“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 just kept making his case: The FBI could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Clinton acted with criminal intent.
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“And so an unauthorized server in the basement is not mishandling?”
“He admitted he knew that was the wrong thing to do”, Comey said.
When asked if this would have doomed a presidential candidate in any other political year, Tate replied, “This isn’t any other year”.
JAMES COMEY: There was classified material e-mailed.
“There was classified email”, Comey said. Even if only a small number were clearly marked classified, this undercuts her argument that aggressive after-the-fact reclassification resulted in much of her emails being classified.
Comey answered: “No, we found work-related emails, thousands that were not returned”.
The hearing comes two days after the FBI announced that its two-year long investigation did not find evidence that Clinton broke the law when she used a private email server as Secretary of State.
“We did not develop clear evidence of that”, he said.
Earlier this week, Comey acknowledged that his decision would spark “intense public debate, ” but he asserted that the investigation’s outcome was based on a “thorough” review. Their conclusion, he said, was that “no charges are appropriate in this case”.
The Oversight Committee is chaired by Republican U.S. Representative Jason Chaffetz, known for his persistent questioning of Obama administration officials.
The lack of an oath does not remove the possibility of criminal penalties if Clinton is found to have lied to investigators, however.
Petraeus, Comey said, retained a “vast quantity” of classified information and lied to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about it.
“Did she lie to the public?” The panel’s chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said lawmakers may seek a federal investigation into whether Clinton lied to the committee in testimony past year.
Despite the no-prosecution decision, Comey had rebuked Clinton and her aides on Tuesday as being “extremely careless” in their handling of classified information and contradicted numerous explanations she’s put forward.
And when asked if the Clinton Foundation – launched by Bill Clinton and which has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for charitable causes in the past decade – was under investigation, Comey refused to comment.
“Not to my knowledge”. He said that she had a server in her basement with some of the most sensitive information this country possesses.
“Do you need a referral from Congress to investigate her statements under oath?”
“It reflects a larger problem in government”, he said.
Jordan interjected, “You use the right term there – use ‘marked.’ That’s the one – that’s what you – you used the revised statement there”. But she repeatedly noted that information later identified as classified was part of correspondence with hundreds of government officials who did not flag any problem. They will at least understand how the decision was made.
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Democrats on the panel largely backed Comey despite the tough remarks about her “careless” handling of classified information. The committee’s ranking member, Rep. Comey concluded that she did not.
