Goodlatte began the hearing by announcing he has asked the USA attorney for the District of Columbia to investigate Hillary Clinton for making false statements about her emails under oath to the House Benghazi committee.
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The chairman laid out a timeline of events and connections for the attorney general.
In a statement regarding the hearing, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said that “Attorney General Lynch has no intention of answering any of our questions regarding the Department’s decision not to charge former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton”.
But on the question of the Clinton investigation, she was determinedly mum.
As for Democrats on the committee, they showed no interest in even learning more about the attorney general’s decision-making process They instead asked her a series of unrelated questions, from criminal justice reform to recent shootings of black suspects by police officers.
Lynch said she nearly always accepts investigators’ recommendations, but her unusual decision to publicly announce her decision to do so set off alarm bells among Republicans.
It was a construct she would repeat dozens of times.
“He’s chosen to provide detailed statements, and I would refer you to those statements”, Lynch said.
“We did not discuss Ms. Clinton in any way”, Lynch told Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas).
“With respect to the team, typically we don’t go into the composition of it”, Lynch replied. She said the team was led by the Justice Department’s National Security Division, but would not specifically say whether no political appointees were involved.
Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH), however, also believes Lynch has to “jump through hoops” to regain her credibility. At Tuesday’s hearing, she said that work would continue. “I have been on this committee for 12 years and never have I seen such an awe-inspiring and clear dissemination”.
“It was so one-sided, it was really kind of sad”, he said. Ratney, now the U.S. Special Envoy for Syria, didn’t know he was required to keep the messages, the report says.
It doesn’t matter if Clinton’s sending classified information on an unsecure private server was intentional or not, Sensenbrenner said. “I saw no reason not to accept it, and again I reiterate my pride and faith in their work”.
Other topics the hearing discussed included tension between African-Americans and law enforcement that shook the nation last week as well as terrorist attacks in Orlando and San Bernardino, California.
As they took their turns questioning Lynch, they excoriated Republicans for focusing on a closed case while refusing to hold a hearing on gun violence or take a vote on police brutality.
Lynch refused to be drawn into debating Clinton’s conduct or the facts of the case, repeatedly referring Goodlatte to testimony given by FBI Director James Comey last week.
Lynch had announced last week that she was accepting the recommendation of the FBI director and federal prosecutors and closing the probe involving the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, but the controversy is far from resolved.
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In his testimony last week, Comey was explicit in arguing that Hillary Clinton’s email case was in fact different from any of the other cases of people who mishandled classified information, in particular because he and others at the Federal Bureau of Investigation did not think they could prove Clinton meant to mishandle classified information. “The American people deserve transparency about this investigation”.
