House Republicans asked Lynch if she thought Clinton had broken the law when she set up a private home email system and passed classified information through it during her tenure as secretary of state.
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“I’m actually confused by your statement”, Labrador interrupted Lynch as she repeated what she was not at liberty to share.
FBI Director James Comey said she had multiple devices and investigators found thousands of work-related emails that had not been turned over. “You can’t even tell us if one of your employees carelessly used information, whether you would advance them in their career or not”.
Lynch defended the Department of Justice’s call not to pursue criminal charges against Clinton. In response to Republicans’ assertions of a conflict of interest, she said she had deferred to the recommendations of the FBI and experienced prosecutors in ending the investigation without charges and had seen no need to step out of the case completely.
“I accepted that (FBI) recommendation”. Misleading the public is a common occurrence with her. Tell the voters what they want to hear, let them prove differently and if they do, downplay it (I didn’t do anything my predecessors didn’t do).
Several Republicans echoed the suggestion by Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, that Lynch cut a deal to let Clinton off the hook in return for keeping her job if the Democrat becomes president.
She has denied having been influenced by contact with former President Bill Clinton, who Lynch crossed paths with late last month on the tarmac of an airport in Phoenix, Arizona.
Lynch then said that she would accept whatever recommendation the Federal Bureau of Investigation and her prosecutors presented on Clinton. Maybe. Did they give people who already felt there was a fix in the investigation more fuel for that particular fire? Clinton has said she did not send or receive emails marked classified when she sent them, claims that Comey contradicted last week.
Toward the end of the session, Rep. Dave Trott of MI said he’d counted 74 examples of Lynch saying she wouldn’t or couldn’t comment.
Republicans also pressed Lynch on her meeting aboard her plane with former President Bill Clinton in the days before the email investigation ended, a decision Lynch has acknowledged “cast a shadow” over her role.
The tone of the dynamic between Lynch and the Republicans was captured during questioning from Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.).
“That shadow which you cast on the Department of Justice just got a whole lot bigger”, said Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas). Judicial Watch lawyers pressed the current and former State Department officials on whether Clinton’s exclusive use of private emails amounted to an effort to sidestep public records requests.
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Bob Goodlatte, strenuously criticized Lynch over the investigation’s outcome, charging that rubber-stamping the FBI’s recommendation “does not seem to be a responsible way to uphold your constitutionally sworn oath”.
