There’s only one reason for Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s refusal to comment during a House Judiciary Committee’s hearing on the facts or substance of the investigation on Hillary Clinton’s email use, Rep. Trey Gowdy said Wednesday: She’s protecting her presidential candidate. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
Advertisement
In the wake of FBI Director James Comey’s recommendation against criminal charges for her handling of classified information while she was secretary of state, it appears one important chapter remains in the story of Hillary Clinton and email.
Lynch did say, in response to questioning from Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, that she had never discussed Clinton’s email practices with either Hillary or Bill Clinton, and she also said she had not discussed with either of them a position in the Hillary Clinton administration.
The case has become a focus of attacks against Clinton by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and sparked criticism by conservative politicians that the Justice Department was politically motivated to not prosecute Clinton.
With regard to Democratic Party talking points – for example, that the FBI’s Comey will rescind his statements about Clinton’s suspected criminal actions – former Attorney General Michael Mukasey said, “I was particularly distressed to hear that he [Director Comey] said there was no intention to violate the law when the laws involved don’t require an intention to violate the law”. The House Judiciary Committee is likely to ask about police interactions with minorities following a violent week that brought that issue to the forefront. “As you are aware, last week I met with [FBI] Director [James] Comey and career prosecutors and agents who conducted that investigation”, the attorney general said.
Pressed on the meeting with former president Bill Clinton on the plane at Phoenix airport, Lynch maintained it was merely a “social conversation”.
But Clinton should expect some political fallout from the FBI investigation of her use of personal email.
Democrats on the committee tried repeatedly to steer the hearing to questions about responding to the spate of gun violence that has frayed community-police relations across the country. “It would not be appropriate in my role to discuss the specific facts”, she said at another.
The former Secretary of State had maintained that she had not sent any classified information from her private email server but the Federal Bureau of Investigation found 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains containing classified information at the time they were sent or received.
Following the videotaped shootings by police of two African-American men – Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota – a gunman in Dallas last week killed five police officers at a rally protesting the shootings. There is no rule that doesn’t allow her to answer the questions.
But Lynch has been careful to emphasize that she was less involved in the decision not to prosecute Clinton than Comey was.
Advertisement
“As we gather here this morning, that sense of safety has been shaken by the series of devastating events that rocked our nation last week”, Lynch said in prepared remarks.
