The Wisconsin Republican said that he decided to make the request after FBI Director James Comey revealed Tuesday that Clinton had sent and received emails containing classified information through her private email servers during her four years leading the State Department.
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“[Petraeus] not only shared [classified information] with someone who was not allowed to have it, but we found it in a search warrant under the insulation in his attic, and then he lied to us about it in the investigation”, Comey said.
“The FBI’s recommendation is surprising and confusing”, Rep. Jason Chaffetz said in a statement announcing today’s hearing. “The perception from a lot of Americans, a lot of the folks I get the privilege of representing in the Fourth District of OH, are saying, ‘Wait a minute”.
Republicans on the panel, voices sometimes raised in apparent frustration and irritation, said they were mystified by the decision not to prosecute because they felt that Comey, in a remarkably detailed and critical public statement on Tuesday, had laid out a sufficient basis for charges.
“My conclusion was and remains that no reasonable prosecutor would bring… the second case in 100 years for gross negligence”, Comey said. Had the “average Joe” done what she had done, he said, that person would go to prison.
Separately, the State Department is reopening its internal investigation of possible mishandling of classified information by Clinton and top aides.
“It takes mishandling it and criminal intent”, Comey replied. We did not find evidence sufficient to establish that she knew she was sending classified information beyond a reasonable doubt, to meet the intent standard. That evidence did not exist in this case, Comey said.
“There is simply no excuse for Hillary Clinton’s decision to set up a home-cooked email system which left sensitive and classified national security information vulnerable to theft and exploitation by America’s enemies”, the letter said.
Lynch made her decision after meeting with FBI Director James Comey, prosecutors and FBI agents Wednesday, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) and the Washington Post report.
Comey: There was classified material emailed.
Comey denied that Clinton was subject to a different standard in its investigation.
“She said she’s going to reappoint the attorney general and the attorney general is waiting to make a determination as to whether or not she’s guilty”.
“You’ll have one. You’ll have one in the next few hours”, Chaffetz said. The committee’s ranking member, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., called Comey’s work “thankless” and said Republicans had reversed course from praising his impartiality only days ago.
“I beg you to fill the gap”.
Under oath, Clinton testified last October that she never sent or received emails marked as classified when she served as secretary of state. “He admitted he knew that was the wrong thing to do”.
“No Justice Department, whether under Democrats or Republicans, would prosecute that case”, Comey said.
While Comey defended the eventual determination that no criminal charges were appropriate, he did agree with assertions by GOP lawmakers that the Democratic presidential candidate’s public assurances about her email use were not backed up by the facts uncovered in the investigation.
While the Federal Bureau of Investigation determined Clinton had been “extremely careless” in using her personal email server, Comey said in a public statement Tuesday, her actions had not crossed the level into criminality.
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In an unusual 15-minute announcement explaining the FBI’s findings, Comey ended up dismaying both Republicans and Democrats.
