House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said Tuesday that FBI Director James Comey failed to adequately carry out his duties when he recommended the Justice Department not prosecute Hillary Clinton for her “extremely careless” handling of classified emails when she was secretary of state.
“The job of the FBI is to provide the fact pattern to the Justice Department and not make the political calculation that this is what a reasonable prosecutor would do. That’s not the job of the FBI,” Chaffetz told Fox News host Bret Baier Tuesday night.
Instead, the Utah Republican called the move a “political determination in the end” and explained how the FBI should have handled the investigation of a former secretary of state’s actions.
“He should have laid out the facts, handed it over to the prosecutors to make the decision about whether or not to prosecute it,” Chaffetz added.
The congressman said in looking at the facts, the fact pattern was clear.
“Did she or did she not have classified information in a non-secured format? Yes. Did they have hostile actors trying to penetrate and look at those e-mails? Yes, they did. Did that put people in harm’s way? We don’t know. Purposely set up her own e-mail system with herself. I didn’t create this. Republicans didn’t create this. She created this,” Chaffetz said.
Clinton committed criminal acts, said Chaffetz, who maintained that conclusion was determined despite the Obama administration’s refusal to cooperate with multiple Freedom of Information Act requests.
