Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said he wants names and more information Monday related from the officials who decided not to charge Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server to conduct official U.S. diplomatic business while she was secretary of state.
“I think we’re a long ways from where we need to go with this,” King told reporters Monday. “What I want to see are — I want to see the names of everyone who interviewed Hillary Clinton on July 2, 2016. I want to see their notes.
“I want to consider bringing each of them forward to testify what happened inside that room and then see if their notes and her testimony matches up to the 302 document that in the end was the basis that [former FBI agent] Peter Strzok briefed James Comey.”
Then-FBI Director James Comey decided not to recommend the filing of charges against Clinton because, in his judgment, her actions represented “extreme carelessness” but not the “gross negligence” described in federal law as a criminally prosecutable offense.
The 2016 Democratic presidential candidate used the server and private email addresses to send and receive tens of thousands of messages, hundreds of which included highly classified information that was thereby vulnerable to being compromised by foreign intelligence agencies.
Related: More Bad News for Strzok as Ratcliffe Says Lisa Page Is ‘Very Forthcoming’
King spoke with reporters outside a closed-door hearing for former FBI lawyer Lisa Page. The House Judiciary Committee and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held the joint hearing as part of their investigation into how the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI conducted the Clinton email probe and a related investigation of allegations aides to President Donald Trump colluded with Russian interests during the 2016 campaign.
“I also want to see the name of the FISA judges, and I want to see the FISA warrant requests and the support documents that brought those requests forward,” King said. “Once we get all those names put together, we might find that some of those folks are deeply engaged in other investigations right now, too.”
King was referring to warrants filed with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court seeking approval for surveillance of at least one and possibly more Trump campaign aides in the months prior to and after the election. The warrants were based in great part on an infamous document prepared by former British spy Christopher Steele and paid for by Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) at a time it was under her control.
Page is undergoing a second day of questions following the first on July 13. She originally failed to comply with a subpoena to show up a few days earlier. Amy Jeffress, her lawyer, said that she needed more time to prepare. She also blamed the FBI for not providing all the documents they needed.
Related: Is Lisa Page Spilling the Beans on Peter Strzok?
Page became a person of interest when thousand of text messages she exchanged with Strzok were revealed December 2017. They both showed a clear hatred for President Donald Trump before and after investigating him. Strzok was removed from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation in August 2017. Page left the FBI in May 2018.
Strzok was involved in the email investigation before jumping onto the special counsel probe. Mueller has been leading that investigation, which is looking into whether Trump or his associates colluded with Russian interests during the campaign.
Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a review of the email investigation June 14. The report cited the text messages as a sign there was bias against the president, but concluded there was no evidence that the bias played a role in the decision-making process.
King added the president appears to be the only one who has the authority to bring forward all of the information.
Connor Wolf covers Congress and national politics and can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter.
(photo credit, homepage and article images: Steve King, CC BY-SA 2.0, by Gage Skidmore)
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