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OVERSIGHT OF THE 

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

SEPTEMBER 28, 2016 

Serial No. 114–91 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TED POE, Texas 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

RAU ́ L LABRADOR, Idaho 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

RON DeSANTIS, Florida 

MIMI WALTERS, California 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas 

DAVE TROTT, Michigan 

MIKE BISHOP, Michigan 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., 

Georgia 

PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico 

JUDY CHU, California 

TED DEUTCH, Florida 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

KAREN BASS, California 

CEDRIC RICHMOND, Louisiana 

SUZAN DelBENE, Washington 

HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York 

DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

SCOTT PETERS, California 

SHELLEY HUSBAND, Chief of Staff & General Counsel 

PERRY APELBAUM, Minority Staff Director & Chief Counsel 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

SEPTEMBER 28, 2016 

Page 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

The Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Virginia, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary ................................. 1 

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......... 5 

WITNESS 

The Honorable James B. Comey, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 18 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 21 

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Material submitted by the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee 

on the Judiciary ................................................................................................... 6 

Additional material submitted by the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, 

Committee on the Judiciary ................................................................................ 15 

Material submitted by the Honorable Darrell E. Issa, a Representative in 

Congress from the State of California, and Member, Committee on the 

Judiciary ............................................................................................................... 45 

Material submitted by the Honorable Steve King, a Representative in Congress from the State of Iowa, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ....... 59 

Material submitted by the Honorable Judy Chu, a Representative in Congress 

from the State of California, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ........ 67 

Material submitted by the Honorable Mike Bishop, a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......................................................................................................................... 96

APPENDIX 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

Questions for the Record submitted to the Honorable James B. Comey, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation .................................................................. 122 

OFFICIAL HEARING RECORD 

UNPRINTED MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

Material submitted by the Honorable Darrell E. Issa, a Representative in Congress 

from the State of California, and Member Committee on the Judiciary. This material is available at the Committee and can also be accessed at: 

http://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=105390 

(1) 

OVERSIGHT OF THE 

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION 

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2016 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:04 a.m., in Room 

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Bob Goodlatte 

(Chairman of the Committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Goodlatte, Sensenbrenner, Smith, 

Chabot, Issa, King, Franks, Gohmert, Jordan, Chaffetz, Marino, 

Gowdy, Labrador, Farenthold, Collins, DeSantis, Walters, Ratcliffe, 

Trott, Bishop, Conyers, Nadler, Lofgren, Jackson Lee, Cohen, Johnson, Chu, Deutch, DelBene, Jeffries, Cicilline, and Peters. 

Staff Present: (Majority) Shelley Husband, Chief of Staff & General Counsel; Branden Ritchie, Deputy Chief of Staff & Chief Counsel; Zach Somers, Parliamentarian & General Counsel; Caroline 

Lynch, Chief Counsel, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations; Ryan Breitenbach, Counsel, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations; (Minority) Perry Apelbaum, Staff Director & Chief Counsel; 

Danielle Brown, Parliamentarian & Chief Legislative Counsel; 

Aaron Hiller, Chief Oversight Counsel; Joe Graupensperger, Chief 

Counsel, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, 

and Investigations; and Veronica Eligan, Professional Staff Member. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Good morning. The Judiciary Committee will 

come to order. 

And, without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess of the Committee at any time. 

We welcome everyone to this morning’s hearing on ‘‘Oversight of 

the Federal Bureau of Investigation.’’ 

Before I begin this hearing, I want to take a few minutes to recognize the chief counsel of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, 

Homeland Security, and Investigations, Caroline Lynch. After 15 

years working on Capitol Hill, Caroline has decided to move back 

to her home State of Arizona to be close to her family and to pursue the next steps in her career. Needless to say, we are very sad 

to see Caroline go. 

During her time in Washington, D.C., Caroline worked for Representative John Shadegg, both in his personal office and as chief 

counsel of the House Republican Policy Committee. In 2006, Caro-
2 

line came to work for the House Judiciary Committee, and in 2008, 

she became chief counsel of the Judiciary Committee’s Crime Subcommittee. 

At the Committee, Caroline has had an enormous impact on the 

reform of our criminal and national security laws. Few people in 

Washington have done as much to promote the safety of our communities. Caroline has overseen the drafting, negotiation, and passage of critical legislation regarding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and the 

most sweeping set of reforms to government surveillance practices 

in nearly 40 years, the USA Freedom Act, among many other priority legislative initiatives. 

Anyone who has met Caroline knows she is immensely intelligent, hardworking, loyal, and a discerning chief counsel. And, of 

course, those people she has negotiated with have found her to be 

a skillful and formidable but fair advocate. Her team at the Subcommittee know her to be a determined leader and a steadfast 

friend. I have appreciated Caroline’s deep knowledge of criminal 

laws, the strength of her convictions, and her courage to speak the 

truth in a place where it is rarely convenient to do so. 

We wish Caroline well in her new endeavors, and I thank her for 

her years of dedicated service to this Committee, the U.S. House 

of Representatives, and the American people. 

[Applause.] 

Mr. GOODLATTE. And I know the Ranking Member, Mr. Conyers, 

would like to say a few words as well. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you very much, Chairman Goodlatte. 

This is indeed a unique moment in our history, and on behalf of 

the Democratic staff and Democratic Members of the Committee, I 

want to recognize Caroline Lynch for her hard work and her dedication for the past 10 years. 

As chief crime counsel for the Republicans during this time, she 

worked collegially with her Democratic colleagues on a broad range 

of criminal justice issues. The Crime Subcommittee is legislatively 

the busiest Subcommittee, to me, in all of Congress, and every 

crime-related bill that has been enacted during her time here has 

had the benefit of her expertise. 

There are many examples of this, but I will cite her role in helping Members find common ground on section 215 of the PATRIOT 

Act so that we could enact important reforms in the USA Freedom 

Act. This important law will both safeguard our national security 

and our civil liberties, and it set a precedent for how we can proceed on such issues in the future. Her work on this legislation was 

essential to its ultimate success. 

We will miss her insight on these issues as well as her friendship 

and her friendliness as she leaves the Committee for other endeavors in her home State of Arizona. 

We wish you all the best. 

[Applause.] 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I think you would agree with me in saying that, 

while her work is not quite done today and the rest of the week, 

she has also been very critical to the bipartisan work that we have 

been doing here the past few years, culminating in 11 bills so far 

passing out of this Committee dealing with criminal justice reform. 
3 

And we thank you for the contribution you have made for that. 

And that work has been, indeed, very bipartisan, so we thank you 

all. 

We now welcome Director Comey to your fourth appearance before the House Judiciary Committee since your confirmation as the 

seventh Director of the FBI. Needless to say, the past year since 

our last oversight hearing has been challenging for the FBI on a 

number of fronts that we hope to review with you today. 

I want to begin by commending the men and women of the FBI 

and the NYPD and the New Jersey Police Department for their 

swift action in identifying and apprehending Ahmad Khan Rahami, 

whose cold and cowardly acts of terrorism last week injured 29 

American citizens. 

This was the latest in a string of attacks stretching back to the 

2013 Boston Marathon bombing and continuing through the terror 

attacks in San Bernardino, Orlando, and Minneapolis. They all 

share one common thread—namely, radical Islam. 

This Administration, however, including the FBI, has coined this 

cancer with the euphemism of ‘‘countering violent extremism.’’ If 

the FBI and the rest of our national security apparatus continues 

its myopia about focusing on ethereal issues of extremism, their 

mission to protect the American people will always be one of following up on terrorism’s aftermath. 

I look forward to hearing from you about how the FBI is working 

to proactively combat radical Islamic terrorism and put an end to 

this string of violence. 

While terrorism is a malignancy which must be purged, other 

events at home have called into question the confidence that Americans have historically held in a blind and impartial justice system. 

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the FBI’s investigation into her seemingly criminal conduct is a case in point. It 

seems clear that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton committed multiple felonies involving the passing of classified information through her private email server. The FBI, however, declined 

to refer the case for prosecution on some very questionable bases. 

This past Friday afternoon, the FBI released additional investigative documents from the Clinton investigation which demonstrate, among other things, that more than 100 of the emails on 

Secretary Clinton’s private server contained classified information 

and that emails required to be preserved under Federal law were, 

in fact, destroyed. 

Even more alarming, we have recently learned that President 

Obama used a pseudonym to communicate with Secretary Clinton 

on her email server. Why is this relevant? As Secretary Clinton’s 

top aide, Huma Abedin claimed, when informed by the FBI of the 

existence of an email between her boss and the President, ‘‘How is 

that not classified?’’ 

Armed with knowledge of the President’s now-known-to-be-false 

claim that he only learned of Clinton’s private email account ‘‘at 

the same time everybody else learned it, through news reports,’’ did 

the FBI review why the President was also sending classified information over unsecure means. In effect, this President and the 

former Secretary of State improperly transmitted communications 
4 

through nonsecure channels, placing our Nation’s secrets in harm’s 

way. 

Secretary Clinton’s decision to play fast and loose with our national security concerned not simply her daughter’s wedding planning or yoga routines but, instead, quoting you, Director Comey, 

‘‘Seven email chains concerned matters that were classified at the 

Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and 

received.’’ Top Secret/Special Access Programs contain some of the 

most sensitive secret information maintained by our government. 

This is a truly remarkable fact. Were anyone of lesser notoriety 

than Hillary Clinton guilty of doing this, that person would already 

be in jail. 

For Americans unsure what a special access program, or SAP, is, 

it is the kind of information that a war-planner would use to defeat 

an enemy or even clandestine intelligence operations. The Wall 

Street Journal explained that an SAP usually refers to highly covert technology programs often involving weaponry. Knowledge of 

these programs is usually restricted to small groups of people on 

a need-to-know basis. 

For those wondering whether this kind of information on an unsecure server is a problem, you need read no further than the Huffington Post, which reported Hillary Clinton’s private email server, 

containing tens of thousands of messages from her tenure as Secretary of State, was the subject of hacking attempts from China, 

South Korea, and Germany after she stepped down in 2016. 

To conclude, let me ask everyone to engage in a thought experiment. One of this Nation’s signature accomplishments in the war 

on terror was the raid on Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011, 

that resulted in the killing of Osama bin Laden. That operation, 

which was conducted by an elite team of U.S. Navy special operators, was, of course, highly classified. 

Now, imagine, if you will, that classified information relating to 

the raid was passed through a nonsecure email server and was 

accessed by Nations or individuals hostile to the United States. 

Rather than a highly successful covert operation, we might have 

had a team of dead U.S. servicemen. 

Hillary Clinton chose to send and receive Top Secret information 

over a personal, unsecure computer server housed in her various 

homes and once reportedly placed in a bathroom closet. These actions, without a doubt, opened these communications to hostile 

interception by our enemies and those who wish America harm. 

These facts, and not the imagined history I have asked you to 

contemplate, were the basis of the investigation by the FBI. And 

these are the facts that you, Director Comey, chose to hold unworthy of a recommendation to prosecute, saying that no reasonable 

prosecutor would bring such a case. 

We, as Congress and the American people, are troubled how such 

gross negligence is not punished and why there seems to be a different standard for the politically well-connected, particularly if 

your name is Clinton. 

Mr. Director, I look forward to your testimony today. 

At this time, I am pleased to recognize the Ranking Member of 

the Committee, the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Conyers, for his 

opening statement. 
5 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Chairman Goodlatte. 

Welcome again, Director Comey, for your appearance here today. 

The FBI’s mission is a complex undertaking: to protect the 

United States from terrorism, to enforce our criminal laws, and to 

lead the Nation’s law enforcement community. 

That mission ought to mirror our own priorities in this Committee. In the past few days, for example, we have witnessed nearfatal terrorist attacks in Minnesota, New York, and New Jersey. 

These attacks underscore the growing fear that individuals can be 

moved to violence at home by the propaganda of ISIS and other 

terrorist groups abroad even though they have no direct connection 

to those organizations. 

To me, this threat is dire. We should be doing all we can within 

our communities and within our constitutional framework to mitigate the danger. But will our majority here in the House use their 

time today to discuss these attacks? I suspect that they will not be 

in their focus in this campaign season. 

In Charlotte, in Tulsa, in Dallas, right here in Washington, and 

in other cities across this country, our citizens demand answers to 

questions about race and policing and the use of lethal force by law 

enforcement. Our police are under siege, often underresourced, and, 

in some cases, hard-pressed to build trust with the communities 

they serve. 

Director Comey, your continued work to foster lines of communication between police officers and the general public is commendable—and necessary if we are to keep our citizens safe from harm. 

But will my colleagues discuss this pressing issue with the Director of the FBI, whose leadership in the law enforcement community 

is paramount? I hope so. I am also afraid the focus may be elsewhere. 

The FBI is the lead agency in the investigation of cyber-based 

terrorism, computer intrusions, online sexual exploitation, and 

major cyber fraud. We have known for some years about the persistent cyber threat to our critical infrastructure. Now we hear reports of a new cyber threat to the very basis of our democratic process. 

Twice this summer, Director Comey, I wrote to you with my fellow Ranking Members to ask you to look into reports that Russian 

state actors are working to undermine our election process. 

Without objection, Mr. Chairman, I ask that both these letters be 

placed in the record. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Without objection, they will be made a part of 

the record. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
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Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

It is now the clear consensus of the intelligence community that 

the Russian Government was behind the hack of the Democratic 

National Committee and not, as some suggested, somebody sitting 

on their bed that weighs 400 pounds. 

On Friday, we learned from one report that the United States intelligence officials are seeking to determine whether an American 

businessman identified by Donald Trump as one of his foreign policy advisers has opened up private communications with senior 

Russian officials, including talks about the possible lifting of economic sanctions if the Republican nominee becomes President. 

The report cites to an unnamed ‘‘senior U.S. law enforcement official,’’ which I presume means someone in your orbit, Mr. Director. 

Without objection, I ask that this article, Mr. Chairman, be 

placed into the record as well. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Without objection, it will be made a part of the 

record. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
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Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

Let me be clear. If true, this allegation represents a danger to 

our national security and a clear violation of Federal law, which expressly prohibits this type of back-channel negotiation. 

And I am not alone in describing the nature of this threat. 

Speaker Ryan himself has said that ‘‘Russia is a global menace led 

by a devious thug. Putin should stay out of this election,’’ end 

quotation. 

But will our majority join us and press you on this problem 

today, Director Comey? Instead, I believe that the focus of this 

hearing will be more of the same: an attack on you and your team 

at the Department of Justice for declining to recommend criminal 

charges against Secretary Hillary Clinton. 

In recent weeks, this line of attack has been remarkable only for 

its lack of substance. Your critics dwell in character assassination 

and procedural minutia, like the proper scope of immunity agreements and your decision to protect the identities of individuals 

wholly unrelated to the investigation. They want to investigate the 

investigation, Director Comey, and I consider that an unfortunate 

waste of this Committee’s time. 

With so many actual problems confronting this Nation and so 

many of those challenges within your jurisdiction and ours, you 

would think my colleagues would set their priorities differently. I 

hope that they do and they listen to our conversation today. 

I thank the Chairman, and I yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. Conyers. 

And, without objection, all other Members’ opening statements 

will be made a part of the record. 

