Comey said he had not been given a referral to investigate possible perjury before Congress. Republicans have said they intend to make a referral so the FBI can investigate.
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The investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of private email while secretary of state is closed, USA attorney general Loretta Lynch said on Wednesday, removing a legal cloud that threatened the presumptive Democratic nominee’s presidential bid.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said Thursday that he would refer Clinton’s October 22 testimony to the FBI to investigate whether she lied to Congress. Comey’s testimony was extraordinary in its candor, both as to his reasoning on his decision not to recommend prosecution and as to the often-minute details of the FBI’s findings.
Republicans said they were infuriated with the FBI’s decision and confused by the way it was presented. “They weren’t looking at it”.
Clinton on Friday maintained she was unaware at the time that she had sent classified information. Clinton placed her compulsion for privacy and personal convenience above the security interests of the country.
South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy asked Comey a series of questions rooted in the former secretary of state’s statements on the issue.
Of the 30 000 emails that Clinton turned over to investigators, 110 messages in 52 email chains were found to have contained classified information at the time they were sent or received.
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.
“There was classified material emailed”, Comey replied. Indeed, House Speaker Paul Ryan has called on the director of national intelligence to block Clinton’s access to classified information while she is a presidential candidate. “I think it’s possible – possible – that she didn’t understand what a “C” meant when she saw it in the body of an email like that”.
“I do not believe that they did anything that they believed was in any way inappropriate”, she told Holt.
Comey’s rebuke of Clinton fanned the controversy and could still complicate her increasingly tight race against Republican rival Donald Trump.
“I want you to make sure you’re not wasting your question”, he said at a news conference Saturday, interrupting a New York Times correspondent.
But he said it was not clear whether Clinton knew that such a designation denoted classified material, saying “the secretary may not have been as sophisticated as people assume” when it comes to such issues. Check out Walt Handelsman’s view of Clinton sauntering unscathed past heavy falling objects; Lisa Benson’s view of the Clinton hot air balloon weighed down by her baggage and Dana Summers’ train wreck.
Asked whether a special prosecutor should be named to investigate the matter, Ryan said the House would not “foreclose any options”.
He explained that under relevant statutes, prosecutors would have to prove Clinton clearly knew she was breaking the law to win a case.
“Should have known, must have known, had to know, does not get you there”, he said.
The Clinton campaign argued after the hearing that it had been a mistake for Republicans to put Comey, a former prosecutor who served in President George W. Bush’s Republican administration, on the spot.
Fallon also said that all of the lawyers who sorted Clinton’s emails did in fact have security clearances, contradicting Comey’s comments.
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Chaffetz said lawmakers would now ask the FBI to investigate whether Clinton lied to the committee.
