House Republicans Receive Hillary Clinton Interview Documents From FBI
WASHINGTON (CBSNewYork/AP) -- The House Oversight Committee said Tuesday it had received FBI documents related to the agency's recently closed investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state.
A spokeswoman for the Republican-led panel said staff is reviewing documents that are classified as secret.
The FBI last month closed its yearlong probe into whether Clinton and her aides mishandled sensitive information that flowed through a private email server located in the basement of her New York home. Though he described Clinton's actions as "extremely carless," FBI Director James Comey said his agents found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by the Democratic presidential nominee.
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Furious the FBI didn't press charges against their political rival, House Republicans pressed the agency to release notes from its agents' July interview with Clinton. They claim the FBI notes, which are typically kept confidential after an investigation is closed, may show Clinton provided inconsistent answers to questions about her handling of emails containing classified information during testimony last year before the House Benghazi panel.
Republicans are also demanding that the Justice Department open a new investigation into whether Clinton lied to Congress.
Justice Department spokeswoman Melanie Newman declined to comment Tuesday on either the delivery of the FBI documents or the GOP request for another investigation of Clinton.
Though the Republicans failed to find evidence to support their claims that Clinton was negligent in preventing or stopping the deadly 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, they are now focusing on questions surrounding the Democratic nominee's haphazard handling of emails containing government secrets. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, currently lagging in opinion polls, also routinely attacks Clinton over her email use.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Tuesday that the FBI allowed the department to review emails the agency is providing Congress.
"I think we're satisfied after having reviewed these emails that the FBI has made arrangements that the documents will be transmitted subject to appropriate handling controls," he said, adding that the department respects the FBI's desire to accommodate the requests of its congressional oversight committees.
Toner said, however, that the department is still discussing with the FBI about the release of notes from the interviews investigators did with Clinton and her aides.
"My understanding is that we continue to work with FBI on those interview summaries," Toner said. "We haven't quite reached an agreement on those. My understanding is that we have not received them."
The announcement comes as the conservative group Judicial Watch announced they would receive copies of thousands of previously undisclosed work-related emails sent or received by former Secretary Hillary Clinton. The emails, recovered as part of the FBI's probe, where recently returned to the State Department.
Judicial Watch is among those who have sued over access to government records from Clinton's tenure as the nation's top diplomat.
Clinton said last year that she turned over 55,000 pages of emails, but said she deleted thousands more she and her lawyers deemed as personal.
This comes as House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Virginia, and Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, sent a letter to the Justice Department alleging that Clinton committed perjury during her testimony before Congress last October about her private email server.
CBS News reports the two lawmakers believe the Democratic nominee's testimony before the House Select Committee on Benghazi contradicts the FBI's findings from its investigation into her private email servers.
"The evidence collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) during its investigation of Secretary Clinton's use of a personal email system during her time as Secretary of State appears to directly contradict several aspects of her sworn testimony," the letter reads, according to CBS News.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., blasted the letter, stating Goodlatte and Chaffetz were just trying to cause a distraction from Trump.
"The FBI already determined unanimously that there is insufficient evidence of criminal wrongdoing," Cummings said in a statement. "Republicans are now investigating the investigator in a desperate attempt to resuscitate this issue, keep it in the headlines, and distract from Donald Trump's sagging poll numbers."
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