We welcome our distinguished witness. And if you would please 

rise, I will begin by swearing you in. 

Do you solemnly swear that the testimony that you are about to 

give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, 

so help you God? 

Thank you. 

Let the record reflect that the witness answered in the affirmative. 

FBI Director James Comey is a graduate of the College of William and Mary and the University of Chicago Law School. Following law school, Director Comey served as an assistant United 

States attorney for both the Southern District of New York and the 

Eastern District of Virginia. He returned to New York to become 

the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. And, in 

2003, he served as the Deputy Attorney General at the Department 

of Justice. 

Director Comey, we look forward to your testimony. Your written 

statement will be entered into the record in its entirety, and we 

ask that you summarize your testimony in 5 minutes. You may 

begin. Welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE JAMES B. COMEY, 

DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION 

Mr. COMEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Conyers, the Members of the Judiciary Committee. It is good to be back before you, 
19 

as the Chairman said, for the fourth time. I have six more to go, 

and I look forward to our conversations each time. 

I know that this morning there will be questions about the email 

investigation, and I am happy to answer those to the absolute best 

of my ability. In July, when we closed this case, I promised unusual transparency, and I think we have delivered on that promise 

in, frankly, an unprecedented way. And I will do my absolute best 

to continue to be transparent in every way possible. 

But what I thought I would do, because I know we will talk 

about that quite a bit, I want to just focus on some of the other 

things the FBI has been doing just in the last couple of weeks. And 

my objective is to make clear to you and to the American people 

the quality of the people who have chosen to do this with their 

lives, to do something that is not about money, it is not about the 

living, it is about the life that they make. 

And I just picked four different examples of things we have been 

working on that illustrate the quality of the folks, the scope of the 

work, which is extraordinary, and the importance of partnerships, 

because it is true that the FBI does nothing alone. 

So just to tick off four from four different parts of our organization, obviously, as the Chair and Mr. Conyers both mentioned, in 

the last couple weeks, our folks in the New York area have been 

working in an extraordinary way with their partners at Federal, 

State, and local organizations of all kinds to bring to justice very 

quickly the bomber in the New Jersey and New York attacks. 

That work was done in a way, frankly, that would have been 

hard to imagine 15 years ago in a time of turf battles and worries 

about my jurisdiction, your jurisdiction. They showed you how it 

should be done, how it must be done. And I think we should all 

be very proud of them. 

Second, within the last week, a hacker from Kosovo, who worked 

for the so-called Islamic State in hacking in and taking the identifies and personal information of American military employees and 

then giving it to the Islamic State so they could target these people, was sentenced to 20 years in jail for that hacking. His name 

is Ardit Ferizi. 

Our great folks, together with lots of partners around the world, 

found this Kosovar in Malaysia, and our Malaysian partners arrested him, brought him back to Virginia, where he was just sentenced to 20 years for his hacking on behalf of the Islamic State. 

Terrific work by our cyber investigators. 

And, obviously, as you know, we are doing an awful lot of work 

through our counterintelligence investigators to understand just 

what mischief is Russia up to in connection with our election. That 

is work that goes on all day every day, about which I am limited 

in terms of answering questions. But I wanted you to know that 

is a part of our work we don’t talk about an awful lot but it is at 

the core of the FBI. 

And the last one I want to mention is, 2 weeks ago, a 6-year-old 

girl was kidnapped off her front lawn in eastern North Carolina in 

a stranger kidnapping. And all of law enforcement in North Carolina surged on that case. We rolled our Child Abduction Rapid Deployment Team, which is a capability we have built around the 

country to help in just these kinds of situations. These are agents 
20 

and analysts who are expert at doing what has to be done in that 

golden 24 hours you have to try and save a child. 

And so we rolled those resources, we worked with our partners 

at State and local levels in North Carolina, and overnight we found 

that little girl. We found that little girl chained by her neck to a 

tree in the woods, alive, thank God, and she was rescued. 

The picture that they showed me that morning of that little girl 

with wide eyes and her long hair around her shoulders but still a 

thick chain around her neck connecting her to that tree is one I 

will never be able to get out of my own head, because it is both 

terrible and wonderful. It is terrible because of what happened to 

this little girl; it is wonderful because, together, we found her and 

saved her. 

So I called the sheriff in North Carolina, I called our key team 

members who worked on that to thank them. And they told me 

that they were relieved and exhausted and that they are all hardened investigators but they stood that early morning in the command center and cried together because it almost never ends this 

way. 

So I said to the sheriff and to our people, I wish we didn’t live 

in a world where little girls were kidnapped off of their front 

lawns, where we had to do this kind of work, but, unfortunately, 

we live in that world. And because we do, I am so glad that those 

people and the rest of the people that work for the FBI are in that 

world, because we are safer, we are better because they have chosen to do this with their lives. 

The best part of my job is the people I get to watch, to see their 

work, to admire their work, to support their work in any way that 

I can. They are doing extraordinary work for the American people 

across an incredible array of responsibilities. I know you know 

that, and we are very grateful for the support you give to the men 

and women of the FBI. And I look forward to our conversation 

about their work, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Comey follows:] 
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Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Director Comey. 

We will now begin questioning under the 5-minute rule, and I 

will begin my recognizing myself. 

You testified that the FBI did not investigate the veracity of Secretary Clinton’s testimony to the Select Benghazi Committee under 

oath. We referred the matter to the United States attorney for the 

District of Columbia. 

Is the FBI now investigating the veracity of Secretary Clinton’s 

testimony to the Select Benghazi Committee? 

Mr. COMEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The Department has the referral—I think there were two separate referrals—has the referrals. Now it is pending, and so I am 

not going to comment on a pending matter at this point. But the 

matter has been received by the Department of Justice. They have 

the letters from the Committee. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. And you cannot tell us whether or not you are 

indeed investigating? 

Mr. COMEY. I can’t. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. When do you expect that you will be able to tell 

us more about this pending matter before the FBI? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know, sir. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Paul Combetta with Platte River Networks posted to Reddit asking how to ‘‘strip out a VIP’s (VERY VIP) email 

address from a bunch of archived email.’’ He went on, ‘‘The issue 

is that these emails involve the private email address of someone 

you’d recognize, and we’re trying to replace it with a placeholder 

address as to not expose it.’’ 

This clearly demonstrates actions taken to destroy evidence by 

those operating Secretary Clinton’s private server and by her staff. 

Certainly, Combetta did not take it upon himself to destroy evidence but had been instructed to do so by Secretary Clinton or her 

staff. 

So my first question to you is, was the FBI aware of this Reddit 

post prior to offering Mr. Combetta immunity on May 3, 2016? 

Mr. COMEY. I am not sure. I know that our team looked at it. 

I don’t know whether they knew about it before then or not. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Isn’t this information evidence of obstruction of 

justice and a violation of Mr. Combetta’s immunity deal? 

Mr. COMEY. Not necessarily, no. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Why not? 

Mr. COMEY. It depends on what his intention was, why he wanted to do it. And I think our team concluded that what he was trying to do was, when they produced emails, not have the actual address but have some name or placeholder instead of the actual dotcom address in the ‘‘from’’ line. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Last week, the American people learned that 

Cheryl Mills, Secretary Clinton’s longtime confidant and former 

State Department chief of staff, and Heather Samuelson, counsel 

to Secretary Clinton in the State Department, were granted immunity for production of their laptops. Why were they not targets of 

the FBI’s criminal investigation? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, a target is someone on whom you have sufficient evidence to indict. A subject is someone whose conduct at 

some point during the investigation falls within the scope of the in-
35 

vestigation. So, certainly, with respect to Ms. Mills, at least initially, because she was an email correspondent, she was a subject 

of the investigation. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Did the FBI find classified information on either 

of their computers? 

Mr. COMEY. I think there were some emails still on the computer 

that were recovered that were classified, is my recollection. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Isn’t that a crime? 

Mr. COMEY. Is what a crime, sir? 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Having classified information on computers that 

are outside of the server system of the Department of State unsecured. 

Mr. COMEY. No. It is certainly something—without knowing 

more, you couldn’t conclude whether it was a crime. You would 

have to know what were the circumstances, what was the intention 

around that. But it is certainly something—it is the reason we conducted a yearlong investigation to understand where emails had 

gone on an unclassified system that contained classified information. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. And what did you determine with regard to the 

emails found on her computer? 

Mr. COMEY. I hope I am getting this right, and my troops will 

correct me if I am wrong, but they were duplicates of emails that 

had been produced, because the emails had been used to sort before 

a production. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Now, both Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson 

were granted immunity for production of these computers, these 

laptops. Why were they then allowed to sit in on the interview with 

Secretary Clinton? 

Mr. COMEY. Right. The Department of Justice reached a letter 

agreement with the two lawyers to give them what is called actof-production immunity, meaning nothing that is found on the 

laptop they turn over will be used against them directly, which is 

a fairly normal tool in investigations. 

They were—Ms. Mills, in particular, was a member of Secretary 

Clinton’s legal team. And so Secretary Clinton decides which of her 

lawyers come to voluntary interviews with the FBI. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Is it usual to allow a witness or potential witness in a subsequent prosecution, had one been undertaken, to be 

present in the room when the FBI interviews another witness and 

potential target of an investigation? 

Mr. COMEY. The FBI has no ability to exclude or include any 

lawyer that a subject being interviewed chooses to have there. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Even if the lawyer is a witness in the case? Can 

you cite any other instance in which a witness to a criminal investigation, who has already been interviewed by the FBI, has been 

allowed to accompany and serve as legal counsel to the target of 

that investigation? 

Mr. COMEY. I can’t from personal experience. It wouldn’t surprise 

me if it happened. 

The FBI has no ability to decide who comes to an interview in 

a voluntary interview context. If it was a judicial proceeding, a 

judge could police who could be there. And, obviously, lawyers are 

governed by canons of ethics to decide what matters they can be 
36 

involved in. But it doesn’t fall to us to say: You can be in, you can’t 

be in. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. But wouldn’t you agree that it is a conflict of 

interest for them to serve as attorneys for Secretary Clinton in this 

matter, having been interviewed by the FBI as witnesses? 

Mr. COMEY. That is a question a lawyer has to answer for himor herself. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. You are a lawyer, Director Comey. What is your 

opinion of that? 

Mr. COMEY. Oh, I don’t want to offer an opinion on that, but that 

is something a lawyer has to decide for themselves, I assume, with 

counsel and consulting our canons of ethics, what matters you can 

be involved in and what you can’t. 

But, again, the Bureau’s role in conducting a voluntary interview 

is to interview the subject. Who they bring is up to them. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. How can you trust the veracity of Secretary 

Clinton’s answers, knowing that witnesses previously interviewed 

by the FBI were allowed to participate in the interview? 

Mr. COMEY. We assess the answers based on what is said and 

all the other evidence we have gathered. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. In—— 

Mr. COMEY. It doesn’t matter—— 

Mr. GOODLATTE [continuing]. Consultation with her ‘‘attorneys,’’ 

who are also witnesses to what was previously done earlier and 

may, in fact, have, themselves, violated the law, for which they requested and were granted immunity. 

Mr. COMEY. Again, the answer is—excuse me—the answer is the 

same. We make the assessment based on what the witness says 

and the other evidence we have gathered in the case. Who is sitting 

there, to me, is not particularly germane. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. My time has expired. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Conyers, 

for his questions. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

Thank you so much. 

Director James Comey, twice this past week, the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, has been shaken by the shooting deaths of 

Black men. It is only one city out of many in this country looking 

for answers about the use of force by police. We on this Committee 

are looking for answers too. 

You are a vocal advocate for better collection of information 

about violent encounters between police and civilian. Has the FBI’s 

ability to collect this information improved in the year since we 

have last discussed it? And why are these statistics so important 

to our current discussion on the use of force by police? 

Mr. COMEY. Thank you, Mr. Conyers. 

We are having passionate, important conversations in this country about police use of force in connection with encounters with civilians, especially with African-Americans. 

Mr. CONYERS. Yes. 

Mr. COMEY. All of those conversations are uninformed today. 

They are all driven by anecdote. Because, as a country, we simply 

don’t have the information to know: Do we have an epidemic of violence directed by law enforcement against Black folks? Do we have 
37 

an epidemic involving brown folks? White folks? We just don’t 

know. And in the absence of that data, we are driven entirely by 

anecdote, and that is a very bad place to be. 

I don’t know whether there is an epidemic of violence. My instincts tell me there isn’t, but I don’t know. I can’t tell you whether 

shootings involving people of any different color are up or down or 

sideways, and nor can anybody else in this country. And so, to discuss the most important things that are going on in this country, 

we need information. And the government should collect it. I can’t 

think of something that is more inherently governmental than the 

need to use deadly force in an encounter during law enforcement 

work. 

Mr. CONYERS. Yeah. 

Mr. COMEY. And so what has changed in the last year, which is 

really good news, is that everybody in leadership in law enforcement in the United States has agreed with this, and they have 

agreed the FBI will build and maintain a database where we collect important information about all such encounters involving the 

use of deadly force. That will allow us to know what is going on 

in this country so we can have a thoughtful conversation and resist 

being ruled by individual anecdotes. 

That is why it matters so much. 

We are making progress. We will have this done—I would like 

to have it done in the next year. Certainly in the next 2 years this 

database will be up and running, because everybody gets why it 

matters so much. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

On August 30, I wrote to you regarding Donald Trump’s extensive connections to the Russian Government. The letter cites to a 

number of troubling reports, some that suggest mere conflicts of interest, others that might suggest evidence of a crime. 

Last Friday, we read a new report suggesting that Mr. Trump’s 

foreign policy adviser has been meeting with high-ranking, sanctioned officials in Moscow to discuss lifting economic sanctions if 

Mr. Donald Trump becomes President. The same report quotes, ‘‘a 

senior United States law enforcement official,’’ who says that this 

relationship is being, ‘‘actively monitored and investigated.’’ 

Is the FBI investigating the activities of Mr. Trump or any adviser to the Trump campaign with respect to any line of communication between the campaign and the Russian Government? 

Mr. COMEY. I can’t say, sir. As I said in response to a different 

question from the Chairman, we don’t confirm or deny investigations. 

Mr. CONYERS. Well, more generally, then, is it lawful for a private citizen to enter into official government negotiations with a 

foreign nation? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t think it is appropriate for me to answer that 

hypothetical. 

Mr. CONYERS. Uh-huh. Well, in my view, our research shows that 

it is not. The Logan Act, 18 U.S.C., section 953, prohibits this conduct, in my view. 

Does Mr. Trump currently receive intelligence briefings from the 

FBI? 
38 

Mr. COMEY. Both candidates and their running mates are offered 

on a regular basis briefings from the entire intelligence community. 

Some portion of the first briefing included an FBI segment, so yes. 

Mr. CONYERS. Does his staff attend those meetings as well? 

Mr. COMEY. No, just the candidate and the Vice Presidential candidate. 

Mr. CONYERS. Uh-huh. 

And, finally, if a member of either—— 

Mr. COMEY. Okay, no, I am wrong. I am sorry. I have to correct 

what I said. 

Each was allowed to bring two people. And, as I recall, Mr. 

Trump did bring two individuals with clearances to the briefing. 

Secretary Clinton did not. 

