my time. >> thank the gentlewoman. now recognize the gentleman from iowa, mr. blum. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, director comey, for being here today, and thanks for hanging in there till every last question is answered.

gmail has full- time security staff and thinks about p patch anything logging and protecting the system. in the way that that was not the case here. >> what kind of judgment today, does the decision to potentially expose to hackers on classified e-mail service on less secure gmail. what type of judgment does that to you? >> it suggests. careless i talked about p. >> secretary clinton was asked by ed henry on fox news if she cleaned the servers and she said you mean with a cloth? during a press conference secretary clinton assured the private server was secure and it was guarded by the secret service on private property. it would be laughable if it was not so serious.

you know and i know. and people in iowa know you don't need to be a cat burglar to break in an e-mail or a cloth to wipe one. one would think a former senator and former secretary of state would know that as well. would you agree with that statement? >> you would think, though as i said before, one of the thingses i learned in the case the secretary may not be as sophisticated as people would assume and i would assume the same thing about a senator and high ranking official. but i am not sure it is the opinion in this case. >> did the server know it could be wiped clean electronically or with a clothe? >> i would assume it was a facious with a clothe. i don't know on that one.

>> would you assume that a server could be woiped cleaned electronically and not physically. you don't need a cat burglary. would it be reasonable that she knows that. >> to some level of understanding she would. >> for someone that anyhow these things, what kind of judgment does a decision to expose classified material on personal servers what type of judgment? >> it is not my place to assess judgment. i talk in state of mined. i think there was careless. and circumstances extreme careless. i don't know. >> that answer said to me it could have been hacked? >> sure. >> and if it was.

damaging material and damaging to american lives could have been hacked or exposed. and lives could have been put at risk if that server was indeed hacked? >> i am not prepared to say yes as to that last piece. that would require me to go into the nature of the classification. but no doubt it would expose information that is classified and damage the united states of america. >> it could have been but the fbi is not aware. >> correct. >> i field back the time i do not very. >> i recognize the gentlelady from new jersey. >> thank you, director, i have a number of questions. this is a question i am going to ask you and you may not have known this. this is about the classification marking you were asked about

earlier. according to the state department which addressed the issue yesterday. the call sheets appear appear to have classified markings and it was a mistake. generally speaking there is a standard process of developing call sheets for the secretary of state. call sheets are often marked and not untypical of all confidential level proir to a decision bite secretary of state to make that call. once it is clear they intend to make the call, they will have sensitive and unclassified altogether and mark it appropriately and prepare for the secretary's use. the classification of a call sheet is notes inially fixed in time and staffers in the secretary's office preparing the call sheets understand that. given this context, the documents raised in the media reports were no longer necessary

or appropriate at that time and they were markings were human error. did you know this? >> no. >> thank you, mr. director. can you tell me based on your information, has there been and any evidence that our national security is broached or at risk as a result of these e-mails and being on the server? >> there is no direct evidence of an intrusion. >> thank you very much. while i think this should conclude the discussion, i know we will hear the issue at adnaszium. i am concerned about a issue that is resonating with the people of the the country and that has to do with experiences that we had in the last two days. mr. director, i want bring this

up for your consideration. i want to ask you. what can the fbi do in this issue. this morning we had a graphic and deeply disturbing video that brought me to tears when my staff played it for me. a minnesota's boyfriend was shot as her child was in the back seat after tell an officer he had a license for the weapon and he was reaching for identification. just the other day, there was an incident in baton rouge involving mr. alton sterling who was shot while penned to the ground by police officers in baton rouge, an interaction taken by two bystanders. we have an issue of real

national security and i want to ask you mr. director, do we have an opportunity to direct our time and resources in your department to those issues, is it not important that we say their names to remind people of the loss of ta mar rice and eric garland and alton starl sxeg john crawford. and michael brown and sandra bland, deaths in the hands of police custody or by police? happening? are they not happening at an alarming rate and does not legitimate base for the fbi to be working? >> yes, emphatic answer. as you know the fbi spends a lot of time on them because they are

important. we have an investigation open on the baton rouge and i was briefed this morning on the minnesota case and it is an important part of our work. >> do you feel you have the sufficient resources from legal funding to address these cases and the disturbing pattern in our country today? >> i am a bad bureaucrat, i believe i have sufficient resources and we are applying them against those situations. the individual cases matter enormously and also the people's confidence in law enforcement is one of the bed rocks of the great country and i have is the resourceses. >> in addition, we believe that our law enforcement is of high inte grity and desire to keep us safe. but when we find out there are

