Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley is calling on FBI Director James Comey to release all evidence from the criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email servers after announcing charges against the former Secretary of State will not be pursued.
“While Director Comey made it clear that Secretary Clinton and her staff were ‘extremely careless’ in handling classified information, he also recommended no criminal prosecution even though ‘gross negligence’ regarding classified information is a crime. If it wants to avoid giving the impression that the FBI was pulling punches, because many people in a similar situation would face some sort of consequence, the agency must now be more transparent than ever in releasing information gathered during its investigation," Grassley said in a statement Tuesday. "Even Director Comey said there should be extraordinary transparency. That means more than simply giving the public a brief summary of his view of the facts. It should include the actual evidence so the public can make an educated decision on its own about the judgment and decision-making of all the senior officials involved. There are plenty of FOIA and congressional requests pending that have been on hold because of the ongoing nature of the investigation, so now the FBI should respond fully and completely to all of them.”
Texas Senator and former GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz is also calling for the evidence to be released.
“While I have tremendous respect for the dedicated men and women of the FBI, I have serious concerns about the integrity of Director Comey’s decision, and how it threatens the rule of law. Director Comey has rewritten a clearly worded federal criminal statute. In so doing, he has come dangerously close to saying that grossly negligent handling of classified information should not result in serious consequences for high-level officials. In a nation where the rule of law is supposed to matter, this is troubling," Cruz released in a statement Tuesday. “I join my Senate Judiciary colleagues, including Chairman Grassley, in calling for public transparency of, and full access to, all the information that the FBI used to come to today’s dubious decision.”
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During his announcement Tuesday, Comey explained he was giving the public more detail that usual about the case due to the intense interest and Americans' right to know.
"One hundred-and-ten emails in 52 email chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was top secret, at the time they were sent, 36 of those chains contained secret information and eight contained confidential information at the time," Comey said. "There is evidence they [Clinton and staff] were extremely careless in their handling of classified information."
The FBI has not issued a response to Grassley's request.
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