I am sorry. I misstated that. 

Mr. CONYERS. All right. 

Finally, if a member of either campaign were engaged in secret, 

back-channel communications with a foreign adversary, could that 

line of communication pose a threat to national security? 

Mr. COMEY. Mr. Conyers, I don’t think it is appropriate, given 

that I am not commenting on whether we have an investigation, 

to answer hypotheticals that might make it look like I am commenting on whether we have an investigation. So I would prefer 

not to answer that, sir. 

Mr. CONYERS. Well, thank you for being here today. 

And I thank the Chairman and yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair thanks the gentleman, recognizes the 

gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Sensenbrenner, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Director Comey, welcome. 

Who authorized granting Cheryl Mills immunity? 

Mr. COMEY. I am sorry? 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Who authorized granting Cheryl Mills immunity? 

Mr. COMEY. It was a decision made by the Department of Justice. I don’t know at what level inside. In our investigations, any 

kind of immunity comes from the prosecutors, not the investigators. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Okay. Did she request immunity? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know for sure what the negotiations involved. 

I believe her lawyer asked for act-of-production immunity with respect to the production of her laptop. That is my understanding. 

But, again, the FBI wasn’t part of those conversations. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Now, it has been a matter of public record 

that Secretary Clinton brought nine people into the room where 

two FBI agents were questioning her. Is that normal practice? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know if there is a normal practice. I have 

done interviews with a big crowd and some with just the subject. 

It is unusual to have that large a number, but it is not unprecedented, in my experience. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Now, Cheryl Mills, you know, also stated 

that she was an attorney. I am very concerned that when a fact 

witness represents a client who might be the target of an investigation there is a conflict of interest. 
39 

And, you know, rather than letting Ms. Mills make a determination, would the FBI be willing to refer the matter of a fact witness, 

Ms. Mills in this case, representing a target, Secretary Clinton in 

this case, to the appropriate bar association for investigation? 

Mr. COMEY. That is not a role for the FBI. Even though I happen 

to be a lawyer, we are not lawyers; we are investigators. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Okay. 

Mr. COMEY. So that is a question for the legal part of the Department of Justice. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Okay. 

Why did Ms. Mills request immunity? Was she hiding something 

or was she afraid that something would incriminate her that was 

on her laptop? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know. I am sure that is a conversation she 

and her lawyer had and then her lawyer had with lawyers at the 

Department. I just don’t know. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Uh-huh. Well, you know, there was an oped by Professor Jonathan Turley that appeared in the media that 

said that there are a lot of good cases scuttled by granting immunity. And there was lots of immunity that was granted here. 

Doesn’t it concern you, as an investigator, that your chiefs in the 

Justice Department decided to become an immunity-producing machine for many people who would have been very key witnesses 

should there have been a prosecution? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t think of it that way. It doesn’t strike me 

there was a lot of immunity issued in this case. I know it is a complicated subject, but there is all different kinds of immunity. There 

are probably three different kinds that featured in this case. Fairly 

typical in a complex, white-collar case, especially, as you try and 

work your way up toward your subject. So my overall reaction is 

this looks like ordinary investigative process to me. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Well, the target was not an ordinary target. I think we all know that. And since you announced that there 

would be no prosecution of Secretary Clinton in July, there have 

been several very material issues that are troubling, and would 

this not require a reopening of the investigation to solve those 

issues? 

Mr. COMEY. I haven’t seen anything that would come near to 

that kind of situation. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Oh—— 

Mr. COMEY. I know there are lots of questions, lots of controversy. I am very proud of the way this was done. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Well, you know, come on now. With all, 

you know, due respect, since you made this announcement, there 

have been many more issues that came out that were not on the 

table prior to your announcement that the investigation against 

Secretary Clinton had been dropped. 

And, you know, I think the American public is entitled to answers on this, particularly since we have to know, you know, the 

extent of the classified information which ended up being in the 

private email server. 

You know, all of us on this Committee have got security clearances of some kind or another, you know, and I am kind of worried 

that, you know, if I got some classified information and went back 
40 

to my office and used an unsecured server to send it to somebody 

who may also have had classified information, I would be in big 

trouble. And I should be in big trouble if I did something like that. 

There seems to be different strokes for different folks on this. 

And that is what Americans are concerned about, particularly 

when we are looking to elect someone to the highest office of the 

land and the leader of the free world. 

I don’t think your answers are satisfactory at all, Mr. Comey. I 

do have a great deal of respect for you, but I think that there is 

a heavy hand coming from someplace else. 

And, with that, I yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair thanks the gentleman, recognizes the 

gentleman from New York, Mr. Nadler, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First, let me express my admiration and thanks to the FBI for 

the professional manner and excellent work they did in the bombings that occurred in New York about a block out of my district to 

apprehend the suspect within, what, 48 hours. And through everything, it was a very good indication of teamwork and of professionalism, and I congratulate you on that. 

Secondly, let me say that I think that the mud that is being 

thrown from the other side of this table here continually, only because of the ongoing Presidential election, in the case in which the 

FBI decided there was nothing to prosecute, it is over—we all know 

nobody would even be talking about it if one weren’t—if Hillary 

Clinton weren’t a Presidential candidate. This is pure political maneuvering. 

But let me talk about a case that may pose a current national 

security threat to the United States and ask you a few questions 

about that. 

In his earlier remarks, Mr. Conyers referenced an August 30 letter from the Ranking Members of a number of House Committees. 

That letter asked whether the FBI was investigating troubling connections between Trump campaign officials and Russian interests 

and whether they contributed to the illegal hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic National Campaign 

Committee. 

You are familiar with that letter, I take it. 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, I am familiar with the letter. 

Mr. NADLER. I would like to ask you a few questions. 

The letter said this: ‘‘On August 8, 2016, Roger Stone, a Donald 

Trump confidant, revealed that he has communicated with 

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about the upcoming release of 

additional illegally hacked Democratic documents. Mr. Stone made 

these statements during a Republican campaign event while answering a question about a potential October surprise.’’ 

Obviously, if someone is stating publicly that he is in direct communication with the organization that obtained these illegally 

hacked documents, I assume the FBI would want to talk to that 

person. 

Has the FBI interviewed Roger Stone about his communications 

with Julian Assange or his knowledge of how WikiLeaks got these 

illegally obtained documents? 

Mr. COMEY. I can’t comment on that. 
41 

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Stone stated that he has knowledge about upcoming leaks of additional illegally hacked documents. Has the FBI 

asked him about those communications? 

Mr. COMEY. I also can’t comment on that. 

Mr. NADLER. Because it is an ongoing investigation? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t want to confirm whether there is or is not 

an investigation. That is why—that is the way I answered Mr. Conyers’ questions as well. 

Mr. NADLER. Director Comey, the FBI acknowledged in private— 

in public statements and testimony that it—acknowledged that it 

was investigating Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email server, 

and that was while the investigation was still ongoing. Now you 

can’t comment on whether there is an investigation. 

Is there a different standard for Secretary Clinton and Donald 

Trump? If not, what is the consistent standard? 

Mr. COMEY. No. Our standard is we do not confirm or deny the 

existence of investigations. There is an exception for that: when 

there is a need for the public to be reassured; when it is obvious 

it is apparent, given our activities, public activities, that the investigation is ongoing. But our overwhelming rule is we do not comment except in certain exceptional circumstances. 

Mr. NADLER. Aren’t there exceptional circumstances when close 

officials to a candidate of a major political party for the United 

States says publicly that he is in communication with foreign officials and anticipates further illegal activity? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t think so. 

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, 

resigned after failing to disclose his role in assisting a pro-Russian 

party in Ukraine. The Associated Press reported, ‘‘Donald Trump’s 

campaign chairman helped a pro-Russian party in Ukraine secretly 

route $2.2 million in payments to two prominent Washington lobbying firms in 2012, and did so in a way that effectively obscured 

the foreign political party’s efforts to influence U.S. policy.’’ 

Has the FBI interviewed Mr. Manafort about his failure to disclose his work for this foreign government, as Federal law requires? 

Mr. COMEY. I have to give you the same answer, Mr. Nadler. 

Mr. NADLER. Has the FBI interviewed Rick Gates, who reportedly still works for the Trump campaign, about his involvement in 

this scheme? 

Mr. COMEY. Same answer, sir. 

Mr. NADLER. Same answer. 

Director Comey, after you investigated Secretary Clinton, you 

made a decision to explain publicly who you interviewed and why. 

You also disclosed documents, including notes from this interview—from those interviews. 

Why shouldn’t the American people have the same level of information about your investigation of those associated with Mr. 

Trump? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, I am not confirming that we are investigating 

people associated with Mr. Trump. 

In the matter of the email investigation, it was our judgment— 

my judgment and the rest of the FBI’s judgment that those were 

exceptional circumstances where the public needed transparency. 
42 

Mr. NADLER. Okay. 

My final question is the following. You investigated Secretary 

Clinton’s emails and so forth, everything we have been talking 

about. You concluded, I believe quite properly, there was nothing 

to prosecute. And you have announced, in my opinion quite properly, that you had investigated it and there was nothing there—or 

there was nothing to prosecute. That was proper. 

But having announced—when a prosecutorial agency announces 

that ‘‘we have investigated so-and-so and we have decided to prosecute because’’ or ‘‘we have investigated so-and-so and we have decided not to prosecute because,’’ why is it appropriate for that prosecutorial agency to go further and say, ‘‘Even though we decided 

not to prosecute, we still think this person did this, that, or the 

other thing and it was proper or improper’’? Why is it proper for 

a prosecutorial agency to characterize your opinion of the propriety 

of the actions of someone who you have announced that you have 

decided did nothing criminal and shouldn’t be prosecuted? 

Mr. COMEY. That is a very hard decision. That is why it is the 

exception to the rule. You do risk damaging someone who isn’t convicted. 

The judgment I made in this case is, given the unusual—in fact, 

I hope unprecedented—nature of this investigation, that it was appropriate to offer that transparency. Not an easy call. I really wrestled with it, but I think, on balance, it was the right call. 

Mr. NADLER. Let me just say before my time expires that I 

think—and I am just talking for myself—that that was highly inappropriate; that, having determined that there was nothing to prosecute and having announced that quite properly, for a prosecuting 

agency, the Department of Justice, to comment with comments that 

will be looked upon as authoritative that what she did was right 

or wrong or good or bad is not the appropriate role of a prosecuting 

agency and risks, not in this case perhaps, but risks—and I talk 

really now because of the future. 

I don’t want to see that happen again with regard to anybody, 

because it puts anybody who did not commit a crime, who you or 

the Justice Department or whoever has determined did not commit 

a crime or there is no evidence sufficient to prosecute, puts them 

at the mercy of the opinion of an individual or individuals within 

the prosecuting agency. And that is just not right under our system. 

I yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Smith, for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Director Comey, thank you for those examples of the FBI’s good 

work in your opening statement. I think we all appreciate what the 

FBI has done. 

My first question is this: Would you reopen the Clinton investigation if you discovered new information that was both relevant and 

substantial? 

Mr. COMEY. It is hard for me to answer in the abstract. We 

would certainly look at any new and substantial information. 
43 

Mr. SMITH. Yeah. Let’s impersonalize it—in general, if you discovered new information that was substantial and relevant, you 

would reopen an investigation, would you not? 

Mr. COMEY. Again, even in general, I don’t think we can answer 

that in the abstract. What we can say is, if people—any investigation, if people have new and substantial information, we would like 

to see it so we can make an evaluation. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Let me give you some examples and mention 

several new developments that I think have occurred and ask you 

if you have become aware of them. 

The first example is what the Chairman mentioned a while ago. 

An employee at a company that managed former Secretary Clinton’s private email server said, ‘‘I need to strip out a VIP’s (VERY 

VIP) email address from a bunch of archived emails. Basically, they 

don’t want the VIP’s email address exposed to anyone.’’ 

I assume you are aware of that. 

Mr. COMEY. I am aware of that. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. 

The same employee called a new retention policy designed to delete emails after 60 days a, ‘‘Hillary cover-up operation.’’ And you 

saw that, did you not? 

Mr. COMEY. Say the last—I am sorry, Mr. Smith, I couldn’t hear 

the last—— 

Mr. SMITH. The same employee called the new retention policy 

designed to delete emails after 60 days a ‘‘Hillary cover-up operation.’’ You saw that? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know that particular language. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. We will get you the source, but you can take 

my word for it that that is what he said. 

Mr. COMEY. I will. 

Mr. SMITH. Another example: A former Clinton Foundation employee, who also managed the Clinton server, destroyed devices 

used by former Secretary Clinton by smashing them with a hammer. You are aware of that? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. 

Two employees of the company that managed former Secretary 

Clinton’s server recently pled the Fifth Amendment to Congress to 

avoid self-incrimination. And you are aware of that? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. 

And then, lastly, 15,000 more work-related emails were discovered, though there had been an attempt to wrongly delete them. 

And you are aware of that? 

Mr. COMEY. I think we discovered them. 

Mr. SMITH. Right. 

To me, Director Comey, what I cited are not the actions of innocent people. There is a distinct possibility that Mrs. Clinton or her 

staff directed others to destroy evidence in a government investigation, which, of course, is against the law. So I would urge you to 

reopen your investigation. 

Do you want to comment on that? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t. 
44 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. I know you can’t tell us whether you have or 

have not, but I believe I have given evidence of new information 

that is relevant and substantial that would justify reopening the 

investigation. 

My next question is this: I know you granted immunity to a 

number of individuals, but if you had new information that is relevant and substantial, you would be able to investigate them further, wouldn’t you? 

Mr. COMEY. Not to quibble, the FBI doesn’t grant immunity to 

anybody. The Department of Justice is able to grant very different 

kinds of immunity. If new and substantial evidence develops either 

that a witness lied under a grant of use immunity or under any 

kind of immunity, of course the Department of Justice can pursue 

it. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. 

Mr. COMEY. Nobody gets lifetime immunity. 

Mr. SMITH. Right. Okay. Thank you, Director Comey. 

Last question is this: As Chairman of the Science Committee, I 

issued the FBI a subpoena on September 19, 2016. The due date 

for a response was 2 days ago, September 26. Bureau staff has still 

not provided the requested information and documents. 

Yesterday, we pointed out to them that the Science Committee 

has jurisdiction over the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which sets standards for the Federal Information Security 

Modernization Act of 2014. 

I trust you intend to comply with the subpoena. 

Mr. COMEY. I intend to continue the conversations we have been 

having about the subpoena. 

Mr. SMITH. Yeah. 

Mr. COMEY. As you know, we have made a lot of documents 

available to at least six Committees, and the question of whether 

we should make them additional—available to another Committee 

is something that we are struggling with but talking to your folks 

about. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. To me, there is no struggle. If we have clear 

jurisdiction, which we can demonstrate, it, I think, obligates you to 

comply with the subpoena. 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, sir. We are not trying to be disrespectful. We 

are just not sure we see the jurisdictional issue the way that your 

folks do. But we are continuing to talk about it. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Thank you, Director Comey. 

Mr. ISSA. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. SMITH. I will yield to the gentleman from California. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. 