these occasions and a pattern that is taking place in this country, we have a responsibility to ensure that everyone in this country is safe. simply because you are a black man or woman does not make you a target. i yield back my time. >> we'll recognize gentleman from north carolina, mr. walker. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and mr. comey. one of the things we agree on. swift to speak and slow to wrath. and i am upset on the attacks. i hope that we have not experienced that. i struggle with a change of heart that we are had hearing today. i have a list of officials that

attacked your investigation. former president clinton said it is a game. congresswoman schultz said that secretary clinton is the target. do you feel it is it a republican witch hunt? >> no. in the beginning, i understand people's questions and interest and i am a huge fan of transparespy and makes the democracy great. >> that's one of the reasons you are respected. this is about understanding and desiminating the facts and how the american public sees them in areas of wrongdoing admitted in your investigation where there was obviously breaking the law and cover ups. did congress ask you to pursue this investigation? >> no. it was a referral of the inspector general. >> it was not republicans

either? >> no. >> how did you go about collecting the evidence? >> we used tools that we normally use in a criminal investigation. did you receive a referral? >> not to my knowledge. >> what i am struggling and would like to know. under oath, mrs. clinton made three comments that we know that are unthorough in the benghazi hearing. number one turned over all work related e-mails, and telling the committee that her attorneys went through every single e-mail and probably the one that continues to stick the most, there was nothing marked classified on my e-mails". and earlier when the chairman questioned you about this. you said something about meeting a congressional referral recommendation. my question is something of this

magnitude and help me understand why it didn't rise to your investigation or someone bringing that to your knowledge and saying this is a problem and here she is. secretary clinton lying under oath about p our investigation. >> we out of the respect of the legislative branch. we don't commence investigations before congress without congress getting us involved. that is it a long-standing process of the fbi and department of justice. we don't investigate what is said on tv. it requires the committee to say we think we have an issue. >> with all respect, you have secretary clinton speaking about your investigation and speaking of your wonderful staff, 82 why is it that not rise. lying under oath is a crime.

>> yes. >> that is considered perjor. >> it is a felony and years in prison potentially. >> help me understand why somebody wouldn't have tipped you off that she is talking about the case under oath that you are investigating. >> it is a different between being aware of testimony and opening a case of perjor. all cases and we don't do that without the committee saying we think that there was an issue in this branch of government. >> you said that no reasonable prosecutor would move forward. i know that former united states attorney michael mucasky an illegal serve every disqualifies her from holding office. people may differ, obviously not

privy to the exact facts. do you understand or would you understand why people say she broke enough law here that you would come to a different conclusion? >> sure, i respect different opinions and i smile because they are my friends and i worked with them a long time. knowing what i know, they wouldn't think about it differently. they have a different perspective outside. >> i think the gentleman from california. >> thank you mr. chairman. director, i want to thank you as others have. i think the american people need to hear you have done a wonderful job today. there are moments in my political life and i despair for the future of the country, not often and those comes when an individual by p providence or

good fortune. i believe you have served the country and all americans well. two questions and two lines of questions, one, another colleague brought this up. you mentioned in previous about the the bed rock and importance of public confidence and public safety. i want to give you an opportunity. i think you responded. give you little more opportunity because it is it important for the american public to upon know that the system is not riggeded and there are people such as yourself and the others that worked on the case believe in the constitution and do their job. if you have further comments about comments about the system being rigged and americans should give up on the system. i was raised by great parents. in my business.

people have to have confidence that the system is not fixed for black people or rich people and powerful people. it is important to understand that there are people that you pay for that don't give a rip about democrats or republicans and care about p finding out what is true. i am lucky to lead an organization that is that way to the core. i get a ten year term to insure i stay outside of politics. i lead an organization that is a- scomplk we are tough aggressive people. if we can make a case, we'll make a case. we don't care what their stripes are and bank account are. i worry about it. that's the reason i did the press conference. i care about the fbi's reputation and justice department and care about the whole system dopely. i will do something. i am not going to tell the

attorney general or anybody else what i am going to say. they didn't know nor did the media know. i offered transpariency and confused and bugged a lot of people. it is it essential in this democracy that people see what they can so they can make their judgment. they may conclude i am an idiot. but i hope they don't conclude i am dishonest. i lead 36000 people who have that in their spine. i don't care if you grae agree or disagreement there that is democracy. you pay for the good people and we'll never forget that. >> within the context of human institutions, it is clear about

