In another interview to MSNBC, Clinton said there was no evidence of hacking of the server which hosted her emails.
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They want to know why he recommended no charges against Hillary Clinton for handling classified information on her personal email servers. Had he said “gross negligence” it would have been grounds for an indictment. “That is the characteristic of all the prosecutions involving mishandling of classified information”. Earlier this week he said former officials could face loss of security clearances or other administrative sanctions.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee called an emergency hearing Thursday where members questioned Comey for nearly five hours about his recommendation to the Justice Department not to prosecute Clinton.
“I think there is a legitimate concern that there is a double standard”, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee says. Clinton “used her personal e-mail extensively outside the United States”, he said, including “the territory of sophisticated adversaries”.
But Comey said that the FBI investigative team could not find evidence going through thousands of Clinton’s emails that she “clearly, willfully” sought to violate US laws and that “no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case” against her based on the evidence uncovered during the probe. Absent the slim chance that Justice Department prosecutors will reject the Federal Bureau of Investigation recommendation, Clinton is home free, criminal jeopardy-wise.
“So, I’m very proud of the work that we did over four years”.
LISA DESJARDINS: Comey argued that what Clinton may well have been worth some kind of punishment, but not prosecution as a crime.
“If you thought a vote today would be the end of this partisan chapter of our history, you would be wrong”, Representative Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the panel, said in a statement. Secretary Clinton said she never sent or received classified information over her private e-mail.
This would seem to describe what Clinton and her staff did with her emails, but characterizing their actions as “extremely careless” rather than grossly negligent reminds one of Bill Clinton’s remark: “It depends upon what the meaning of the word “is” is”.
He and other Republicans have cried foul over the lack of charges, alleging that Mrs Clinton’s influence helped her escape criminal proceedings.
Asked about Comey’s hearing as he walked out of Donald Trump’s meeting with Republican senators on Capitol Hill on Thursday morning, Scott broke into a smile. David Petraeus, who had to step down as head of the Central Intelligence Agency and cop a plea when he was found to have mishandled classified information.
In almost five hours of testimony, Comey sought to explain the Justice Department’s decision ending an investigation that has dogged Clinton’s presidential campaign and raised fresh questions among voters about her trustworthiness.
Comey said he found no criminal “intent” in what Clinton did. So given that assessment of the facts, my understanding of the law, my conclusion was and remains no reasonable prosecutor would bring this case.
He added: “In my mind, it illustrates importantly the distinction to this case”.
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Clinton was “extremely careless,” according to Comey, making it “possible that hostile actors gained access to” classified information.