The Chairman of the full Committee had asked something earlier, and I just want to point out and ask that it be placed in the 

record—according to the Maryland Code of Ethics 19301.11, it specifically prohibits a former or current government officer or employee from acting as a counsel to someone that they represented 

in government. And I would like that to be placed in the record. 

In light of the fact that the Maryland Bar has—— 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Without objection, it will be made a part of the 

record. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
45 
46 
47 

Mr. ISSA. In light of the fact the Maryland Bar has this prohibition, would that have changed your view of allowing her in and 

saying you had no authority? 

Mr. COMEY. I am not qualified nor am I going to answer questions about legal ethics in this forum. The FBI has no basis to exclude somebody from an interview who the subject of the interview 

says is on their legal team. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Thank you, Director Comey. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair thanks the gentleman, recognizes the 

gentlewoman from California, Ms. Lofgren, for 5 minutes. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Director Comey, for once again appearing before 

this Committee, as you appear before so many Committees here in 

the House. Sometimes I wonder how you get any work done at all, 

that you are called up here so frequently. 

You know, there has been a lot of focus on the private email that 

Secretary Clinton used, just as her predecessor, Colin Powell, used. 

So far as I am aware from the public comments, there is no forensic evidence that there was a breach of that server, although theoretically you could intrude and not leave evidence. 

But there has been very little focus on the breach at the State 

Department email system. Now, it has been reported in the press 

that this breach of the State Department email system was one of 

the largest ever of a Federal system and was accomplished by, according to the press, either China or Russia. 

I am wondering if you are able to give us any insight into whether it was, in fact, the Russians who hacked into the State Department email system or whether that is still under investigation. 

Mr. COMEY. Not in this open forum, I can’t. 

Ms. LOFGREN. All right. I am hoping that we can get some insight in an appropriate classified setting on that. 

Now, we have watched with some concern—and I know you are 

also concerned—about the Russian intrusion into our election system. It has been reported to us that the Russians hacked into the 

Democratic National Committee database. They also hacked into 

the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. And it seems 

that they are making an effort to influence the outcome of this election. We have been warned that the information stolen might not 

just be released but also be altered and forged and then released, 

in an effort to impact the election here in the United States. 

Yesterday, there were press reports—and I don’t know if they are 

accurate, and I am interested if you are able to tell us—that the 

Russians have also hacked the telephones of Democratic staffers 

and that there was a request for Democratic staffers to bring their 

cell phones into the FBI to have them mirrored. 

Can you tell us anything about that? 

Mr. COMEY. I can’t at this point. What I can say in response to 

the first part of your question, any hacking is something we take 

very seriously. Any hacking in connection with this Nation’s election system is something we take extraordinarily seriously, the 

whole of government. So it is something the FBI is spending a lot 

of time on right now to try and understand. So what are they up 

to and what does it involve and what is the scope of it to equip the 
48 

President to decide upon the appropriate response. And so that is 

one of reasons I have to be very careful about what I say about it. 

That work is ongoing. I should make clear to folks when we talk 

about our election system, there has been a lot of press reporting 

about attempts to intrude into voter registration databases. Those 

are connected to the Internet. That is very different than the electoral mechanism in this country, which is not. 

Ms. LOFGREN. We had actually a hearing, and I had the chance 

to talk to Alex Padilla, who is the Secretary of State in California. 

Number one, they encrypt their database. And number two, even 

if you were to steal it, there is backups that you couldn’t steal. So 

they can’t really manipulate that. But you could cause a lot of damage. I mean, you could create chaos on Election Day that would— 

and you could target that chaos to areas where voters had a tendency to vote for one candidate over another in an attempt to influence the outcome. So it is not a benign situation certainly, and one 

that we want to worry about. 

I want to just quickly touch on a concern I have also on cyber 

on rule 41, and how the FBI is interpreting that. I am concerned 

that the change, as understood by the FBI, would allow for one 

warrant for multiple computers, but would include allowing the 

FBI to access victims’ computers in order to clean them up. 

Cybersecurity experts that I have been in touch with have raised 

very strong concerns about that provision, especially using 

malware’s own signaling system to disable the malware. The cyber 

experts who have talked to me and expressed concern believe that 

that ultimately could actually trigger attacks. And, so, I am wondering if you have any comments on how the FBI intends to use 

rule 41 vis malware on victims’ computers? 

Mr. COMEY. Yeah. Thank you. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Time of gentlewoman has expired. The witness 

will be permitted to answer the question. 

Mr. COMEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am not an expert, but 

one of the challenges we face, especially in dealing with these huge 

criminal botnets, which have harvested and connected lots of innocent peoples’ computers is how do we execute a search warrant to 

try and figure out where the bad guys are, and get them away from 

those innocent people? And the challenge we have been facing is 

to go to every single jurisdiction and get a warrant would take, literally, years. And so we are trying to figure out can we use rule 

41 to have one judge issue that order and give us that authority. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Chairman, I know my time has expired. I 

would just like to close by expressing the hope that the FBI might 

seek the guidance of some of the computer experts at our national 

labs on this very question of triggering malware attacks. And I 

yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The point is well taken. The Chair recognizes 

the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Chabot, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director Comey, Chairman Goodlatte, in his introduction of you, mentioned that you are 

a graduate of the College of William and Mary. And as you may 

well know, I am a graduate of William and Mary as well. 

Anyway, you may remember that our alma mater is very proud 

of something called the honor code. And I checked out the wording 
49 

of the honor code to make sure that I was correct on it. And I will 

tell you exactly what it says. It says, ‘‘As a member of the William 

and Mary community, I pledge on my honor not to lie, cheat, or 

steal, either in my academic or in my personal life.’’ Well, one of 

the people whose behavior you investigated, Hillary Clinton, didn’t 

have the good fortune to attend the College of William and Mary. 

But she did attend Wellesley. And I wondered whether they had 

an honor code. And I found out, I looked it up, they do, and they 

did. And here is what it says, ‘‘As a Wellesley College student, I 

will act with honesty, integrity, and respect. In making this commitment, I am accountable to the community and dedicate myself 

to a life of honor.’’ Let me repeat part of that again. ‘‘I will act with 

honesty.’’ 

Now, I am sure the young women attending Wellesley today, and 

those that have attend it in the past, are proud that one of their 

own could be the next President of the United States. But a majority of the American people have come to the conclusion that Hillary 

Clinton is not honest and cannot be trusted. It is about two to one 

who say that she is dishonest. In the latest Quinnipiac poll, for example, the question being: Would you say that Hillary Clinton is 

honest or not, 65 percent said no. And only 32 percent said yes, she 

is honest. You know, Republicans and Democrats. Not surprisingly, 

were overwhelmingly one way or the other. But Independents, 80 

percent of them said nope, she is not honest. And only 19 percent 

of them said she is. 

So Director Comey, since you and your people were the ones who 

investigated Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, I would just like to 

ask a couple of questions. First, Hillary Clinton claimed over and 

over that none of the emails that she sent contained classified information. Was she truthful when she said that? 

Mr. COMEY. As I said when I testified in July, there were—I am 

forgetting now after 21⁄2 months the exact number, but there were 

80 or so emails that contained classified information. 

Mr. CHABOT. Okay. So she said they didn’t contain classified information and they did. So that sounds like not being truthful. Not 

trying to put words in your mouth. But I think that is what that 

means. 

Hillary Clinton then came up with a fallback position saying: 

Well, none of the emails I sent were marked classified. But that 

wasn’t true either. Was it? 

Mr. COMEY. There were three—as I recall, three emails that bore 

within the body of the text a portion marking that indicated they 

were classified confidential. 

Mr. CHABOT. And again, not putting words in your mouth, but 

I think that means that no, she didn’t tell the truth in that particular instance. 

Hillary Clinton said she decided to use a personal email server 

system for convenience. And that she would only have to carry 

around one BlackBerry. Was she being truthful when she said she 

just used one device? 

Mr. COMEY. She used, during her tenure as Secretary of State, 

multiple devices. Not at the same time, but sequentially. 

Mr. CHABOT. Okay. Again, I am going to take that as she said 

one and it was more. So, therefore, not honest. And in fact, some 
50 

of the devices were destroyed with a hammer, as has already been 

mentioned. Is that the type of behavior that you would expect from 

someone who is being fully cooperative with an investigation, destroying devices containing potential evidence with a hammer? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, we uncovered no evidence that devices were 

destroyed during the pendency of our investigation. And so why 

people destroy devices when there is no investigation is a question 

I am not able to answer. 

Mr. CHABOT. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Director, a little less than 2 

months ago, Hillary Clinton, in talking about her emails, claimed 

that you said ‘‘that my answers were truthful.’’ PolitiFact, by the 

way, gave this claim a Pants on Fire rating. Did you say that she 

was telling the truth with respect to her email claims? 

Mr. COMEY. I did not. I never say that about anybody. Our business is never to decide whether someone—whether we believe 

someone. Our business is always to decide what evidence do we 

have that would convince us not to believe that person. It is an odd 

way to look at the world, but it is how investigators look at the 

world. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. Director Comey, it must have been, and 

I am almost out of time, but it must have been very awkward for 

you, you are tasked with investigating a person who could be the 

next President of the United States, and the current President of 

the United States has already prejudged the case and telegraphed 

to you and the entire Justice Department that he, your boss, has 

come to the conclusion that there is not even a smidgen of corruption, his own words, before you have even completed your investigation. You were aware that he had said that, weren’t you? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, I saw those reported in the press. 

Mr. CHABOT. Okay. And finally, it just seems to me here that 

there was clearly a double standard going on. Like, for example, if 

anybody else had done this, like a soldier or a serviceman who did 

virtually the same thing, they would have been prosecuted and 

were, but not Hillary Clinton. And that is a double standard, and 

that is not the way it is supposed to work in America. And I am 

out of time. I yield back. 

Mr. COMEY. I disagree with that characterization, but—— 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The gentleman is permitted to respond. 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t think so. I actually think if I—if we were to 

recommend she be prosecuted, that would be a double standard because Mary and Joe at the FBI or some other place, if they did 

this, would not be prosecuted. They would be disciplined. They’d be 

in big trouble. In the FBI, if you did this, you would not be prosecuted. That wouldn’t be fair. 

Mr. CHABOT. I will give you the benefit of the doubt because you 

are an alumni of William and Mary. 

Mr. COMEY. Okay. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The time of the gentleman has expired. The 

Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee, 

for 5 minutes. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Chairman, thank you so very much. Many 

Americans have come to trust Hillary Clinton as a dedicated committed public servant. But I believe it is important as we address 

these questions, let me make one or two points. My colleagues have 
51 

already made it, and I look forward maybe to coming back to 

Washington to dealing with the potential Russian intrusion on the 

election system. I am not asking you, Director, at this time. And 

also the issue of connecting the dots as we deal with terrorism 

across America. But I do want to acknowledge Eric Williams, an 

outstanding detailee to this Judiciary Committee, and thank him 

for his service. And I want to thank the SAC in Houston, Mr. Turner, for helping us in the shooting that occurred in Houston, as you 

well know, that gave us a great deal of fear and scare just a couple 

of days ago. 

But, Director Comey, my Republican colleagues have questioned, 

second-guessed, and attacked you and your team of career FBI 

agents. They disagree with the results of your investigation. They 

want you to prosecute, or to ask the DOJ to prosecute Secretary 

Clinton regardless of the facts. So they have engaged in an almost 

daily ritual of holding hearings, desperately trying to tear down 

your investigation and your recommendations. I believe you testified previously that your recommendation in that case was unanimous, and your investigation was carried out by what you called 

an all star team of career agents and prosecutors. Is that right? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. These were some of our very best. And sometimes, because I am lucky enough to be the person who represents 

the FBI, people think it is my conclusion. Sure it is my conclusion, 

but I am reporting what the team thought and their supervisors 

and their supervisors. As I said, this was—as painful as it is for 

people sometimes, this was not a close call. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me continue. You have written that the 

case itself was not a cliff hanger. Is that right? 

Mr. COMEY. Correct. Correct. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Recently, Republicans have attacked the decision to provide limited immunity to individuals during the investigation. For example, when Congressman Chaffetz learned about 

this, he stated, ‘‘No wonder they couldn’t prosecute a case. They 

were handing out immunity deals like candy.’’ I understand that 

the FBI does not make the final call on immunity agreements. 

That was the DOJ. You made that clear. So his statement was just 

wrong. But did you consult closely with DOJ before these immunity 

agreements were concluded by giving—by having facts? 

Mr. COMEY. Right. Our job is to tell them what facts we would 

like to get access to. The prosecutor’s job is figure out how to do 

that. And so they negotiate—I think there were five limited immunity agreements of different kinds that they negotiated. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Did you or anyone at the FBI ever object to 

these decisions to grant immunity? Did you think they made sense? 

Mr. COMEY. No. It was fairly ordinary stuff. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Was the FBI or DOJ handing out immunity 

agreements like candy? 

Mr. COMEY. That is not how I saw it. I didn’t see it—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Congressman Gowdy, a good friend, also objected to granting immunity to Bryan Pagliano and Mr. Combetta 

at Platte River Networks. He quoted: ‘‘These are the two people 

that FBI decides to give immunity to, Bryan and the guy at Platte 

River, if it happened.’’ Those are the two that you would want to 

prosecute. So you are giving immunity to the trigger people, and 
52 

everybody goes free.’’ Do you agree with this assessment? Did the 

FBI screw up here and let everyone go free because of these limited 

immunity deals? 

Mr. COMEY. No, I don’t think so. The goal in an investigation like 

this is to work up. And if people have information that their lawyers are telling you that you are not going to get without some limited form of immunity and they are lower down, you try to get that 

information to see if you can make a case against your subjects. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Congressman Gowdy also said this about the 

FBI: ‘‘I have been underwhelmed by an agency that I once had tremendous respect for.’’ Let me just say, sitting on this Judiciary 

Committee for many, many years, going through a number of investigations, I have never been proud of an agency that has always 

been there when vulnerable people are hurting, and when there is 

a need for great work. But my question to you is: What is your response to that, Director Comey? Do you believe these criticisms are 

fair? 

Mr. COMEY. I think questions are fair. I think criticism is 

healthy and fair. I think reasonable people can disagree about 

whether I should have announced it and how I should have done 

it. What is not fair is any implication that the Bureau acted in any 

way other than independently, competently, and honestly here. 

That is just not true. I knew this was going to be controversial. I 

knew there would be all kinds of rocks thrown. But this organization and the people who did this are honest, independent people. 

We do not carry water for one side or the other. That is hard for 

people to see because so much of our country we see things through 

sides. We are not on anybody’s side. This was done exactly the way 

you would want it to be done. That said, questions are fair. Feedback is fair. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Absolutely. But the foot soldiers, we use that 

term in the civil rights movement, your agents on the ground, you 

take issue with whether or not they were compromised or they 

were adhering to somebody else’s message. Is that what you are 

saying? 

Mr. COMEY. Absolutely. You can call us wrong, but don’t call us 

weasels. We are not weasels. We are honest people. And we did 

this in that way, whether you disagree or agree with the result, 

this was done the way you would want it to be done. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. You were able to learn that Mr. Pagliano and 

Mr. Combetta—you learned what they had to say. And if anyone 

provided statements to the FBI had actually provided evidence that 

Secretary Clinton has committed a crime, would you then have recommended prosecution to the DOJ? 

