Loretta Lynch meets with House intel committee behind closed doors
Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch met with the House Intelligence Committee behind closed doors Friday morning, as the committee probes Russian interference in the 2016 election and any ties to Trump associates.
Republicans have criticized Lynch for her handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. In June, fired FBI Director James Comey testified that Lynch told him to call the investigation a "matter," rather than an investigation, fueling Republican suspicion that Lynch was trying to protect the former Democratic presidential candidate. Comey also testified that Lynch's famous tarmac meeting with former President Bill Clinton during the investigation influenced his decision to take the unusual step of speaking out publicly about the investigation.
Some senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee were interested in an April New York Times report that the FBI had obtained hacked documents that included one about a Democratic operative who "expressed confidence that Ms. Lynch would keep the Clinton investigation from going too far."
Lynch denied that report.
"Those communications did not take place," Lynch said in a two-page letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee in July.
Lynch is also a focus for Republicans in the wake of the "unmasking" of Americans caught up in communications with foreign nations.
Lynch became the attorney general in 2015, serving through the end of former President Barack Obama's second term in 2017.