The Justice Department made clear that the retired Army general knew the material was top secret when he divulged it and had lied to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about it.
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Pressed by Chaffetz Thursday on whether Clinton lied, FBI Director James Comey said during a hearing that he had not reviewed Clinton’s testimony because it had not been referred to him by Congress. Chaffetz assured Comey he would soon get a referral. Had the “average Joe” done what she had done, he said, he would go to prison.
“There are about 300 people in the government, mostly in the State Department, but in other high positions in the government with whom I emailed over the course of four years – they, I believe, did not believe they were sending any material that was classified”, Clinton told CNN.
“Do those actions make it easier for those racist groups to recruit even more supporters?” he then asked.
“I have said, and I repeated, that it was a mistake to use personal email and I regret that”, she said in another interview with ABC.
Comey testified before the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee over the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s email investigation and their decision, announced earlier this week, not to prosecute the former Secretary of State for her use of a private server.
Comey vigorously rejected Republican accusations that Clinton was given special treatment.
Mr Comey, called to attend a hastily convened hearing at the Capitol in Washington DC on Thursday, was accused of having set a “dangerous precedent” that would permit government officials to handle classified information “sloppily” without fear of effect.
Chaffetz then asked Comey whether the FBI investigated Clinton for perjuring herself before Congress.
Paul Ryan says Hillary Clinton has shown she can’t be trusted with sensitive information and shouldn’t be given classified information briefings after becoming the Democratic nominee for president, Politico reports.
While Jordan said he didn’t question Comey’s ultimate conclusion on Clinton’s conduct, he did note that there were differing opinions on the lack of charges against her. Comey said the decision not to recommend charges in this case was unanimous within his team. Many Republicans – and, especially, Donald Trump – immediately claimed that “the system was fixed” on behalf of Clinton.
When she became Secretary of State, Clinton signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement laying out the penalties for mishandling classified information.
GOWDY: Secretary Clinton said ‘I did not e-mail any classified material to anyone on my e-mail, there is no classified material.’ Was that true?
To criminally charge Clinton based on the facts his agency’s yearlong probe had found would have been unwarranted and mere “celebrity-hunting”, Comey said.
Chaffetz also promised a new hearing at a to-be-determined date on how the Petraeus case was handled, at the request of committee ranking member Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md.
But Comey noted that at the time Congress passed the law in 1917, “there was a lot of concern in the House and the Senate about whether that was going to violate the American tradition of requiring that before you’re going to lock somebody up, you prove they knew they were doing something wrong”.
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Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on Wednesday that she accepted the recommendations and findings of Mr Comey and of her career prosecutors and would not file charges against Mrs Clinton. “That is a ideal illustration of the kind of cases that get prosecuted”.
