Comey Blowback: Senate Launches Probe into Loretta Lynch ‘Matter’

The Senate Judiciary Committee announced Friday it had opened a probe into former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s possible interference into the investigation of 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) sent Lynch a letter Friday in which he requested that she respond to allegations of “political interference” in Clinton’s email investigation during the height of the 2016 presidential campaign.

Fresh concerns about Lynch’s apparent politicization of the investigation arose after former FBI Director James Comey testified before the Senate earlier in June that Lynch’s actions during the probe spurred him to “protect the credibility of the investigation” and hold an unprecedented press conference last summer in which he discussed the investigation’s conclusions.

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“The reports come amidst numerous allegations of political inference in controversial and high-profile investigations spanning the current and previous administrations,” Grassley’s office said in a statement Friday announcing the Lynch probe. “The Senate Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction over the FBI and Justice Department and is obliged to oversee any potential misconduct or inappropriate political influence at these agencies.”

The committee’s request for Lynch to provide answers was bipartisan. Ranking Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) joined Grassley in requesting Lynch’s cooperation. The Committee also issued letters to other officials as part of its probe into Lynch’s conduct.

Lynch has long been under fire for her conduct during Clinton’s investigation — most notably when the former attorney general was seen meeting with Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, at an Arizona tarmac about the time the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee faced questioning from the FBI as part of the email investigation.

Grassley noted in his letter that the committee was also concerned about two recent reports that raised further questions about Lynch’s conduct and her impartiality.

An April New York Times report said that the FBI discovered hacked documents, one of which was purportedly  penned by a “Democratic operative who expressed confidence that Ms. Lynch would keep the Clinton investigation from going too far.” A May report from The Washington Post said that former Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz told Leonard Benardo of the Open Society Foundations that Lynch privately told Clinton campaign staffer Amanda Renteria that the FBI’s investigation wouldn’t “go too far.”

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Just a month later, Comey delivered his far-reaching testimony in which he said, “At one point, the attorney general had directed me not to call it an investigation but instead to call it a matter, which confused me and concerned me.”

“That was one of the bricks in the load that led me to conclude I have to step away from the department if we’re to close this case credibly,” Comey said, adding that the encounter “gave the impression the attorney general was looking to align the way we talked about our investigation with the way a political campaign was describing the same activity.”

Following Comey’s testimony about how Lynch’s request made him feel “queasy,” Democratic senators joined their Republican colleagues in calling for a probe into the former attorney general’s conduct. Feinstein, in particular, admitted on CNN’s “State of the Union” a few days after the Comey testimony that his description of Lynch’s request made her feel “queasy,” too.

“I think we need to know more about that,” Feinstein said. “And there’s only one way to know about it, and that’s to have the judiciary committee take a look at that.”