Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., chairman of the GOP-led committee that investigated the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, said lawmakers mighy seek a federal investigation into whether Clinton lied to the committee in testimony past year.
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Hillary Clinton has refuted FBI’s charge that she was “extremely careless” with classified information as secretary of state and tried to put the blame on other officials as she offered her first public comments since a probe into her use of private email server was closed this week.
The panel’s 7-4 vote Friday was split along party lines, reflecting partisanship that emerged soon after the panel’s creation in May 2014.
Comey said investigators found no evidence that Clinton or her aides meant to break the law, even though they mishandled classified information.
The committee’s chairman, Republican Representative Trey Gowdy, said the panel voted to approve the 800-page report, with seven Republicans in favor and four Democrats opposed, in a closed-door meeting.
“If a witness said something to a committee of Congress and/or under oath that’s not consistent with the truth, our committee has an obligation” to report that to the FBI, Gowdy told reporters. Former baseball pitcher Roger Clemens was indicted in 2010 on charges that he lied to Congress, though he was later acquitted, and the Justice Department investigated and later cleared former IRS official Lois Lerner following a referral from lawmakers.
In another interview to MSNBC, Clinton said there was no evidence of hacking of the server which hosted her emails.
She also repeated that she regrets the decision to use private e-mail while serving as secretary of state. He said three of the emails in question bore classification markings in the body despite Clinton’s assertions that nothing she had sent or received was marked classified. “And as I have said many times, I certainly did not believe that I received or sent any material that was classified”, Clinton said in the interview. “I dealt with over 300 people in the State Department, many with decades of experience, who understand clearly how to handle classified material”.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (D-California) dismissed the latest Republican move as purely political.
“As FBI Director (James) Comey told legislators today (Thursday), Secretary Clinton did not lie to the FBI and did not break the law”.
“In that case, you had vast quantities of highly classified information. not only shared with someone without authority to have it, but we found it in a search warrant hidden under the insulation in his attic and then he lied to us about it during the investigation”, Comey said.
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Comey, for years a registered Republican who said he’s no longer registered with a political party, was deputy attorney general in the George W. Bush administration and was appointed in 2013 to a 10-year term as Federal Bureau of Investigation director by President Obama.