Mr. COMEY. Oh, yeah. If the case was there, very aggressively. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Are you sure you wouldn’t have been a little 

nervous about doing so, a little intimidated? 

Mr. COMEY. No. I really don’t care. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. You don’t look like it. You are kind of tall, and 

that—— 

Mr. COMEY. I have a 10-year term. That is the beauty of this— 

while there is a lot of challenging things about this job, one of the 

great things is I have a certain amount of job security. And so no. 
53 

Either way, we would have done what the facts told us should be 

done. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. So are you now second-guessing your decision 

regarding Hillary Clinton? 

Mr. COMEY. No. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The time of the gentlewoman has expired. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the Director 

and ask my colleagues to give the respect that this agency in this 

instance deserves. Thank you so very much for your service. I yield 

back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair thanks the gentlewoman. The Chair 

recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Issa, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director, I have got a lot 

of concerns. But one of them refers to Reddit. At the time that the 

Department of Justice at your behest or your involvement gave 

Paul Combetta immunity, did you do so knowing about all of the 

posts he had on Reddit, and capturing all of those posts and correspondence where he was asking how to wipe, or completely erase 

on behalf of a very VIP, so to speak? 

Mr. COMEY. I am not sure sitting here. My recollection is, and 

I will check this and fix it if I am wrong, that we had some awareness of the Reddit posts. I don’t know whether our folks had read 

them all or not. We had a pretty good understanding of what we 

thought he had done. But that is my best recollection. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay. In the last week, en masse, he has been deleting 

them from Reddit posts. Is that consistent with preserving evidence? And I say that because there is still an ongoing interest by 

Congress. And only in spite of Reddit’s own senior, what they call, 

flack team trying to hide it, only because a few people caught it do 

we even know about it. And this and other Committees are interested in getting the backups that may exist on these deletions. You 

know, I guess my question to you is, is he destroying evidence relevant to Congressional inquiries? And I will answer it for you. Yes. 

He is. And what are you going to do about it? 

Mr. COMEY. That is not something I can comment on. 

Mr. ISSA. Well, let me go into something that concerns this body 

in a very specific way. As a former Chairman issuing subpoenas, 

I issued a subpoena, and additionally, I issued preserve letters in 

addition to that. Now-Chairman Chaffetz issued what are effectively preserve letters. Some of them were directly to Hillary 

Rodham Clinton while she was still Secretary. Others, the subpoena in 2013, was to Secretary Kerry. These individuals destroyed 

documents pursuant—or took it out of Federal custody pursuant to 

our subpoena and our discovery. As a result, they committed 

crimes. My question to you is, when I was a Chairman and I wanted to grant immunity to somebody, I had to notice the Department 

of Justice, and you were consulted. Isn’t that correct? 

Mr. COMEY. In a particular matter? 

Mr. ISSA. In any matter. 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know whether the FBI is consulted in that 

circumstance. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay. For the record, yes. The Department of Justice 

does not grant immunity without checking with Federal law enforcement to see whether it will impact any ongoing investigation. 
54 

That is the reason we have a requirement to give notice. When the 

reverse was occurring, you were granting—handing out like candy, 

according to some, immunity, did you or, to your knowledge, Department of Justice confer with Chairman Goodlatte, Chairman 

Chaffetz, Chairman Smith or any of the other Chairmen who had 

ongoing subpoenas and investigations? 

Mr. COMEY. Not to my knowledge. 

Mr. ISSA. So isn’t there a double standard that when you granted 

immunity to these five individuals, you took them out of the reach 

of prosecution for crimes committed related to destruction of documents, or withholding or other crimes pursuant to Congressional 

subpoenas? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t think anybody was given transactional immunity. 

Mr. ISSA. Oh, really? Now, we have are not allowed to make your 

immunities public, but I am going to take the privilege of making 

one part of it public. I read them. You gave immunity from destruction to both of those attorneys. Not just turning the documents 

over, specifically destruction. You did the same thing with these 

other two individuals, Bryan and Paul Combetta. You gave them 

immunity from destruction. 

Mr. COMEY. Yeah. I don’t think—well, again, I could always be 

wrong, but I don’t have them in front of me either—— 

Mr. ISSA. Well, because you don’t let us take them out of the 

SCIF, it is a little hard for us too. But the fact is when you read 

them—— 

Mr. COMEY. Can I finish my answer? I am pretty sure that what 

was granted was use immunity in the case of those two people, coextensive with 18 U.S.C. 6001, which means no statement you 

make can be used against you directly or indirectly. Transactional 

immunity is sometimes given also by prosecutors, says you will not 

be prosecuted in any event for this set of facts. I don’t think there 

was any transactional immunity. 

Mr. ISSA. But when I read for both of the attorneys that immunity was granted, it, in both cases, said destruction, in addition to 

the turning over. Why was that—why would you believe that was 

necessary, or do you believe that would be necessary? You wanted 

the document. You wanted the physical evidence. Why did you 

have to give them immunity from destruction of materials? And because my time is expiring, when you look into it and hopefully get 

back to this Committee, I would like to know, does that immunity 

apply only to destruction on the computers delivered so that other 

destructions by Cheryl Mills could still be prosecuted? 

Mr. COMEY. Yeah. Again, my recollection is no transactional immunity was given. Protection of statements was given to the 

Combetta guy and Mr. Pagliano. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair thanks the gentlemen. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Cohen. 

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent, quickly, that a group of documents be included, and I will summarize 

them. They are basically the letters and subpoenas that led up to 

the destruction of documents that were previously held for preser-
55 

*Note: The material referred to is not printed in this hearing record but is on file with the 

Committee, and can also be accessed at: 

http://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=105390 

vation. Additionally, the blog posts from Reddit. If those could all 

be placed in the record. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Without objection, they will be made a part of 

the record.* 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The gentleman from Tennessee is recognized. 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you, sir. Director Comey, would you consider 

the FBI’s most important job presently fighting terrorism and 

threats to the homeland? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. That is our top priority. 

Mr. COHEN. How much time do you think the FBI and you have 

spent responding to congressional inquiries, and on this particular 

email investigation? Could you give me an idea how many man 

months or years have been expended on responding to the different 

Committees that have called you in time after time after time, and 

repetitiously accused you of doing politics rather than being an FBI 

Director? 

Mr. COMEY. I can’t. I don’t have any sense. 

Mr. COHEN. Could it be—would it be months of cumulative man 

hours, or would it be years of cumulative man hours? 

Mr. COMEY. You know, I don’t know. A lot of folks have done a 

lot of work to try and provide the kind of transparency that we 

promised. It has been a lot by a lot of people. I just don’t have a 

sense of the—— 

Mr. COHEN. How many hours have you spent before Congress on 

this? 

Mr. COMEY. Testimony? Four hours and 40 minutes without a 

bathroom break, I want to note for the record. And whatever today 

is. Those would be the two main appearances. I was asked questions at Senate Homeland yesterday about this, and then House 

Homeland in July, I think. I am guessing 10 hours or so. 

Mr. COHEN. And you prepared for this, though. I mean, the 10 

hours is just like the iceberg? 

Mr. COMEY. Oh, sure. Yeah. 

Mr. COHEN. Could your time and the FBI’s time better be used 

fighting terroristic threats here in America? 

Mr. COMEY. You know, we are still doing it all. So no one should 

think that we have taken a day off because we are also doing oversight. We do both. 

Mr. COHEN. In the case in New York where Mr. Rahami tried to 

detonate some bombs, did detonate a bomb, his father had accused 

him of being a terrorist at one time. And he had stabbed his brother and was in jail. Did the FBI interview him when he was in jail 

about his possible terrorist tendencies and his trips to Pakistan or 

Afghanistan? 

Mr. COMEY. I will answer that. I am trying to be very circumspect at how I answer questions about the case, because the 

guy is alive and is entitled to a fair trial. And if I don’t do anything 

that would allow him to argue, he lost the ability to have a fair 

trial. The answer is we did not interview him when he was in jail 

in 2014. 
56 

Mr. COHEN. And why would that be? You interviewed the father, 

I believe. You might have talked to the brother. You might have 

talked to a friend. The best evidence was him. He is in jail. You 

didn’t have to—you know. Why did they not go and talk to him? 

Mr. COMEY. You know, sitting here, I don’t want to answer that 

question yet. I have commissioned, as I do in all of these cases, a 

deep look back. We are trying to make the case now. We will go 

back very carefully, try to understand what decisions the agents 

made who investigated that and why, and whether there is learning from that. So I don’t want to answer it just now, because I 

would be speculating a bit. 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you, sir. Some people have suggested you 

made a political calculation in your recommendation dealing with 

Secretary Clinton and the emails. Did you make a political calculation in coming to your ultimate decision? 

Mr. COMEY. None. 

Mr. COHEN. Some said that on national television, that Secretary 

Clinton’s emails were destroyed after a directive from the Clinton 

campaign. You announced your decision, you stated publicly, ‘‘We 

found no evidence that Secretary Clinton’s emails were intentionally deleted in efforts to conceal them.’’ Is that not correct? 

Mr. COMEY. That is correct. 

Mr. COHEN. Others have said they lost confidence in the investigation and questioned the genuine effort in which it was carried 

out. Did the FBI make a genuine effort to carry out a thorough investigation? 

Mr. COMEY. Oh, yes. Very much. 

Mr. COHEN. And did you take some hits from the position you 

took when you announced your decision? 

Mr. COMEY. A few. A few. Yeah. 

Mr. COHEN. Difficult. 

Mr. COMEY. Difficult, but I just thought it was the right thing 

to do. I am not loving this. But I think it is important that I come 

and answer questions about it. As long as people have questions, 

I will try to answer them. 

Mr. COHEN. You are not loving this? Do you need a bathroom 

break? 

Mr. COMEY. No, no, I am good. 

Mr. COHEN. Setting a record? 

Mr. COMEY. I will let you know at 4:40. How I am doing? 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you, sir. At FBI buildings, we know what 

they shouldn’t be named. And you know my position on that. And 

I hope you keep that well in mind. You are a credit to the FBI. You 

are a credit to government service, and to your alma mater. And 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair thanks the gentleman and recognizes 

the gentleman from Iowa, Mr. King, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you, Director, for 

your testimony here before this Committee. Again, I was listening 

in the exchange between yourself and Mr. Issa. I would just like 

to confirm that you were confirming that Mr. Combetta made the 

Reddit posts? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know whether I am confirming it. I think he 

did, is my understanding. But, yeah, that is my understanding. I 
57 

think he did. I haven’t dug into that myself. I have been focused 

on a lot of other stuff as we have talked about. But I think that 

is right. 

Mr. KING. I certainly can accept that. And I would like to just 

go back to the interview with Hillary Clinton and how that all 

came about on that July 2 date. But first, I am looking at the dates 

of the conditional immunity documents that I have reviewed. And 

I see that Mr. Pagliano had one dated December 22, and another 

one dated December 28. Can you tell me what brought about that 

second agreement, why the first one wasn’t adequate, and if there 

was an interview with Mr. Pagliano in between those dates? So December 22 and 28 of 2015? 

Mr. COMEY. I think what it is, and Mr. Gowdy and Mr. Marino 

will recognize this term, the first one is what we call a queen-fora-day agreement, which was to govern an interview, so limited use 

immunity for an interview. And then I believe the second one is the 

agreement for use immunity in connection with the investigation. 

So it is sort of a tryout for him to get interviewed, for the prosecutors and investigators to poke at him. And then the second one is 

the agreement they reached. I think that is right. 

Mr. KING. And to the extent of if we are going to go any further, 

we will go off of the December 28 agreement. That would be how 

I would understand that. 

Mr. COMEY. Well, I think they are both important to him and his 

lawyer. But the first is an intermediate step to the second. 

Mr. KING. Okay. Thank you. Then were you aware of the President’s statement on October 9, 2015 when he reported that Hillary 

Clinton would not have endangered national security? 

Mr. COMEY. Obviously, I don’t know the dates, but I remember 

public reporting on a statement like that. 

Mr. KING. And the following October, and I will state it, the report I have is October 9. Then again, on April 10, 2016, it was reported that the President had said that Hillary Clinton was careless, but not intentionally endangering national security. Were you 

aware of that statement as well? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. 

Mr. KING. And then I would like you, if you could characterize 

the interview, sometime around, I believe, May 16 it was reported 

that you said you intended to interview Hillary Clinton personally? 

Mr. COMEY. I never said that because I never intended that. And 

I am sure I didn’t say that publicly. 

Mr. KING. Were you aware of the report that that was your public statement? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. I think I read it and smiled about it. People 

imagine the FBI Director does things that the FBI Director doesn’t 

do. 

Mr. KING. In fact, and I am not disputing your answer, I am just 

simply, for the record, this is a record that is dated September 28, 

2016, Buffalo News, that has your picture on it, and takes us back 

to—that is when it was printed, excuse me. Takes us back to a document May 16, 2016, has a picture of you on the front of it, and 

I will ask to introduce it into the record, it says, ‘‘FBI Director 

James Comey told reporters that he would personally interview 
58 

Hillary Clinton ’in coming days.’ ’’ And I would ask unanimous consent to introduce this article into the record. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Without objection, it will be made a part of the 

reported. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
59 
60 
61 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And not as a matter of indictment, I don’t dispute your word on this, it is what the public 

expectation was hanging out there is my real point. And then with 

that public expectation, I think the public was surprised to learn 

about who was or wasn’t in that room. Can you tell us who was 

in the room involved in either listening to or conducting the interview of Hillary Clinton on that date of July 2, 2016? 

Mr. COMEY. I can’t tell you for sure. I can give you a general 

sense. The witness and her legal team. And then on our side of the 

table, our agents, prosecutors from the Department of Justice. I 

don’t know if any of our analysts were in there or not. But sort of 

our team, their team. 

Mr. KING. And how many of your team? How many FBI investigators? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know for sure, sitting here. I think we probably had eight to 10 people on our side, prosecutors and agents. 

That is a knowable fact. I just don’t know it sitting here. 

Mr. KING. Prosecutors. Did Loretta Lynch have her people in 

there? 

Mr. COMEY. If you mean Department of Justice lawyers, yes. 

Sure. 

Mr. KING. So how many Department of Justice lawyers would 

have been there? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know for sure. Again, I think it was probably 

about eight people; probably about four lawyers, about four from 

the FBI. But again, I could be wrong. 

Mr. KING. Okay. So around four investigators, around four potential prosecutors from the DOJ, a couple of attorneys for Hillary 

Clinton, Hillary Clinton herself. That would set the scene fairly 

closely? 

Mr. COMEY. I think Secretary Clinton’s team was bigger than 

that. I don’t know the exact number. 

Mr. KING. Okay. And then, when you received the counsel as to 

the recommendation you were to make to Loretta Lynch, I am 

going to just go through this quickly, you didn’t review a video 

tape, an audio tape, or a transcript. So you would have had to rely 

upon the briefings from the people that were in the room who 

would have been your investigative team? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. The agents who conducted the interview, yes. 

Mr. KING. And they were briefing off of notes that they had 

taken, which are now in the SCIF, but redacted? 

Mr. COMEY. Right. They write them up in what is called an FBI 

302. 

