FBI director James Comey testified in the Senate Judiciary Committee today on the FBIâs annual oversight hearing. Democrats were quick to question Comeyâs rationale for announcing eleven days before the presidential election that the FBI was re-opening its investigation into Hillary Clintonâs mishandling of classified emails as secretary of state.
Comey confirmed that even in retrospect, he believes that he made the right decision. It was a choice âbetween really bad and catastrophic,â he said, and âconcealment in my view would have been catastrophic.â
The FBI found that Clintonâs assistant Huma Abedin sent classified emails to her then-husband, Anthony Weiner, but the data collected in the investigation was not enough to recommend criminal charges for either Clinton or Abedin. Indeed, they were both âextremely careless.â
âSomehow, [Huma Abedinâs] emails were being forwarded to Anthony Weiner, including classified information,â Comey said. Weinerâs âthen-spouse Huma Abedin appears to have had a regular practice of forwarding emails to him for him to print out for her so she could deliver them to the secretary of state.â
Because the FBI could not prove âcriminal intent,â Comey and the FBI chose not to recommend criminal charges to the Department of Justice. Texas senator Ted Cruz later in the hearing questioned Comeyâs decision, citing which statutes Abedin had violated â regardless of whether she had criminal intent.
The FBI for âgenerations,â Comey retorted, has always required a âgeneral sense of criminal intentâ for recommending prosecution.
âI canât find a case thatâs been brought in the last 50 years based on negligence without some showing or indicia of intent.â
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