FBI sends Clinton investigation docs to Congress as Republicans seek perjury charges

16 Aug, 2016 22:54

The FBI has reportedly dispatched its investigative report on Hillary Clinton, explaining why charges were not recommended against the Democratic presidential hopeful. Meanwhile, House Republicans are seeking new perjury charges against Clinton.

Unnamed officials have told reporters that a number of classified documents have been handed over to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

“The FBI has turned over a ‘number of documents’ related to their investigation of former Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal email server. Committee staff is currently reviewing the information that is classified SECRET. There are no further details at this time,” a committee spokesperson said, as cited by the Washington Post.

The report allegedly contains notes from the interviews of Clinton and other witnesses in the investigation, CNN also reported, saying that FBI agents’ memos would also be provided along with the investigative material.

Addressing House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and the committee's ranking Democratic member, Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, a letter from FBI acting Assistant Director Jason V. Herring reiterated FBI Director James Comey's statement.

"As the director stated, the FBI did find evidence that Secretary Clinton and her colleagues were extremely careless in their handling of certain, very sensitive, highly classified information," the letter Cummings shared with CNN, read. "The term 'extremely careless' was intended to be a common sense way of describing the actions of Secretary Clinton and her colleagues. The director did not equate 'extreme carelessness' with the legal standard of 'gross negligence' that is required by the statute. In this case, the FBI assessed that the facts did not support a recommendation to prosecute her or others within the scope of the investigation for gross negligence."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) office has also said that the Judiciary Committee received copies of the FBI information Tuesday, the Post reported as well.

The FBI’s conclusion has failed to end the private email server saga for Clinton.

House Republicans claim Clinton may have broken the law and lied under oath when testifying before Congress. Now they want to see the Department of Justice file perjury charges against the former secretary of state.

The GOP heads of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees allege that Clinton perjured herself on four separate occasions during sworn testimony to the House's Benghazi committee.

The first case could relate to Clinton’s statement that she did not receive classified information while using her home server. FBI’s Comey argued otherwise during his testimony. The second “perjury” case arose from Clinton saying that her lawyers had read “every single email.”

However, to this, the FBI director said that her lawyers “did not individually read the content of all of her emails.”

The third case might be connected to her testimony that she had only used a single device – “a server that had already been used by [Bill Clinton’s] team" – for her emails. However, it followed from Comey statement that she used “multiple devices during her four years as a Secretary of State.”

Finally, Clinton also claimed that she handed over approximately 55,000 pages of work-related emails to the State Department, but the FBI said it was not true either, as “thousands” of emails were not returned.

"The evidence collected by the (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," Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) wrote in a letter on Monday.

Under US federal law, perjury is a felony that is punishable by a prison sentence of up to five years and fines.