutors said that while his biographer, Paula Broadwell, was writing her book in 2011, Petraeus gave her eight binders of classified material he had improperly kept from his time as the top military commander in Afghanistan. (Presidential and vice presidential candidates get regular classified briefings.) She was “so reckless” with the classified information she had access to while secretary of state, he said – so how can we trust her now?
“There is no legal requirement for you to provide Secretary Clinton with classified information, and it would send the wrong signal to all those charged with safeguarding our nation’s secrets if you choose to provide her access to this information despite the FBI’s findings”, Ryan wrote.
“My conclusion was and remains that no reasonable prosecutor would bring… the second case in 100 years for gross negligence”, Comey said. She then asks Comey to explain how he concluded Clinton did not run afoul of that law.
“Despite our vote today, they apparently plan to continue to use the power of the Select Committee behind closed doors to do whatever they want to do”, said Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the panel.
Comey, a Republican who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama and also served in the administration of former Republican President George W. Bush, has built a reputation as a straight shooter who does not bend to pressure from either party. A misdemeanor statute requires the mishandling to be intentional, Comey said.
The House resolution that created the Benghazi committee in May 2014 says the panel is to disband 30 days after filing its report with the House. “But you refused, so now you are being summoned here to answer for your alleged transgressions”.
Early on during Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz’s opening questions, he asked Director Comey if the FBI investigated whether Hillary Clinton lied under oath while she testified at the Benghazi hearing. The department had suspended its probe while it was waiting for the Justice Department to complete its criminal investigation.
Despite clinching the Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton can expect a further onslaught of attacks from Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who has accused her of playing by a different set of rules from the American public.
Advertisement
Republicans are trying other avenues to keep the email controversy that has clouded her presidential campaign for months, alive. He shot it to try to determine whether Vincent Foster, a Clinton family friend and deputy White House counsel, had committed suicide. While he was generally hesitant to comment on hypotheticals, Director Comey left no doubt that any other government employee who did something similar to Clinton would immediately be sent to a “suitability review” process to determine their fitness to hold a clearance. He would still be on the job if Clinton were elected president.