the line. and i think you were objective analysis of what was careless in terms of handling of it. either with the department or secretary of state. and you said there was evidence that a security culture of the state department in general with the respect to use of unclassified system was generally lacking. that is found in the government. >> yes, sir. >> struggling with the over sight and state department and in this committee as to how to deputy from here and be chlor about about the state department and comments that former secretary powell has made in concluding the retroclassification. and thousands of e-mails that is out in the public and spread further. there are other people involved, sitting there, how does the

committee go forward to make sure the state department can function in the way it does with human beings and have conversations that are transparent and national security. what do we need to do to make sure it is not there. >> i think the reason the chairman has the ig to start the conversation. the ig is far preponderate p -- better equipped to say this is where to start. >> we'll recognize the gentlemen from tennessee. >> director comey, thank you for appearing on short notice. i think there is a perception that you felt one way and came to another conclusion. like many of my colleagues in my district and let them know you are coming and less than 24

hours, 750 questions to ask you and thank you for being here. a common theme to summarize a lot of the concerns in this case, clinton was above the law and a double standard and it was based on the way you presented your findings. now you said you didn't personally interview her on saturday but the team did three and half hours. >> yes. >> do you know in reading the review and summary if they asked hillary clinton that she never sent or received classified information over private e-mail? >> i think so, i can't remember specific he. it is a very long 302. >> we'll get access to that. do you know if they asked her there is nothing marked classified on my e-mail. >> same answer, i am not sure. >> same answer when she said i

did not e-mail classified material on on the e-mail. you don't know if they asked her that? >> i don't know if they asked her that question. the entire interview was focused on. >> and do you know if they asked her if she used one device for her convenience? >> i don't know. they established from talking to her she used many devices in four years. >> you are trying to get ahead of hillary clinton in this investigation. we all know what she told the people. she said she did not do those things or send or receive classified e-mails and she used one server and one device for her convenience. and since then, in your statement, you recognize those were not correct, is that fair are? >> i don't want to parse and

judge her public statements and so i have tried to avoid doing that. >> why is that important? >> what matters to me what she said to the fbi that is first and foremost for us in evaluation. >> honest people don't need to lie? >> honest people don't need to lie? i hope not. >> in this case she felt the need to misrepresent what she did with the server all throughout the investigation and you brought her in on saturday and came out with the conclougz that she shouldn't be prosecuted i don't want to put words in your mouth. your interpretation of hillary clinton's handling of top secret documents was careless? >> yes. >> you went on to define extreme

top secret information was sloppiness. >> yes, same concept. >> a you stated that hillary clinton is not northerly as sophisticated as people thought; is that fair. >> not as people thought but would assume with someone with that background. technical he sophisticated. i am not opointing other sophistication. >> in the last-minute, i want to talk about precedent. trey gowdy said this was no precedent in terms of punishment. are you familiar with brian imish mirra. >> yes. >> he was prosecuted. what is the difference between his case and hillary clinton's case in carelessness and gross negligence. we are dealing with statute 793 section f that does not require.

>> gross negligence standard. >> is that why brian was punished? >> no. he was prosecuted in the misde19or 1924 on facts that are very different. i can go through it. >> they are very similar and people feel there is a double standard. >> what they are read nothing the media is not a complete accounting of the facts in the case. >> would you agree with representative trey gowdy that she could be elected president and do it gaep without fear of being punished? >> i don't think i am qualified to answer that question. >> my time has expired. >> now recognizing the gentle woman from new mexico. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i have had the benefit when

you're last or nearly last to really have both the benefit and then question the kinds of statements and the dialogue back and forth. and where i am settled at this point in time. particularly, i don't think there is any member in this committee or any member in congress who doesn't both want and expect that the fbi and the department of justice to be operating in a fair and unbiassed and hilo independent matter. otherwise you can't appropriately uphold or enforce federal law. and while we have stated in a couple of different ways. i want to get direct answers. so mr. comey, is there any evidence given that the desire