Mr. KING. And so Loretta Lynch had her people in the room, and 

they would have had access to your investigators in the room. And 

out of that came a piece of advice to you that she had already said 

she was going to hand that responsibility over to you as Director 

of the FBI as to making the recommendation, which turned out to 

be the decision on whether or not to indict Hillary Clinton? 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The time of the gentleman has expired. The Director will answer the question. 

Mr. COMEY. I am not sure I am following it entirely. There was 

no advice to me from the Attorney General or any of the lawyers 

working for her. My team formulated a recommendation that was 
62 

communicated to me. And the FBI reached its conclusion as to 

what to do uncoordinated from the Department of Justice. 

Mr. KING. Even though Justice was in the room with your investigators? And I would make that final comment and I yield back. 

Thank you, Chairman. 

Mr. COMEY. Sure. Sure. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair thanks the gentleman. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Johnson, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Russian hacking into 

the databases of the Democratic National Committee and the 

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, as well as Russian hacks into the voter registration systems of Illinois and Arizona, serve as ominous warnings to the American people about the 

risks that our electoral processes face in this modern era. Unfortunately, Trump Republicans in the House are as obsessed with Hillary Clinton’s damn emails as Trump has been about President 

Obama’s birth certificate. Just like The Donald closed his birth certificate investigation after 5 years of fruitless investigation, however, I predict that the Trump Republicans will, at some point, 

close this email persecution. The American people are sick of it. 

The attention of the American public is increasingly focused on the 

security of this Nation’s election infrastructure. On Monday, the 

Ranking Members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, Senator Dianne Feinstein and Congressman Adam Schiff, 

issued a joint statement setting forth the current status of this investigation. It said this: ‘‘Based on briefings we have received, we 

have concluded that the Russian intelligence agencies are making 

a serious and concerted effort to influence the U.S. Election.’’ They 

work closely with intelligence community individuals to be able to 

put that statement out to the American public. 

Director Comey, I don’t want to ask you about any classified information, but is their statement accurate? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t—I can’t comment on that in this forum. As 

I said in my opening, we are investigating to try to understand exactly what mischief the Russians might be up to in connection with 

our political institutions and the election system more broadly. But 

I don’t want to comment on that at this point. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Free and fair elections are the linchpin of our society. A compromise or disruption of our election process is something that this Congress certainly should be looking into. Would 

you agree with that? 

Mr. COMEY. I can’t speak, sir, to what Congress should be looking into. But the FBI is looking into this very, very hard for the 

reasons you say. We take this extraordinarily seriously. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you. In June, the FBI cyber division issued 

a flash alert to State officials warning that hackers were attempting to penetrate their election systems. The title of the flash alert 

was, ‘‘Targeting Activity Against State Board of Election Systems.’’ 

The alert disclosed that the FBI is currently investigating cyber attacks against at least two States. Later in June the FBI warned 

officials in Arizona about Russian assaults on their election system, 

and hackers also attacked the election system in Illinois, where 

they were able to download the data of at least 200,000, or up to 

200,000 voters. In August, the Department of Homeland Security 
63 

convened a conference call warning State election officials and offering to provide Federal cyber security experts to help scan for 

vulnerabilities. And yesterday it was announced that at least 18 

states have already requested election cybersecurity help to defend 

their election systems. 

Director Comey, since these flash alerts and warnings went out 

over this summer, I would appreciate you letting us know whether 

or not there have been any additional attacks on State operations 

or databases since June. 

Mr. COMEY. There have been a variety of scanning activities, 

which is a preamble for potential intrusion activities, as well as 

some attempted intrusions at voter registration databases beyond 

those we knew about in July and August. We are urging the States 

just to make sure that their dead bolts are thrown and their locks 

are on, and to get the best information they can from DHS just to 

make sure their systems are secure. And again, these are the voter 

registration systems. This is very different than the vote system in 

the United States, which is very, very hard for someone to hack 

into, because it is so clunky and dispersed. It is Mary and Fred 

putting a machine under the basketball hoop at the gym. Those 

things are not connected to the Internet. But the voter registration 

systems are. So we urge the States to make sure you have the most 

current information and your systems are tight. Because there is 

no doubt that some bad actors have been poking around. 

Mr. JOHNSON. All right. With that, I will yield back the balance 

of my time. And thank you, sir. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, 

Mr. Gohmert, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Director Comey, 

thanks for being here. I was a bit astounded when you said the FBI 

is unable to control who a witness, coming in voluntarily, brings in 

to an interview. I have seen a lot of FBI agents tell people who 

could come into an interview and who could not. And in this case, 

and I am sure you have heard some of the questions raised by 

smart lawyers around the country about providing immunity to 

people like Cheryl Mills in return for her presenting a laptop that 

you had every authority to get a subpoena, and if you had brought 

a request for a search warrant, based on what we now know, I 

would have had no problem signing that warrant so you could go 

get it anywhere you want. And in fact, I have talked to former U.S. 

attorneys, A.U.S.A.s, who have said if an FBI agent came in and 

recommended that we gave immunity to a witness to get her laptop 

that we could get with a subpoena or warrant, then I would ask 

the FBI not to ever allow this agent on a case. 

Can you explain succinctly why you chose to give immunity without a proffer of what was on the laptop, give immunity to Cheryl 

Mills while she was an important witness, and you could have gotten her laptop with a warrant or subpoena? 

Mr. COMEY. Sure. I will give it my best shot. Immunity we are 

talking about here, and the details really matter, that we are talking about, is act of production immunity, which says we want you 

to give us a thing. We won’t use anything we find on that thing 

directly against you. All right? It is a fairly—— 
64 

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, and I understand that, and I understood 

that from reading the immunity deal. And that is what is so shocking because she was working directly with Hillary Clinton. And, 

therefore, it is expected since the evidence indicates she was pretty 

well copied on so many of the emails that Hillary Clinton was 

using, that pretty much anything in there would have been useable 

against her. And you cleaned the slate before you ever knew. 

Now, some of the immunities you give, the last paragraph mentions a proffer. Was there a proffer of what the witness would say 

before the immunity deals were given to those that got those immunities? 

Mr. COMEY. Can I answer first, though, your question about 

what I think it made sense to have active production immunity for 

Cheryl Mills’ laptop? 

Mr. GOHMERT. I would rather—my time is so limited. Please. 

Mr. COMEY. It is an important question, and I think there is a 

reasonable answer, but I will give it another time. I think in at 

least one of the cases, and I am mixing up the guys, but with Mr. 

Combetta, maybe also with Mr. Pagliano—no. I got that reversed. 

Mr. GOHMERT. It is yes or no. Did you have a proffer from them 

as to what they would say before you gave them immunity? 

Mr. COMEY. I believe there was a proffer session governed by 

what I just referred to is called a queen-for-a-day agreement, with 

at least one of them to try and understand what they would say. 

But—— 

Mr. GOHMERT. Because the deals that I have seen back 30 years 

ago before I went to the bench, the FBI would say you—and the 

DOJ. Of course, we know FBI can’t give immunity. It has to come 

from DOJ, just like it is not the FBI’s job to say what a reasonable 

prosecutor should do or not do. You give them the evidence and 

then you let them decide. But a proffer is made saying this is what 

my client will say. Then the DOJ decides, based on that proffer, 

here is the plea we will offer, here is the immunity we will offer. 

And if your client deviates from that proffer, the deal is off. 

You got really nothing substantial. It is as if you went into the 

investigation determined to give immunity to people instead of getting a warrant. You gave immunity to people that you would need 

to make a case if a case were going to be made. And I know we 

have people across the aisle that are saying: Well, it is only because she is a Presidential candidate. It happens to be, in my case, 

I wouldn’t care whether she was a Presidential candidate or not. 

What is important to maintaining a civilization with justice and 

fairness is a little righteousness where people are treated fairly 

across the board, and it does not appear that in this case, it comports with anything that FBI agents, with centuries of experience, 

have told me they have never seen anything like this. 

So one other thing, I know this happened before your watch, but 

under Director Mueller, Kim Jensen, who prepared 700 pages of 

training material for those who would go undercover and try to 

embed with al-Qaeda, it was wiped out because CARE and some 

of the people that were unindicted co-conspirators named in your 

Holy Land Foundation trial, they said: We don’t like them. They 

do not allow agents to know what Kim Jensen put in that 700 
65 

pages that was so accurate, so good about Islam, that we could 

imbed people in al-Qaeda and they wouldn’t suspect them. 

I would encourage you to start training your FBI agents so 

whether they are in San Bernardino, Orlando, New Jersey, wherever, they can talk to a radicalized Islamist and determine whether 

they are radicalized. Without Kim Jensen’s type material, you will 

never be able to spot them again, and we will keep having people 

die. 

Thank you. My time has expired. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The time of the gentleman has expired. The Director is permitted to respond if he chooses to do so. 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t think I have anything at this point. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 

California, Ms. Chu, for 5 minutes. 

Ms. CHU. Thank you. Director Comey, during this Committee’s 

oversight hearing last year, I asked you about the cases of Sherry 

Chen and Xi Xiaoxing, both U.S. citizens who were arrested by the 

FBI, accused of different crimes related to economic espionage for 

China, only to have those charges dropped without explanation. 

Since you last testified before the Committee, both cases have 

been closed. Now, I know that you may not be personally familiar 

with the individuals’ cases, or may not be inclined to comment on 

the facts of these cases to the Committee today. However, would 

you be willing to provide a written explanation, or possibly a summary of the investigations to clarify how and why the FBI handled 

the cases the way they did? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t want to commit to that sitting here. We 

would certainly consider what we can supply consistent with things 

like the Privacy Act. But we will certainly consider it. I am familiar 

with the cases. I remember your questions about it last year. And 

so we will take a look at what we can share with you. We can’t 

obviously do it in an open forum, in any event. 

Ms. CHU. I understand that. But I appreciate the consideration. 

Now I would like to address a different topic. Director Comey, 

your agency recently introduced an online initiative aimed at promoting education and awareness about violent extremism called 

Don’t Be a Puppet. This program was designed to serve as a tool 

for teachers and students to prevent young people from being 

drawn toward violent extremism. 

However, national education groups, faith groups, and community organizations have raised serious concerns about the way in 

which the program presents the problem of violent extremism. Particularly troublesome is the Web site’s charge that teachers and 

students should look for warning signs that a person may be on a 

slippery slope of violent extremism, and to report activity that may 

or may not be indicative of radicalization. 

For instance, the Web site encourages students and teachers to 

report when others use unusual language or talk about travelling 

to suspicious places. The user of the Web site, however, is left to 

draw inferences about what constitutes a suspicious place, or what 

language is unusual enough to be reported to a trusted authority. 

For example, a trip to France or Germany, which hosts many farright extremist groups may not sound suspicious to many users. 
66 

But a trip to Saudi Arabia or Iraq, home to various Muslims’ holy 

sites, possibly would. 

So on August 9, the American Federation of Teachers led a number of national groups in a letter written to you. And, Mr. Chair, 

I would like to submit this for the record. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
67 
68 
69 

Ms. CHU. And among the many concerns they raise is the potential for such initiatives to exacerbate the profiling and bullying of 

students of Middle Eastern background that—and what they—over 

and above what they already experience. So how do you respond to 

the concerns expressed by the American Federation of Teachers 

about the impact of the FBI’s Don’t Be a Puppet Program, and the 

effect it may have on schools in immigrant communities? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, thank you for that. I am glad they shared their 

feedback. Boy, I hope either before or after the feedback they go on 

and actually go through the Don’t Be a Puppet. Because I have 

done it. I honestly can’t understand the concerns. It is a very commonsense thing. One of our big challenges is how—if a kid starts 

to go sideways toward violence, the people closest to him are going 

to see something likely. How do we get folks to a place where they 

are sensitized to make commonsense judgments that this person 

may be headed in a very dangerous direction? It is never going to 

be perfect. But I actually think a lot of thought went into this, including faith groups, all kinds of civic groups, to make sure we got 

something that was good commonsense education for kids and for 

teachers. And so I am a little bit at a loss. Maybe we ought to meet 

with them and they can show me which parts of it they actually 

think are problematic. But I think it is a pretty darn good piece 

of work, is my overall reaction. 

Ms. CHU. So, Director Comey, you have gone to the Web site and 

looked at it. So what, then, would you consider to be a place that 

sounds suspicious or what would you consider to be an unusual 

language that somebody is speaking so much so that a student 

should report them to the authorities? 

Mr. COMEY. I think what it says is speaking—using unusual language, not speaking Pashto or French or German. I think it means 

speaking in an unusual way about things. And suspicious place, 

Syria leaps to my mind. If someone is talking to classmates about 

thinking about traveling to Syria, the classmates ought to be sensitized to that. The teacher ought to be sensitized to it, so we can 

try and intervene with that kid before we have to lock them up for 

most of their life. 

Ms. CHU. But do you have evidence to show that this program 

is actually countering recruiting efforts by violent extremists? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t. But it sure makes a lot of sense to me. And 

it seems, again, a commonsense way to equip kids to resist the 

siren song that comes from radical Islamists or skinhead groups or 

hate groups of different kinds. So, look, it is not—I am sure it is 

not perfect, because nothing in life is. We would welcome feedback. 

But the general idea makes a lot of sense to me. 

Ms. CHU. I yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio, 

Mr. Jordan, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director, in your opening comments, you said this was an unusual case. I would say that 

is the understatement of the year. Husband of the subject meets 

with the attorney general 3 days before Secretary Clinton is interviewed by the FBI. Nine people get to sit in with Secretary Clinton 

during that interview. One of those was her chief of staff, Cheryl 

Mills, who was a subject of the investigation. Five people get some 
70 

kind of immunity. Five people get some kind of immunity, and yet 

no one is prosecuted. Three of those people who get immunity take 

the Fifth in front of Congress, and one of them doesn’t even both 

to show up whenhe is subpoenaed, supposed to have been at that 

very chair you are sitting at. And, of course, the Attorney General 

announces that she is going to follow your recommendations even 

though she doesn’t know what those recommendations are, the only 

time she has ever done that. 

So, of course, this was unusual. We have never seen anything 

like this. Which sort of brings me to the posts. I would like to put 

up the posts that some have talked about which is the posts on Mr. 

Combetta on Reddit. And you said earlier that you don’t know if 

you examined this during your investigation. So let’s examine it 

now. ‘‘I need to strip out a VIP’s address from a bunch of archived 

email. Basically they don’t want the VIP’s email address exposed 

to anyone.’’ 

Now, Director, when I hear the term ‘‘strip out email address,’’ 

I think of somebody is trying to hide something, somebody is trying 

to cover up something, and it sort of raises an important question 

from these two sentences. Who is the ‘‘they’’ who wants something 

hid, and who is the VIP who also wants something hid? Director 

Comey, is it likely the VIP—well, it is not just a VIP. It is a very, 

very important person, according to Mr. Combetta. Is it likely that 

that person is Secretary Clinton? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. Sure. 

Mr. JORDAN. Okay. And is it also likely that the ‘‘they’’ refers to 

her, Secretary Clinton’s staff, and, specifically, Cheryl Mills. 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know that. Either her lawyers or some staff 

that had tasked him with the production. 

