Hillary Clinton will receive intelligence briefings once she officially gains the nomination for president after the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in early August, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.)
Clapper rejected Ryan's request to block Clinton from the briefings after FBI Director James Comey called the former Secretary of State and her staff “extremely careless” with sensitive information but found no evidence of criminal behavior.
Clapper “does not intend to withhold briefings from any officially nominated, eligible candidate,” CNN quoted the intelligence chief as writing in a letter to Ryan.
Ryan had penned a letter to Clapper last week, noting that Comey had said administrative or security sanctions might have been levied on those in similar circumstances. “Given the FBI's findings denying Secretary Clinton access to classified information certainly constitutes appropriate sanctions,” he wrote.
Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon took to Twitter to call Ryan's initiative “the first of many doomed efforts by GOP to resuscitate email issue even after DOJ has closed its case.”
Indeed, the controversy over Clinton's use of a private email server certainly won't die with Clapper's rebuff. Comey has been asked by Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) to defend the FBI's investigation and his decision to not recommend criminal charges and a handful of initiatives have been launched by Congressional Republicans to further investigate the investigation.
Separately, in a letter to U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Channing Phillips House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) asked the federal attorney to investigate whether the former First Lady "committed perjury and made false statements during her testimony under oath before congressional committees."
Goodlatte and Chaffetz contended, “The evidence collected by the FBI during its investigation of Secretary Clinton's use of a personal email system appears to directly contradict several aspects of her sworn testimony.”
Comey also has been asked by Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) to defend the FBI's investigation and his decision to not recommend criminal charges and a handful of initiatives have been launched by Congressional Republicans to further investigate the investigation.
The FBI director told members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last week that he didn't “see evidence that is sufficient to establish that Secretary Clinton or those with whom she was corresponding both talked about classified information on email and knew when they did it, that they were doing something that was against the law,” Comey told members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, whose chairman, Chaffetz, reiterated contentions that he's “mystified” by the bureau's decision.
