Members of the House Judiciary Committee grilled Attorney General Loretta Lynch Tuesday about her controversial meeting with Hillary Clinton’s husband while the former secretary of state was still under FBI investigation.
Lynch refused to answer questions about her decision last week to clear Clinton and all of her aides of criminal wrongdoing, although she could not cite a law that would prohibit her from speaking about the case.
“While I understand that this investigation has generated significant public interest, as an attorney general, it would be inappropriate for me to comment further on the underlying facts of the investigation,” Lynch said. She referred questions about the FBI’s conclusions back to the law enforcement agency, and repeatedly declined to comment.
Rep. Bob Goodlatte, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, joined Rep. Jason Chaffetz late Monday in asking the FBI to open an investigation into whether Clinton committed perjury by repeating debunked talking points under oath during testimony before the House Select Committee on Benghazi in October of last year.
Goodlatte ticked through Clinton’s series of misstatements about her emails, such as her assertion that she had turned over all work-related records and that she had not transmitted anything marked classified. “All of this evidence, according to [FBI] Director Comey, amounted only to ‘extreme carelessness'” Goodlatte said.
“This defies logic and the law,” he added. “The law does not require evidence that a person intended to harm the United States in order to be criminally liable for the mishandling of classified information.”
Goodlatte demanded to know why Lynch did not recuse herself from the case given her previous professional ties to the Clintons, including the fact that Clinton’s husband appointed her as U.S. attorney in New York.
“The matter was handled like any other matter,” Lynch said of the investigation. “In considering the matter there was no connection, there was no need” to name a special prosecutor in the case, she argued.
Republicans had pushed for the appointment of an independent counsel to remove the possibility of political bias from the Justice Department’s handling of the case.
In addition to questions about gun violence and police brutality, Lynch faced scrutiny of her meeting late last month with Clinton’s husband just days before the FBI was set to interview her and clear her of criminal wrongdoing.
Lynch’s secret meeting with Bill Clinton aboard a private jet late last month rankled Republicans who were already skeptical of the administration’s objectivity when it came to investigating one of its own. Even Democrats joined in the chorus of condemnation for the meeting, arguing it projected an image of carelessness even if nothing untoward took place during the interaction.
But Democrats on the Judiciary Committee did not strike the same tone as their Republican counterparts as they questioned the attorney general Tuesday.
“Let us be clear: the criminal investigation is closed,” said Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., at the outset of the hearing.
Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said the evidence described by the FBI director supported, at the least, a misdemeanor charge against Hillary Clinton.
Sensenbrenner noted “several servicemen” have been prosecuted for inadvertently mishandling classified information.
“You have a burden, I think, to convince the American public that there’s not a double standard,” he told Lynch.
The attorney general argued the facts in each case should be considered on their own, dodging questions about voters’ perception of bias in Hillary Clinton’s probe.
Lynch faced multiple questions about her private meeting with the former president. She said her husband and two flight crew members were present during her conversation with Bill Clinton and denied that any discussion of the email probe took place.
