Sen. Ron Johnson, Republican chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, pressed FBI Director James Comey Monday on his bureau’s nine-day review of the newly uncovered emails that prompted the FBI to reopen, and subsequently close, its inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s treatment of classified material.
“Your two most recent letters to the Committee leave several unanswered questions about this new material and the FBI’s review of it,” Johnson wrote in a letter to Comey made public Monday afternoon.
Comey announced in a dispatch to Congress on Oct. 28 that the discovery of potentially “pertinent” emails through an unrelated probe had persuaded him to approve additional “investigative steps” in the same Clinton email case he closed in July without recommending charges for anyone involved. Nine days later, he sent a second letter to lawmakers in which he stated that the bureau had “not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton.”
But Johnson, who faces a tough re-election bid in his home state of Wisconsin, asked Comey to clarify whether the letter he sent Sunday meant all of Clinton’s aides had been cleared or whether the FBI is still investigating “other current or former State Department employees.”
The Homeland Security chairman asked Comey if his agents had examined a recent report that indicated Clinton allowed her maid to handle classified documents and to enter the secure facility, known as a SCIF, that diplomatic security officials had built in her home for the purposes of consuming classified information.
“Within the material reviewed by the FBI since October 28, how many emails contained information classified at the time the emails were sent or received?” Johnson wrote in his letter. “Please provide this information broken down by classification level.”
Experts have speculated that the emails reviewed by FBI agents over the past week could have been duplicates of those already inspected by the bureau.
Investigators reportedly stumbled upon the emails while looking into separate allegations of sexual misconduct involving Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
Johnson questioned Comey as to whether the Weiner connection was “accurate.”
Republicans, particularly Donald Trump, have raised concerns about whether the FBI could reliably review so many emails in such a short period of time.
Democrats who had criticized Comey for his Oct. 28 announcement offered the FBI director reluctant praise for the swift resolution he brought to the reopened email probe.