we want and expect to suggest that hillary clinton was not charged by the department of justice due to inappropriate political influence or due to her current or previous public positions? >> 0 and if there is such evidence i would love folks to show it to me. >> in that regard was there a double standard? >> no, my entire goal was to avoid double standard and what prosecutors call celebrity huntedingly and doing something for a famous person that you would never do for a ordinary joe and jane. >> thank you, i appreciate you explaining the process in great detail frankly, and this committee worked to get specific detail about a variety of reviews and investigations and policies, and concepts, throughout federal government

and i think i can say that this committee often finds we don't get clarity or specific responses to the majority of the questions that we ask. and i appreciate that. and explaining what led the fbi to conclude that hillary clinton should not be charged. saying that however, i am still concerned that theous of the hearing and some of the public statements by elected officials a cowing the department of justice, of using a double standard without evidence to support that statement, leaning on accusations of such, in fact, jeopardizes the very thing we want the most which is an a- political and independent department of justice. we have every right to ask these tough questions. and to be clear that the process we use for everyone including elected officials works and that

there is a responsibility not to substitute your own political preferences to the outcome of the a political department of justice investigation. level whs hillary clinton or anybody else. do you agree with that general statement? >> yes. >> for me, that is a really important ethical line that i believe should never be crossed. i worry that some of what we did today could be frankly interpret ared as a violating that very standard and for that, i certainly want the american people and my constituents to understand that very line and to be sure that our responsibility is better served making sure we do have in fact, an independent body whose aim is to bring about truth and justice and uphold the federal law and based on

everything you said i have no reason to disagree with your explanation or assessment of that process. with the little time i do have left, i do want to say, that given the classified federal that we have debated and talked about today can be classified later or upclassified and other agencies have different determinations of what determines classified and i do think that that is a process that warrants refining and something comes out of the hearing about making sure we do something better in the future for everyone and not just appointed or elected officials that ought to be something we do. i am confused by the things that are clearly told us to us in a classified briefing that appear to be different or already out in the public. i am not sure who is making those decisions.

i honor my decisions to the highest degree. that is my recommendation. >> thank you, mr. chairman and director comey, thank you for being here. i am over here. i am going to be real quick and try to be. look. i don't want to go through everything that everybody has been thu today. we had great questions that asked about you said this and she said that. representative gowdy made a great case of this is what she said under oath and publicly and you dispute that and said no, this is the case. look, i just got a couple of questions, okay. did i understand you correctly that your decision and this

decision was made within throw and half-hours of the interview, and that is all? >> you investigated for a year. >> but p you intrude her throw and half-hours and then came to the conclougz. >> we interviewed her on saturday three and half-hours, the last step in the the investigation. >> as i understand, hillary clinton testified that the service that she used was safe and secure. and you refought that and said that is not the case at all. were they ever secure? were the servers ever security. >> security is not binary. it was less secure than the one in the state department or a private commercial provider like a gmail. >> she has staff and she's got people around her. did they know she was using these other devices?

did anybody say hey, you are not supposed to be doing that? >> i think a lot of people around the secretary understood that this. >> why didn't they say something? >> that is an important question that goes to the culture of the state department that is worth asking. >> we surround ourselves ones with good people. should they be held responsible for that? if i see someone who is not following protocol. is it my responsibility to report them? >> yes. when it comes to security matters you haveab be oniblyigation. but this is. >> what about brian? did he ever know she was not following proper protocol here?

>> he helped to set it up. >> he helped to set it up so he knew? is anything going to be done to him? any prosecutions or discipline? >> i don't know about p discipline. there will not be prosecutions of him. >> will the gentleman year old. >> why did you offer him immunicipali immunicipality -- immunity. >> he's not going to be prosecuteded. >> i am doing this 24 hours after the investigation closes. i want to be thoughtful. we are big about the law and i want to follow the law. i will get back to that. i will not answer that off of the cuff. >> director comey, i am not a lawyer or investigator. i am a pharmacist. i am a citizen. and citizens are upset.

