She simply said she accepted the recommendation of the team.
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“I’m going to capitulate to your prodigious dissimulation skills”, the visibly frustrated Franks replied, adding that deciding on the prosecution is her job, not that of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Lynch replied that she “can’t speak” to the cases Issa referred to, and “every case has to be handled the same way”.
At the House hearing regarding the Justice Department’s decision, Issa pressed Lynch to explain the agency’s conclusion.
In fact, Lynch was so resolutely unapologetic about her decision that it left some Republicans nostalgic for her predecessor, Eric Holder, whom they nearly uniformly despised when he was attorney general.
About halfway through the hearing, staffers of Rep. Dave Trott (R-Michigan) counted 74 times that Lynch refused to answer questions.
“I don’t have a comment on the state of the law”, Lynch replied.
“It does not seem to be a responsible way to uphold your constitutionally sworn oath”, he said.
“There’s involuntary manslaughter. There’s reckless homicide”.
Along those same lines, Republican legislators accused Lynch of having favored Clinton by deciding to close the investigation without charges, despite the fact that FBI Director James Comey called the former first lady’s actions involving the e-mails “extremely careless”. “We had a social conversation”.
She has denied having been influenced by contact with former President Bill Clinton, who Lynch crossed paths with late last month on the tarmac of an airport in Phoenix, Arizona.
“Your refusal to answer questions regarding one of the most important investigations of someone who seeks to serve in the highest office in this land is an abdication of your responsibility”, said Goodlatte.
Republicans wanted to talk about Hillary Clinton’s emails Tuesday.
Lawyers for Clinton filed a 25-page opposition to that motion Tuesday, stating that the record in the case already answers those questions or makes it clear that Clinton has no personal knowledge to provide.
In response to the FBI’s findings, Chaffetz, the head of the US House of Representatives Government Oversight Committee, along with House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, are pressing for a perjury investigation.
Republicans on Monday formally asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Clinton perjured herself in earlier testimony to a congressional committee investigating the Benghazi, Libya, attacks that killed four Americans while Clinton was secretary of state.
“After a yearlong investigation involving 150 FBI agents working around the clock involving more than 30,000 emails, tens of thousands of man hours, that your thoughtful, careful weighing of the strength of evidence took you an afternoon?”
Clinton has said she never sent or received emails “marked classified”.
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Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) said he would pose a series of questions about how the decision not to prosecute was made when Comey appears before the House Homeland Security Committee next week.
