WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The FBI director added that Clinton did not break any laws in handling her emails while she served as the US state secretary.
"We have no basis to conclude she [Clinton] lied to the FBI," Comey stated at the US House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
"Just because someone is not prosecuted for mishandling classified information, that does not mean, if you work in the FBI, there are no consequences for you," Comey stated when asked if there should be any consequences for Clinton. "There are often very severe consequences in the FBI, involving their employment, involving their pay, involving their clearances."
Lawyers of former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton likely deleted a number of emails containing classified information, he said.
"Surely, it is a reasonable assumption that some of the ones they [attorneys] deleted contained classified information," Comey stated when asked if he was confident that none of the 30,000 emails destroyed by Clinton’s attorneys was marked as classified.
Clinton did not know her lawyers deleted emails that were not turned over to Congress or the State Department, he said.
When asked if Clinton knew her legal team deleted emails that had to be turned over to Congress, Comey responded, "I don’t believe so."
On Tuesday, FBI Director James Comey announced that the FBI would not recommend charges against Clinton based on a criminal probe into her use of a private server and email account. Comey said, however, that the FBI found evidence that Clinton and her staff were "extremely careless" in handling highly classified information.
On Wednesday, US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said she had accepted FBI’s recommendation to bring no charges against Clinton.