i watched with great interest when you laid out your case. and you laid it bam, bam, bam. this is what she did wrong, wrong. and then you used the word however. it was like you could hear a gasp of people say here we go again. do you regret presenting it in a way like that? >> no. i try not to use the word however, i did lay it out in the way that made sense and i hoped was maximum transparency. for people. >> that's the point, it didn't make sense. the way you laid it out. it made sense and the way the questions were asked here and made all of the points of where she was obviously told lies under oath that it would have been okay, we finally got one

here. >> i continuing made sense. i hope folks go back and with a cup of tean and open minds and read my statement again carefully. if you disagree that is it okay. >> look, i only have been here 18 months and i tell you, this inside of the beltway mentality, no wonder people don't trust us. >> i have no inside of the beltway mentality. >> this is what an example of what i am talking about. as a nonlawyer and investigator, it appears to be you had a hell of a case. >> i am telling you we don't. and i hope people take the time to understand why. >> mr. chairman, i yield back. >> we with recognize mr. goat from arizona. we'll go to the gentlemen the

gentleman from south carolina. >> thank you, mr. comey, you heard a long list of statements that mrs. clinton made both to the public and to congress that were not factually accurate. you went down the list. when she met with you. she didn't say the same things at that interview? >> i am not here without the 302. >> it is your testimony? >> i have no basis for concluding that she lied to the fbi. >> did anybody ask her why she told you one thing and told us another. >> i don't know. >> would that have been of interest to establishing intent. >> it could. >> did anybody ask her why she set up the e-mail system as she did in the first place? >> yes. >> the answer was convenience. >> it was there and a system her

husband had. she jumped on to it. >> her assistant said this week it was to keep e-mailses from being accessible and concealment purpose. uma was asked why it was set up to keep personal e-mails from accessible. the question of whom and were you aware? >> yes. >> over the course of the entire system, she untensionally set up a system according to your testimony, your findings, she was careless regarding the technical, basic even a basic free gmail has better security. and did that according to the staffer's sworn deposition to prevent access to the e-mails. and as a result of this, she exposed top secret information to potential hacks. they could be the sort of

putting national security at risk and we had testimony to acknowledge that and might put agents overseas at risk. >> i don't think i agree with that but that is important. >> she kept it all secret until after loving the state department. she lied about it after it came to light. and ordered the destruction of evidence. you so thoroughly you could not do a recovery. and yet receives no criminal penalty. my question to you. are we assuming that the next president of the united states does the same thing on the day he or she sets up a e-mail service concealing information from the public or anybody and as a result of that it potentially exposes national security level information to

our enemies and lies about it and destroys the evidence in an investigation there will be no crim nam charges if you are the fbi director. >> that is not a question fbi answers. >> if she does same thing as president your result would be same and no criminal findings, right? >> if the facts are the same and the law is the the same the result would be the same. >> under the theory that if the law is equally applieded to everybody. that if a white house staffer does the same thing for the exact same person and exposeses the same risk, there would be no criminal action. and administrative penalties, there are none against the president, correct? >> i don't think so. >> i don't think there are either. you can take away the

president's top security clearance. you can't fire the president because we've tried. not only would a staffer, not have any criminal charges brought against them but a summer untern could do that applying the law equally. regardless of who the poom are. my question is not a legal question. i think it is a common sense ordinary question are folks are asking me. from a national security stand point p, does that bother you in >> mishandling of classified information bothers me no matter what circumstance. >> does it bother that the precedent you are setting today may lead to a circumstance that the top secret information continues to be exposeded to the potential enemies? >> no, in this sense. the precedent i am saying is my

best effort to treat fairly without regard to who they are. if that is the record of the fbi and justice department that's what it should be. the rest of the implications are important but not for the fbi to answer. we should aspire to be a- political and treat joe the same as sally as secretary so and so. >> if you came to a different decision. if you came to a different decision would it have a different presidential value that would keep our more information. >> if we recommended crim nam charges? i don't know. i could argue it both ways. >> thank you director comey and thank you, chairman. >> and now the gentlemen from arizona for five minutes. >> thank you mr. chairman and

mr. comey. my colleague alouded to brian tag liano. and were you aware of the immountainity. there will be no charges, there is many that suspect that he failed to answer questions in his congressional depsession that he had something to hide. why did your investigators in the doj decide to offer him immuni immunity. >> i need to be more thoughtful on the immunity deal. in general i can answer because i have done it many times as a prosecutor. you get immunity to get information that you will not get otherwise. >> you know there may be something there in hindsight? you are look ahead.

