She also said she only used one mobile device for emails and turned over all of her work-related emails to the State Department.
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Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said he would refer Clinton’s October 22 testimony to the FBI to investigate whether she lied to Congress. “If the Federal Bureau of Investigation won’t recommend action based on its findings, Congress will”. Clinton had said publicly she never sent or received any classified information.
FBI Director James Comey told USA lawmakers on Thursday that FBI employees who mishandled classified material in the way Hillary Clinton did as secretary of state could be subject to dismissal or loss of security clearance.
The issue of Clinton’s use of private email servers has cast a cloud over her campaign for the November 8 presidential election, raising questions among voters about her trustworthiness and judgment and giving her Republican presidential rival, Donald Trump, an avenue of attack.
But Comey insisted that Clinton did not break the law.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has said “there are a lot more questions that need to be answered” and, in a letter to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, requested that Clinton be barred from receiving classified briefings for the rest of the campaign – a move that “certainly constitutes appropriate sanctions”.
Although there is a law that allows for felony prosecution for mishandling classified information due to gross negligence, Comey said it’s only been used once in the 99 years since in an espionage case.
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.
Nevertheless, Comey stuck to his original statement, which is that there was no proof that Clinton meant to violate any statutes, and that, since only one case of gross negligence has been brought in 100 years without corresponding intent in the realm of intelligence information, it wasn’t reasonable to prosecute Clinton on those grounds either.
Chaffetz said lawmakers would now ask the FBI to investigate whether Clinton lied to the committee.
Committee chairman, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told Comey that the FBI’s decision showed a “double standard” for powerful people. The State Department, however, said Thursday that it was reopening its internal review of the matter – which could potentially bring professional consequences for Clinton or her top aides there.
A Democratic member of the committee, Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, defended Comey’s actions by saying: “I firmly believe your decision was based on conviction, not convenience”.
Comey, who said on Tuesday he would not recommend that the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee face criminal charges, was asked at the hearing if Clinton should face administrative punishment for the way she handled her email.
“I’m going to make you proud”, Trump told House Republicans, according to a participant, Representative Bill Flores.
Comey, a registered Republican for years though he said he now is not registered in a political party, served as deputy attorney general in the George W. Bush administration.
He drew distinctions between the Clinton probe and last year’s prosecution of former CIA Director David Petraeus, who pleaded guilty to sharing classified information with his biographer.
Petraeus kept highly classified information in a set of notebooks at his private residence, Comey acknowledged. That is the ideal illustration of the kind of cases that get prosecuted.
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The investigation formally ended Wednesday when Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced that no charges would be filed.
