Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., admitted the reason he grilled FBI Director James Comey in a House Oversight Committee hearing Thursday was to determine if Hillary Clinton made false exculpatory statements in the agency’s initial investigation about her use of private email servers.
“The reason I went through that exercise with Director Comey is let’s assume he’s right and there’s an intent element in the statute — I think there was circumstantial evidence that she had the intent and one way to prove … intent with circumstantial evidence is false exculpatory statements,” Gowdy told Fox News host Megyn Kelly late Thursday. “Innocent people don’t lie so if you have a series of false statements then you need to ask yourself ‘why do you feel the need to mislead?’ It might be consciousness of guilt.”
Gowdy had hammered Comey in the hearing, getting the agency director to admit Clinton lied repeatedly about never having sent or received classified emails, using only one device and turning over all of the emails to the State Department for the investigation.
The House Select Committee on Benghazi chairman has had a tense relationship with the former secretary of state as a result of the recently concluded Libya panel, which concluded with no repercussions for Clinton’s response to the attacks.
Gowdy said had Comey alerted Congress that the statutes he would have needed to prosecute Clinton were “worded for vagueness,” he should have asked legislators to amend the legal terms so that a case to prove intent by false statements could have been brought.
