Key lawmaker demands answers from FBI after Comey clears Clinton

Will 'rigged' email probe talk haunt Clinton?

Hours after FBI Director James Comey’s bombshell announcement Tuesday that he would not seek criminal charges against Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email system for government work, a key lawmaker wrote the lawman demanding answers.
Sen. Ron Jonson, R-Wisc., who chairs the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, fired off the letter asking Comey a series of questions, including how many agents worked on the case, how much taxpayer money was spent on it and, perhaps more significantly, how Comey arrived at his conclusion.
“If the evidence that the FBI collected about Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email account and server did not constitute gross negligence, what set of facts would cause the FBI to recommend criminal charges under the gross negligence standard?” Johnson wrote.
Johnson recounted Comey’s 13-minute statement, in which the FBI director detailed what he called “extremely careless” handling of sensitive government emails, said the bureau could not be sure Clinton’s server was not hacked and even added that government employees who behaved similarly could expect to be sanctioned. But Comey ended the statement by saying he would not recommend to the Attorney General the pursuit of charges.
“Our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case,” Comey said.
The stunning development appears to bring to an end a potential legal nightmare for Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. But Comey’s demining words could also provide plenty of fodder to her likely opponent, Donald Trump.

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Comey said 110 emails in 52 email chains discovered on Clinton’s unauthorized server were classified at the time they were sent or received, including some that were “top secret.”
“Comey let Clinton off the hook,” Trump said in a statement.
In the House, Rep Jason Chaffetz, who chairs the Oversight Committee, also had harsh words for Comey.
"The job of the FBI is to provide the fact pattern to the Justice Department and not make the political calculation that this is what a reasonable prosecutor would do. That's not the job of the FBI," Chaffetz told Fox News host Bret Baier Tuesday night.