>> you believe they have relative information to the investigation. >> did they draft a 302 with mr. tag liano. >> yes. >> will you volunteer them for review of priantag liano and other witnesses. >> i will goet give you everything i can give you under the law and doing it quickly as possible. i have to go sort it out. 302 of secretary of state is classified. we'll sort through and do it quickly. >> i know you have done it for lois lerner and other cases. we expect that. director comey, hillary clinton told people of the united states that she never e-mailed classified information. and your investigation revuled 110 and 52 e-mail chaens. hillary clinton said the laws and regalwayses allowed me to

use e-mail for work. this is indisputed. your investigation revealed it was not true. clinton claimed that she turned over all work e-mail. that is not true. eclinton said there was safe guards. eight e-mail chains contained top secret information and hostile actors could gain access. and others she e-mail would were hacked and private servers were less concerned than a gmail. it is a federal crime to mishandle the information. and you stated they were careless. clinton publicly said she was aware of the classification requirements and broke the law anyway. people have been prosecuted for less. the only difference to her and

others is total resistance of her acknowledging her jeopardy. i think you you should recommend clinton to be prosecuted of section 23 of title 18. if not now who and if not when? and american people need justice in this matter. there should not be a double standard for the clintons and they should not be above the law. >> thank you. director comey. we can disagree on the intent. assume that you are right and i am wrong and it is it an element of the offense. secretary clinton said she was well aware of the classification requirements. her words and not mine or yours. how did that impact the analysis

of her intent. she was less than sophisticated. >> i was talking about technical sophistication. i hope that everyone in the government is aware of the classification requirements. the question is when you did mishandle. did you know it was unlawful. that is the instion. you and i are going to have to discuss all of the people we prosecuted who were unaware that they were breaking the law. there is a lot of dumb defendants that don't know what they are doing is against the law. but let's go with what you say. >> you may prosecute them. >> i was a gutter prosecutor and you were white collar. there is a lot of people who don't know you can't kill other people. on the issue of intent. you say it was convenience. you are a smart lawyer.

if it was convenience, director she wopt have waited two years to return the documents and deleted them four years after they were created. you can't really believe it was convenience when she never turned it over until congress started asking for it. >> what was the thinking around the classified information. it is relevant and the thinking there, but i don't understand her to be saying, i have said it already. that is my focus. >> i know i am out of time. it strikes me, you are reading a specific intent element in a gross negligence statute. >> gentlemen. >> it is specific intent. >> time has expired. i enjoy talking with him. the question is why is it that the department of justice since

1917 has not used the gross negligence but once in a espionnage case. that is the record of fairness. do i treat this person against that record and is that a record, is that a fair thing to do? even if you're not worried about the constitutionality of it, that would be treating this person differently than john doe. >> director, i want to follow up on that. why did you do what you did? my interpretation of what the fbi is supposed to be doing is come to a determination of the facts and then turn it over to a prosecutor. you were a prosecutor. but you're not a prosecutor now. >> right. >> it is unprecedented that an fbi director gave the type of press conference that he did and took a position that an unreasonable prosecutor would only take this case forward. why did you do that? >> it's a great question.

everything i did would have been done privately in the normal course. we have great conversation between the fbi and prosecutors. we make recommendations, we argue back and forth. what i decided to do was offer transparency to the american people about the why's of that. what i was going to do. because i thought that was very, very important for their confidence in the system of justice. and within that, their confidence in the fbi. and i was very concerned, if i didn't show that transparency, that in that lack of transparency, people would say, jeez, what's going on here, something seemed squirrely here. i said, i'll do something unprecedented because this is an unprecedented situation. the next director may find himself bound by what i did. so i decided it was worth doing. >> mr. cummings. >> i've been sitting here

listening to this. this is something that bothered me in the lois lernor case and it bothers me in this case. ms. lawrence had talked about this. the chilling effect of your having to come here and justify your decisions. and i know that you've been really nice and you've just explained why you did what you did and i'm glad you're doing it. but, you know, do you at all, and i mean, taking off -- i'm just talking about, here you've got people making decisions, and then being pulled here in the congress to then say, okay, to be questioned about the decisions. at what point -- or do you even think about it becoming a chilling effect? because most people, you know, when their decision is made don't get this kind of

opportunity, as you well know. there are no statements. you know, they either get indicted or they're not. i know you see this as a special case. i'm wondering whether you agree with ms. lawrence that we may be just going down a slippery slope. that's all i want to ask. >> my honest answer is, i don't think so. when i talked to the chairman, i agreed to come because i think the american people care deeply about this. there's all kinds of folks watching this at home, being told, lots of other cases were prosecuted and she wasn't. i want them to know that's not true. so i want to have this conversation. and i welcome the opportunity. look, it's a pain. i've had to go to the bathroom for about an hour. but it is -- >> we're halfway done. >> it is really important to do, because this is an unprecedented situation. transparency is the absolute best thing for me and for democracy. and i realize, mr. chairman, my folks told me i screwed up one