Mr. JORDAN. So one other thing that is important on that, if we 

could but that back up, one other thing that is important is the 

date. The date at the top says July 24, 2014. So whenever I see 

a date, and I am sure you do the same thing, I always look at what 

is happening about that same timeframe, what may have happened 

directly before that and maybe directly after that. 

So I went back to your reports that you guys had given to us. 

The first report back last month, August 18, 2016, page 15. Well, 

on page 15 it says, ‘‘During the summer of 2014, the State Department indicated to Cheryl Mills a request for Clinton’s work-related 

emails would be forthcoming. State Department gives Cheryl Mills 

a heads-up that she has got to go round up all of Secretary Clinton’s email. On that same page, it says, ‘‘The House Select Committee on Benghazi had reached an agreement with the State Department regarding production of documents on July 23, 2014,’’ just 

the day before, so I find kind of interesting. Then from your report 

that we got just last week, ‘‘After reviewing several documents 

dated in and around July 23, 2014, Paul Combetta had a conversation with Cheryl Mills, and after reviewing it July 24,’’ there is 

that date again, ‘‘2014 email from Bryan Pagliano, Paul Combetta 

explained Cheryl Mills was concerned Clinton’s then-current email 

address would be disclosed publicly.’’ 

So it sure looks to me like it is Secretary Clinton, as you said. 

But also that it is Cheryl Mills and Bryan Pagliano who are urging 

Mr. Combetta to cover this stuff up. You agree? 
71 

Mr. COMEY. From what you read, it sure sounds like they are 

trying to figure out a way to strip out the actual email address 

from what they produce. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, they are actually trying to strip it all out, .pst 

file and everything. Here is the takeaway in my mind. Mills gets 

a heads-up, Cheryl Mills gets a heads-up, in mid-summer of 2014; 

July 23, the day before Mr. Combetta’s Reddit post, the Benghazi 

and the State Department reach an agreement on production of 

documents. Cheryl Mills has a conversation with Paul Combetta. 

He goes on Reddit then and tries to figure out how he can get rid 

of all this email, even though he is not successful then. He has to 

do it later down the road with BleachBit. And then the clincher. 

The clincher. Just last week, he is going online and trying to delete 

these Reddit posts. He is trying to cover up his tracks. He is trying 

to cover up the coverup. 

So I guess the question, as someone was asking earlier, in light 

of all this, are you thinking about reopening the investigation? 

Mr. COMEY. I may have misunderstood what you said during the 

question. I don’t understand that to be talking about deleting the 

emails. I understand it to be talking about removing from the 

‘‘from’’ line the actual email address. And, but anyhow, maybe I 

misunderstood you. But the answer—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, the same guy later BleachBit—took BleachBit 

and did delete emails. 

Mr. COMEY. Sure. Yeah. 

Mr. JORDAN. So my question is, the guy you gave immunity to, 

the guy who took the Fifth in front of us, is online trying to figure 

out how to remove email addresses, change evidence, later uses 

BleachBit, that guy who won’t testify in front of Congress, and he 

has correspondence with Cheryl Mills, Cheryl Mills, a subject of the 

investigation, Cheryl Mills who also got some kind of immunity 

agreement, Cheryl Mills who walked out of certain—walked out for 

part of the questions during the interview with the FBI. Seems to 

me that is pretty compelling, and the timelineis pretty compelling 

as well. 

Mr. COMEY. I am not following. Compelling of what? There is no 

doubt that Combetta was involved in deleting emails. 

Mr. JORDAN. After conversations with Cheryl Mills. 

Mr. COMEY. He had the ‘‘oh s-h-i-t’’ moment, as he told us. And 

that is why it was very important for us to interview this guy to 

find out who told you to do that, why did you do that. That is why 

he was given use immunity. 

Mr. JORDAN. Did you know about the Reddit posts when you 

interviewed him? 

Mr. COMEY. As I said earlier, I think we did. I think our investigators did. I am not positive as I sit here. 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Chairman, I mean, the guy is trying to cover 

up the Reddit posts where he is trying to figure out how he can 

cover up the email addresses. And I find that compelling, particularly in light of the fact that just the day before, he is talking with 

Cheryl Mills, and the State Department is on notice that the 

Benghazi Committee wants these very documents. I find that compelling. But obviously the FBI didn’t. And this is just one more, one 
72 

more, on that list of things that make this case highly unusual. I 

yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Director is permitted to respond if he chooses to do so. 

Mr. COMEY. No, I don’t think so. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Deutch, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director Comey, the 

FBI is tasked with very serious responsibilities. You are on the 

front lines trying to prevent terrorist attacks. You are investigating 

public corruption. And as I told your agents on a recent visit to 

your Miami field office, I am grateful to you and your agents, all 

of the women and men of the FBI, for your dedication to the—and 

commitment to the pursuit of justice. We are most grateful. 

Now, one critical responsibility of the FBI is to investigate when 

American citizens violate Federal laws involving improper contacts 

with foreign governments. And, Director Comey, if an American national goes outside government channels to negotiate with a foreign 

government on behalf of the United States, that is a very serious 

crime, one that would violate the Logan Act, which, as you know, 

is the law that prohibits unauthorized people from negotiating with 

foreign governments in the place of the United States Government. 

Director Comey, would the FBI take allegations of Logan Act violations seriously? Is that within your jurisdiction? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. It is within our jurisdiction. 

Mr. DEUTCH. And if you had credible evidence that someone had 

violated the Logan Act, would the FBI investigate that alleged violation of law? 

Mr. COMEY. I think we have done many Logan Act investigations 

over the years. And we certainly will in the future. 

Mr. DEUTCH. And am I correct in assuming that you are familiar 

with publicly quoted comments from various intelligence sources 

that have said that Russia has targeted the United States with a 

legal State-directed hacking? 

Mr. COMEY. I am aware of the published reports. 

Mr. DEUTCH. If an American citizen, Director Comey, conducted 

meetings with a Russian individual who has been sanctioned by 

the United States about potential weakening of U.S. sanctions policy in violation of the Logan Act, would the FBI investigate? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t think it is appropriate to answer that. That 

gets too close to confirming or denying whether we have an investigation. Seems too close to real life. So I am not going to comment. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Okay. But there are—you have investigated Logan 

Act violations. It is something that is clearly within your jurisdiction. 

I appreciate, Director Comey, your confirming that the FBI 

would treat these potential violations of law both seriously and urgently, because everything that I just outlined that you said the 

FBI would investigate has apparently happened already. Public reports suggest that the Logan Act may have been violated by Carter 

Page, one of the men Donald Trump signaled out as the top foreign 

policy adviser. 

So now the campaign appears eager to revise Mr. Page’s role 

given the attention rightly being given to his illicit negotiations 
73 

with a sanctioned Russian official. I read reports from Yahoo News 

from last week that law enforcement may already be looking into 

this issue. And I assume we all agree that the allegations are very 

serious. Russia, a Nation that hacks America, a Nation that continues to enable Assad, the Assad regime, to slaughter the Syrian 

people, a Nation that threatens and violates the territorial integrity of its neighbors and our European allies. 

It is a dangerous violation of Federal law if Donald Trump’s adviser, Carter Page, is engaging in freelance negotiations with Russia. And here is what we know. In March, Donald Trump named 

Carter Page as a foreign policy adviser. In July, Mr. Page traveled 

to Moscow to give a speech that was harshly critical of the United 

States. And during that trip, Mr. Page is reported to have also met 

with a Russian official named Igor Sechin, a member of Vladimir 

Putin’s inner circle and the president of the petroleum company, 

Rosneft, who was sanctioned by the United States under executive 

order 13361, prohibiting him from traveling to the United States 

or conducting business with U.S. firms. 

So Mr. Sechin has a clear and personal interest in lifting U.S. 

sanctions against him and other top Russian officials put in place 

by President Obama after Russia’s military action in Ukraine. 

Now, if these two men met to discuss sanctions policy, or a lifting 

of sanctions under a potential Trump administration, this would be 

enormously concerning. 

Just last week the press reported that U.S. intelligence officials 

are seeking to determine whether an American businessman identified by Donald Trump as one of his foreign policy advisers has 

opened up private communications with senior Russian officials, including talks about possible lifting of sanctions. 

Mr. Comey, it is illegal if Trump’s adviser met with Russians 

who have been sanctioned by the United States about lifting these 

sanctions. And I am grateful for your reassurances this morning 

that the FBI would investigate potential violations of the Logan 

Act by any individual who engages in unauthorized negotiations 

with a foreign government. I remind my colleagues that Donald 

Trump invited Russia to hack the United States. I remind my colleagues that Donald Trump suggested breaking America’s longstanding commitment to our NATO allies and weakening U.S. 

sanctions against Russia. Is there a connection between these reckless and dangerous policy proposals, and the potential violation of 

the Logan Act by Donald Trump’s Russia adviser? 

Mr. Comey, we appreciate very much the FBI’s vigilance in pursuing justice. And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The gentleman is permitted to respond if you 

choose to. 

So the Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania, 

Mr. Marino, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MARINO. Thank you, Chairman. 

Thank you, Director, for being here. I think we have worked on 

a couple of cases together in our districts. 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. 

Mr. MARINO. Would you clarify something for me on act-of-production immunity? Does act-of-production immunity go beyond this 

scenario that I am going to state? 
74 

You ask for a computer from a witness. You give that witness 

act-of-production immunity that, in my interpretation, is that the 

agent who has that now in his or her hands, the witness is immune 

from the agent getting on the stand and saying that person—this 

is that person’s computer because they gave it to me. 

Does it go beyond that? Or was there additional immunity for 

Ms. Mills stating that anything on that computer cannot be used 

against her? 

Mr. COMEY. As I recall it, Congressman, the act-of-production immunity for Ms. Mills was: You give us this computer; we will not 

use—we, the Justice Department—anything we find on the computer directly against you in connection with investigation or prosecution for mishandling of classified information. I think that is 

how they defined it. 

Mr. MARINO. But that goes beyond act of production. Doesn’t act 

of production simply state that I am the agent, I can’t get on the 

stand and say that belongs to that individual because they simply 

gave it to me? It sounds like more, additional immunity was given 

that says: And what is on this we cannot hold against you. 

Mr. COMEY. Well, I think of it as—I still think of it as an actof-production immunity. From my experience, that is what I would 

characterize that agreement. 

And I guess you are right, there could be a more limited form 

of act-of-production immunity which simply says: Your fact of giving us this object will not be used against you directly. 

Mr. MARINO. Yeah. 

Mr. COMEY. I would have to think through whether it can be 

parsed that way. But I think I take your point. 

Mr. MARINO. So that is why I am saying additional immunity 

was given. And I don’t think it was warranted at that point. 

Let me ask you this. We have both empaneled many grand juries, investigative grand juries. Why not empanel an investigative 

grand jury whereby you have reasonable suspicion that a crime 

may have been committed, and then you have the ability to get 

warrants, subpoenas, get this information, subpoena witnesses before the grand jury under oath, and if they take the Fifth—if it is 

not the target, if they take the Fifth and say, ‘‘I am not going to 

talk to them,’’ you can give them, whether it is use immunity—the 

AG can give them that, and you had that authority. And then 

transactional has to come from the judge. 

And if they refuse to testify then, then you can say, fine, we are 

going to take you before a judge, hold you in contempt, and then 

you are going to sit in jail until you answer our questions. 

Wouldn’t that have been much simpler and more effective than 

the way this has gone about? I know that I have done it many, 

many times. And sometimes we find a situation where there isn’t 

enough evidence, and most of the time we find there is enough evidence. 

Mr. COMEY. Yeah. No, it is a reasonable question. And I don’t 

want to talk about grand jury in connection with this case or any 

other case—— 

Mr. MARINO. That is why I posed it the way I did. 

Mr. COMEY. Right. From our training, we know we are never 

supposed to talk about grand jury—— 
75 

Mr. MARINO. Yes. 

Mr. COMEY [continuing]. Publicly, but I can answer more generally than that. 

Anytime you are talking about the prospect of subpoenaing a 

computer from a lawyer that involves the lawyer’s practice of law, 

you know you are getting into a big megillah. 

Mr. MARINO. Okay, please let me interrupt you. 

Mr. COMEY. Sure. 

Mr. MARINO. I understand that clearly. Why did you not decide 

to go to an investigative grand jury? It would have been cleaner, 

it would have been much simpler, and you would have had more 

authority to make these witnesses testify—not the target, but the 

witness testify. 

That seems the way to go, Director. We have done it thousands 

of times. This just was too convoluted. 

Mr. COMEY. Yeah, again, I need to steer clear of talking about 

grand jury use in a particular matter. In general, in my experience, 

you can often do things faster with informal agreements, especially 

when you are interacting with lawyers. 

In this particular investigation, the investigative team really 

wanted to get access to the laptops that were used to sort these 

emails. 

Mr. MARINO. Okay. When was—— 

Mr. COMEY. Those are lawyers’ laptops. That is a very complicated thing. I think they were able to navigate it pretty well to 

get us access. 

Mr. MARINO. The media says that Ms. Clinton repeated—the 

media says—41 times that I do not recall or I do not remember or 

variations of that. Is that a fact or—— 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know. I have not—I have not counted. I have 

read the 302, obviously. 

Mr. MARINO. Wouldn’t that have been taken into consideration? 

Mr. COMEY. I am sorry? 

Mr. MARINO. Wouldn’t that selective memory be taken into consideration? 

Mr. COMEY. Sure. The nature and quality of a subject’s memory 

is always a factor. 

Mr. MARINO. All right. My time has expired. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 

Washington State, Ms. DelBene, for 5 minutes. 

Ms. DELBENE. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

And thank you, Director Comey, for spending all this time with 

us today. 

In 2010, the White House set up the Vulnerabilities Equities 

Process, the VEP, and implemented it in 2014 so it could give the 

government a process for determining whether, how, and when to 

disclose vulnerabilities to technology companies so that they would 

be able to address those vulnerabilities and patch them. 

And in a couple situations I know there was disclosure from the 

FBI. In April of this year, the FBI informed Apple of a security 

flaw in older versions of iOS and OS X, its first vulnerability disclosure to Apple under the Vulnerabilities Equities Process. 

In May of this year, the FBI’s Cyber Division warned the private 

sector about a fake USB device charger that can log the keystrokes 
76 

of certain wireless keyboards. And that was 15 months after the 

FBI discovered the vulnerability. 

In the warning, the FBI stated, ‘‘If placed strategically in an office or other location where individuals might use wireless devices, 

a malicious cyber actor could potentially harvest personally identifiable information, intellectual property, trade secrets, passwords, 

or other sensitive information.’’ 

Other instances of the FBI using the VEP are scarce, and, indeed, there have been reports that it is rare for the FBI to use this 

process. And so I wanted to, you know, ask you why this is and 

what is your view of the process. 

Mr. COMEY. Thank you for that question. 

The process seems to me to be a reasonable process to, in a structured fashion, bring everybody who might have an optic on this in 

the government together to talk about how do we think about disclosing a particular vulnerability to the private sector against the 

equities that may be at stake in terms of national security in particular. 

And so I think it makes sense to have such a process. The FBI 

participates in it when we come across a vulnerability that we 

know the vulnerability and it falls within the VEP’s jurisdiction. 

