Days after he recommended no charges against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, FBI Director James Comey was called before a House oversight panel on Thursday to defend his decision.
House Republicans seized on the proceedings to highlight several inaccurate statements made by Clinton regarding her private email server—including false claims to Congress that may warrant another FBI investigation.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the Chairman of the House Government and Government Reform Committee, mentioned Clinton’s testimony before the Benghazi investigatory committee last October. During her appearance, she claimed that “there was nothing marked classified on [her] emails either sent or received.”
“Do you need a referral from Congress to investigate her statements under oath?” Chaffetz asked the FBI Director.
“Sure do,” Comey replied.
“You’ll have one in the next few hours,” Chaffetz said.
Director Comey revealed earlier this week at a press conference that Clinton and her team were “extremely careless” in their handling of government secrets. The bureau discovered 52 email chains running through Clinton’s insecure server that contained classified information at the time they were sent and received, including eight threads with “top secret” information.
The evidence of mishandling government secrets, however, wasn’t sufficient to prove an intent to break the law, Comey concluded. He urged no criminal charges be brought in the case.
But Comey’s presentation did belie several claims made by Hillary Clinton in the preceding months about her use of a private email server; inconsistencies that were fodder for Republicans on Thursday.
During a particularly brutal line of questioning for observers from the Clinton camp, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) called on Comey to refute each claim made by the Democratic nominee for president.
“Secretary Clinton said there was nothing marked classified on her emails either sent or received. Was that true? Gowdy asked.
“That’s not true,” Comey stated.
“Secretary Clinton said [she] did not email any classified material to anyone on [her] email,” Gowdy went on.
“No, there was classified material emailed,” the Director said.
“Secretary Clinton said all work related emails were returned to the State Department, was that true?” Gowdy added.
“No, we found work related emails—thousands—that were not returned,” Comey answered.
The FBI Director claimed, however, that Clinton did not offer any inaccurate statements during her interview with agents last weekend. It is a criminal offense to make false statements to federal agents.
Democrats on the panel defended Comey, and accused Republicans of retaliating against the bureau for not arriving at a desired political outcome in the investigation.
“In a sense, Mr. Director, you’re on trial,” the committee’s Ranking Member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said.
“In their eyes, you had one job, and one job only: to prosecute Hillary Clinton,” he added. “But you refused to do so and now you’re being summoned here to answer for your alleged transgressions.”
Cummings also accused Republicans of hypocrisy, noting that the oversight panel didn’t hold a single hearing on former Gen. David Petraeus. The former CIA Director pleaded guilty last year to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified materials.
Petreaus resigned from his post as head of the CIA after it was revealed he provided notebooks full of highly sensitive information to his lover and biographer, Paula Broadwell. He also initially lied about it to investigators. Comey revealed on Thursday that agents discovered the notebooks underneath insulation in an attic.
“This committee ignored that breach of national security because it did not match the political goal of House Republicans,” Cummings noted Thursday.
Chaffetz said he was open to a future inquiry on the Petraeus affair. “If you want a hearing, we’ll do that,” the chairman stated.
The fallout from the FBI’s investigation of Clinton is likely to continue beyond the oversight committee. Comey and other FBI officials are expected to face off with four other congressional panels over the coming days to defend the bureau’s actions.
Additionally, legislation has been introduced in the House and Senate to administratively punish Clinton and her top aides by preventing them from receiving classified briefings.
“I think the DNI, Clapper, should deny Hillary Clinton access to classified information during this campaign given how she so recklessly handled classified information,” Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) said Wednesday.
