The State Department announced late yesterday that it is launching its own internal review of Hillary Clinton’s email practices, while FBI Director James Comey stunned lawmakers by saying her lack of “sophistication” weighed in to the decision not to recommend prosecution – a bombshell coming after his early remarks that she was “extremely careless” with classified information.
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REP. TREY GOWDY: Secretary Clinton said all work-related e-mails were returned to the State Department.
Ten Republican senators said on Thursday they had written Secretary of State John Kerry asking that the State Department immediately suspend security clearances of Clinton and aides Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills, Jake Sullivan and other former State Department employees for security violations.
Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan wrote to James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, requesting he deny Ms Clinton access to classified information for the duration of the 2016 campaign.
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch has accepted the Federal Bureau of Investigation recommendation and was to appear at another hearing next Tuesday.
“You’ll have one in the next few hours”, Chaffetz said, after Comey told the chairman that a referral from Congress was needed to investigate Clinton’s potential lying under oath.
When asked about the director’s comments at a Saturday news conference, Obama said, “I am concerned”, according to Reuters.
The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.) said Comey had a thankless task that was bound to bring criticism from all sides, including that his statement went too far in its condemnation of Clinton.
Comey was called to Capitol Hill by Republicans who were left frustrated over his decision to recommend no charges against Clinton.
“He (Comey) defined all the allegations as being contradictory to what Ms. Clinton actually did, so it validated that there was a problem”, Gosar said after the hearing. “We try very hard to apply the same standard whether you are rich or poor, white or black, old or young, famous or not known at all”, he said.
The issue of Clinton’s use of private email servers has cast a cloud over her campaign leading up to the November 8 presidential election, raised questions among voters about her trustworthiness and given her Republican presidential rival, Donald Trump, an avenue of attack. “And as I have said many times, I certainly did not believe that I received or sent any material that was classified”, Clinton said in the interview.
Comey also testified that there were three emails found on Clinton’s servers bearing the letter “C” which denotes they were classified, in apparent contradiction of the former secretary of state’s statements.
“It concerns me a great deal and that’s why we spent so much time to see if we could figure out, see fingerprints of that”, Comey responded. She also said she only used one mobile device for emails and turned over all of her work-related emails to the State Department.
Gowdy complained Thursday that Clinton benefited from a “double-track justice system that is rightly or wrongly perceived in this country”.
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Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee in the 2016 US presidential race, served as Secretary of State under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013.