fact i should fix. in mr. petraeus's case, we didn't find the notebooks in his att attic, we found them in his desk. if there is another candidate being investigated by the fbi, maybe they'll be bound by this. lord willing it's not going to happen again. certainly i have 2,619 days left on this job. it hopefully won't happen on my term. in it does, i won't be chilled. >> we would like to recognize the gentleman from alabama, mr. palmer for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. director comey, your statement on tuesday indicated that secretary clinton and her colleagues sent and received e-mails marked classified on an unsecured private e-mail server that may or may not have been hacked by a foreign power. are you aware that teenage hackers hacked the personal e-mail accounts of cia director

john brennan, fbi deputy director mark giuliano? >> i am intensely aware. they didn't hack in the way we normally think of it but they by trickery got access to their accounts. >> the point i want to make is these are commercially protected e-mail accounts that contained no classified information yet ms. clinton used her personal e-mail, not ha commercial accout are on a server in her became the without even basic protection and transmitted classified information through that account. if teenagers in england were able to personal e-mail accounts of the director of the cia, the director of u.s. national sentence, and the deputy director of the fbi, does it concern you that sophisticated hackers or hackers working for foreign interests never attempted -- i mean, does it team reasonable that they never attempted or were never successful in hacking mrs. clinton's personal e-mail accounts or one of her devices? >> it concerns me a great deal. that's why we spent so much time

to see if we could figure out, see fingerprints of that. >> you said in your statement regarding your recommendation not to prosecute, to be clear, this does not suggest that a person engaged in a similar activity would face no consequences. to the contrary, these individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions but that is what we're deciding here. do you stand by that? >> yes. >> okay. i thought you would. you also said you can't prove intent. i want to touch on a couple things here. one, a reasonable person would not have compromised classified information by keeping that information on inadequately secure private devices. such a person would be unsuitable for a position in government that included any responsibility for handling or protecting classified information, would you agree? >> i agree it would be negligent. i can't prejudge a suitability

determination. but it would definitely be stared at very hard. >> let me tell you why i bring this up. i sat next to mr. hurd who served his country valiantly, put his life on the line. i don't know if you could sense the passion and intensity of his questions, because he knows people whose lives are on the line right now. and in regard to his questions, if someone, a u.s. intelligence agent, had their mission compromised or worse, been killed or injured or captured because of the carelessness of someone responsible for protecting classified information, would intent matter at that point? >> in deciding whether to prosecute the person? of course. but -- yes. that's the answer. of course it would. it would -- the matter would be deadly serious. but the legal standards would be the same. >> what we're dealing with in this hearing is not the lack of due diligence in handling

routine government data or information, but the lack of due diligence by secretary clinton and her carelessness in handling classified information that could have compromised american national security and as mr. hurd pointed out, the missions and personal safety of our intelligence agents. that troubles me greatly. and i think the issueere, and i do respect you, i have spoken in your defense many times. at this point, to my detriment. but i do believe that your answers are honest and factual. but based on your answers regarding mrs. clinton's use of e-mail, and based on what we know, it seems to me that she is stunningly incompetent in her understanding of the basic technology of e-mail and stunningly incompetent in handling classified information.

i mean, you should never associate the secretary of state and classified information with the word "careless." it doesn't matter. i mean, we have to exercise the utmost due diligence. i see that in what you're trying to do. i just think we need to leave here with this understanding, that there is more to this story than we know. if a foreign hacker got into this, i can assure you that they know what was in those e-mails that were deleted. they read them all. they know what is in the e-mails that we never received. mr. chairman, i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman. we'll now go to the gentleman from wisconsin for five minutes. >> thank you. thanks for coming over to the

rayburn building. as i understand it, your testimony today is that you have not brought criminal charges against hillary clinton in part because you feel you can't prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and in part because she didn't understand the laws with regard to e-mails and servers and that sort of thing. question for you. when she erased these e-mails -- or i digress for a second. you however did say that if somebody did this under you, there would be consequences. if somebody did exactly what mrs. clinton did but was one of your lieutenants or one of the lieutenants under the cia or some other agency that deals with top secret documents, what would you do to those underlings? >> i would make sure they are adjudicated under a security proceeding to fig