I don’t know the particulars of the case. You said there was a 15- 

month delay in disclosing a particular vulnerability. I don’t know 

enough to react to that. I probably wouldn’t react in an open forum, 

in any event. But that is my overall reaction. 

Ms. DELBENE. And does every vulnerability discovered go 

through this process, in terms of understanding whether or not you 

would disclose? 

Mr. COMEY. I think there is a definition of what falls under the 

process. You have to know the vulnerability. So we have to have 

knowledge of, so what is it that allows it, the vulnerability, to be 

exploited. We didn’t, for example, in the San Bernardino case. We 

bought access, but we didn’t know the vulnerability, what was behind it. 

But I forget the definition, as I sit here, of which vulnerabilities 

have to be considered. 

Ms. DELBENE. And so is there another process that you might 

use that is different from the VEP when you are looking at—— 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know of one. 

Ms. DELBENE [continuing]. Vulnerabilities and whether or not 

they—— 

Mr. COMEY. Before the VEP, I know our folks would routinely 

have—make disclosure to private entities, but I don’t think there 

is a—I don’t know of a process outside of VEP. 

Ms. DELBENE. But you are not sure if in every situation the VEP 

is used whenever you discover a vulnerability? 

Mr. COMEY. It sounds like a circular answer, but if it is a—and, 

obviously, I didn’t read the VEP before coming here today. We 

could get smart on it very quickly and have somebody talk to you 

about it. 

But if it falls under the definition of things that have to be discussed at the VEP, of course we do. I just can’t remember what 

that definition is exactly. 
77 

Ms. DELBENE. Okay. I am trying to understand, if a vulnerability is discovered, if there is always a standard process that you 

would go through to understand whether or not that information 

would be disclosed, and if that process is the VEP. That is the—— 

Mr. COMEY. Yeah, that is a great question. I don’t know the answer to that, whether there is a set of vulnerabilities that would 

fall outside of the VEP process. And if that is the case, how do we 

deal with it? I don’t know, sitting here. 

Ms. DELBENE. Thanks. If you have other feedback on that, I 

would appreciate it at another time. 

Mr. COMEY. Okay. 

Ms. DELBENE. In August, you said that stakeholders needed to 

take some time to collect information on the ‘‘going dark’’ issue and 

come back afterward to have an adult conversation. And I agree 

with you. 

And so I wondered if you would agree that there is room for us 

to work together on ways to help law enforcement that don’t include mandating a backdoor? 

Mr. COMEY. Totally. I keep reading that I am an advocate of 

backdoors, I want to mandate backdoors. I am not. I have never advocated we have to have backdoors. We have to figure out how we 

can solve this problem together. And it has to be everybody who 

cares about it coming together to talk about it. 

I don’t know exactly what the answer is, frankly. I can see the 

problem, which I think is my job, is to tell people the tools you are 

counting on us to use to keep you safe, they are less and less effective. That is a big problem. But what to do and how to do it is a 

really complicated thing, and I think everybody has to participate. 

Ms. DELBENE. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. 

And I yield back, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair thanks the gentlewoman, recognizes 

the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Gowdy, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to start by acknowledging progress. I think it is important 

that we do so. This morning, we have had nine straight Democrats 

talk to the FBI about emails without asking for immunity. That is 

a record. 

And I suspect the reason that they have not asked for immunity 

from Director Comey is they would say they have done nothing 

wrong. I find that interesting, because that is exactly what Heather 

Samuelson and Cheryl Mills’ attorneys said. In fact, they said it 

just a few days ago, and I will quote it: ‘‘The FBI considered my 

clients to be witnesses and nothing more.’’ 

And then Ms. Mills and Ms. Samuelson’s attorneys said this. I 

think this is the most interesting part. ‘‘The Justice Department 

assured us my clients did nothing wrong.’’ 

Well, Mr. Chairman, if you are assuring subjects or targets or 

witnesses, whatever you want to call them, that they have done 

nothing wrong, it does beg the question, what are you seeking and 

receiving immunity from? I mean, if you have done nothing 

wrong—laptops don’t go to the Bureau of Prisons, Mr. Chairman; 

people do. So the immunity was not for the laptop. The immunity 

was for Cheryl Mills. 
78 

And if the Department of Justice says you have done nothing 

wrong, it does beg the question of why you are seeking or receiving 

immunity. And it could be, Mr. Chairman, it could be for the classified information that was the genesis of the investigation. It could 

be for the destruction of Federal records which came from that initial investigation. Or it could be both. 

Mr. Comey, I want to ask you this: Did the Bureau interview everyone who originated an email that ultimately went to Secretary 

Clinton that contained classified information? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t think so. Nearly everyone, but not everyone. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, you and I had a discussion the last time about 

intent. You and I see the statute differently. My opinion doesn’t 

matter; yours does. You are the head of the Bureau. But, in my 

judgment, you read an element into the statute that does not appear on the face of the statute. And then we had a discussion about 

intent. 

So why would you not interview the originator of the email to, 

number one, determine whether or not that originator had a conversation with the Secretary herself? 

Mr. COMEY. There are a handful of people who the team decided 

it wasn’t a smart use of resources to track down. One was a civilian 

in Japan, as I recall, who had forwarded something that somehow 

got classified as it went up. And the other were a group of low-level 

State Department people deployed around the world who had written things that ended up being classified. 

Nearly everyone was interviewed, but there was a small group 

that the team decided it isn’t worth the resources. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, to that extent, if you interviewed the overwhelming majority of the originators of the email, will you make 

those 302s available to Congress? Because I counted this morning 

30-something 302s that we do not have. 

Mr. COMEY. Okay. I will go back and check. My goal is maximum 

transparency, consistent with our obligations under the law. I will 

check on that. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well—and I appreciate it, for this reason: Intent is 

awfully hard to prove. Very rarely do defendants announce ahead 

of time, ‘‘I intend to commit this crime on this date. Go ahead and 

check the code section. I am going to do it.’’ That rarely happens. 

So you have to prove it by circumstantial evidence, such as 

whether or not the person intended to set up an email system outside the State Department; such as whether or not the person 

knew or should have known that his or her job involved handling 

classified information; whether or not the person was truthful 

about the use of multiple devices; whether or not the person knew 

that a frequent emailer to her had been hacked; and whether she 

took any remedial steps after being put on notice that your email 

or someone who has been emailing with you prolifically had been 

hacked; and whether or not—and I think you would agree with 

this, Director. 

False exculpatory statements are gold in a courtroom. I would 

rather have a false exculpatory statement than a confession. I 

would rather have someone lie about something and it be provable 

that that is a lie, such as that I neither sent nor received classified 
79 

information; such as that I turned over all of my work-related 

emails. All of that, to me, goes to the issue of intent. 

So I got two more questions. Then I am going to be out of time. 

For those who may have to prosecute these cases in the future, 

what would she have had to do to warrant your recommendation 

of a prosecution? If all of that was not enough—because all of that 

is what she did. If all of that is not enough, I mean, surely you cannot be arguing that you have to have an intent to harm the United 

States to be subject to this prosecution. I mean, that is treason. 

That is not a violation of this statute. 

Mr. COMEY. No. I think we would have to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt a general awareness of the unlawfulness 

of your conduct, you knew you were doing something you shouldn’t 

do. And then—obviously, that is on the face of the statute itself. 

Then you need to consider, so who else has been prosecuted and 

in what circumstances, because it is all about prosecutorial judgment. 

But those two things would be the key questions: Can you prove 

that the person knew they were doing something they shouldn’t do, 

a general criminal intent, general mens rea? 

Mr. GOWDY. But the way to prove—— 

Mr. COMEY. And have you treated other people similarly? 

Mr. GOWDY. The way to prove that is whether or not someone 

took steps to conceal or destroy what they had done. That is the 

best evidence you have that they knew it was wrong, that they lied 

about it. 

Mr. COMEY. It is very good evidence. You always want to look at 

what the subject said about their conduct. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, there is a lot. There is a lot. If you saw her 

initial press conference, it all falls under the heading of ‘‘false, exculpatory statement.’’ 

I am out of time, Mr. Chairman, but the Director did—you started off by giving us examples of things the Bureau has done. And 

every one of us who has worked with the FBI, that is the FBI that 

I know. The one that went and saved that girl in North Carolina, 

that is the FBI that I know. 

What concerns me, Director, is when you have five immunity 

agreements and no prosecution; when you are allowing witnesses 

who happen to be lawyers, who happen to be targets, to sit in on 

an interview. That is not the FBI that I used to work with. 

So I have been really careful to not criticize you. In fact, I said 

it again this morning. They wanted to know was he gotten to, did 

somebody corrupt him. No, I just disagree with you. But it is really 

important to me that the FBI be respected. And you have to help 

us understand, because it looks to me like some things were done 

differently that I don’t recall being done back when I used to work 

with them. 

And, with that, I would yield back to the Chairman. 

Mr. COMEY. Can I respond to that? 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Yes, you may. 

Mr. COMEY. I hope someday when this political craziness is over 

you will look back again on this, because this is the FBI you know 

and love. This was done by pros in the right way. That is the part 

I have no patience for. Sorry, sir. 
80 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Rhode 

Island, Mr. Cicilline, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Director Comey, for your extraordinary service to 

our country. And please convey to the professionals at the FBI my 

gratitude for their exemplary service to the people of this country. 

And, particularly, I want to acknowledge the extraordinary, 

prompt, and effective response to the recent bombings in New Jersey and New York. It is just another example of this extraordinary 

agency and your extraordinary leadership. 

Director Comey, many of us have expressed a concern about the 

growing incidence of gun violence in this country. And we expressed condolences and concern of following the recent mass 

shootings in Burlington, Washington, where five people lost their 

lives. We shared the same sentiments after incidents in Aurora and 

Newtown and Charleston. But as more Americans lose their lives 

to senseless gun violence, this Congress has been absolutely silent 

and inactive on this issue. 

So I would like to really turn to you and your career in public 

service, both as a U.S. attorney and now as the FBI Director, with 

so much experience in dealing with the consequences of gun violence, and ask you to kind of share with us what you think might 

be some things Congress could do to help reduce gun violence in 

this country. 

If I recall correctly, in 2013, during your confirmation hearings, 

you at least alluded to your support for universal background 

checks, bans on illegal trafficking of guns, assault weapons, and 

high-capacity magazines. 

So I am wondering what you think would be effective for us to 

do to help reduce the incidence of gun violence in this country. 

Mr. COMEY. Thank you, Congressman. 

And you are exactly right. We just spend a lot of time thinking, 

investigating, and mourning the deaths in mass shootings. I think 

it is really important, though, the Bureau not be in the policy business, and be in the enforcement business. And so I am going to respectfully avoid your question, honestly, because I think we should 

not be in the place of—we should be a factual input to you. We 

should not be suggesting particular laws with respect to guns or 

anything else. 

Mr. CICILLINE. So let me ask you, Director, about a very specific 

enforcement challenge. 

I introduced a piece of legislation called the Unlawful Gun Buyer 

Alert Act to get at this issue of a default process. This is where 

people buy a gun, they purchase a gun, but they are not permitted 

to buy one under law, but the 3-day time period has elapsed. And, 

between 2010 and 2014, 15,729 sales to prohibited persons occurred. That means people who were not lawfully permitted to buy 

guns got a gun 15,000 times. 

So my legislation would require that when that happens that 

local law enforcement is notified. They can then make a decision, 

should we go prosecute this person who is now in possession of a 

gun illegally, should we, you know, execute a search warrant, but 

they would at least be put on notice, in your community, a person 
81 

who should not have a gun bought one, so they can take some action. 

Would that make sense in terms of your enforcement responsibilities? 

Mr. COMEY. It might. I know ATF is notified in those circumstances—— 

Mr. CICILLINE. Which, of course, is a very different set of priorities for ATF; do they go and actually execute a warrant and 

charge somebody. But there are State and local prohibitions on 

that that could be acted upon. So would it also make sense to notify local law enforcement? 

Mr. COMEY. It might. I would want to think through and ask 

ATF how do they think through the deconfliction issues that might 

arise there, but it is a reasonable think to look at. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Now, the second—my next question, Director, is: 

There has been recent discussion about implementing stop-andfrisk in cities to address crime even at the national level. And, although the data shows that this disproportionately targets people 

of color—and just to give you some context, in 2011, when stopand-frisk activity reached an all-time high in New York City, police 

stopped 685,000 people; 53 percent of those individuals were Black, 

34 percent were Latino, and 9 percent were White. More than half 

were ages 14 to 24 years old. And of the 685,000 people that were 

stopped and frisked, 88 percent were neither arrested nor received 

any sort of citation. 

Do you believe this stop-and-frisk policy is an effective tactic to 

address crime in our Nation’s cities? What would a Federal implementation look like that Mr. Trump has called for? And how can 

Congress minimize racial profiling and discriminatory, ineffective 

techniques like stop-and-frisk and, instead, promote activities that 

build trust and confidence between the police and the community? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know what a Federal program would look 

like, because we are not in the policing business; we are investigative agencies at the Federal level. But the Terry stop—the ‘‘stopand-frisk’’ is not a term we use in the Federal system—the Terry 

stop, which is the stop of an individual based on reasonable suspicion that they are engaged in a criminal activity, is a very important law enforcement tool. 

To my mind, its effectiveness depends upon the conversation 

after the stop. When it is done well, someone is stopped, then they 

are told, ‘‘I stopped you because we have a report of a guy with a 

gray sweatshirt who matches you. That is why I stopped you, sir. 

I am sorry.’’ Or, ‘‘I stopped you because I saw you do this behavior.’’ 

Because the danger is what is an effective law enforcement technique can become a source of estrangement for a community, and 

you need the help of the community. So it is an important tool 

when used right, and what makes the difference between right and 

wrong is what is the nature of the conversation with the person 

you stopped. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you. Very good. 

Mr. Chairman, I would just like to finally associate myself with 

the remarks with Congressman Deutch regarding the Logan Act 

violations and the remarks of many of my colleagues regarding the 

attempts by the Russians to interfere with our democracy and elec-
82 

toral process, and take great comfort in the Director’s commitment 

to continue to understand this as an important responsibility of the 

agency to protect the integrity of our democracy. 

And, with that, I yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair thanks the gentleman. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Utah, Mr. Chaffetz. 

And as I do, I want to thank him for making, as Chairman of the 

Oversight and Government Reform Committee, this very nice hearing room available to us while the Judiciary Committee hearing 

room is under renovation. 

So the gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes, with my thanks. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Well, and I appreciate the extra 5 minutes of 

questioning for doing so. So thank you very much. 

Director, thank you for your accessibility. You have been very 

readily available, and we do appreciate that. 

This investigation started because the inspector general found 

classified information in a nonsecure setting and the FBI went to 

a law firm and found this information. They seized at least one 

computer and at least one thumb drive. 

Did you need an immunity agreement to get those? 

Mr. COMEY. It was not—I don’t think there was—in fact, I am 

certain there was no immunity agreement used in connection with 

that. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So did it really take the FBI a full year to figure 

out that Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson also had computers 

with classified information on it? 

Mr. COMEY. No. It took us to that point in the investigation to 

insist that we try to get them. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Were you getting them because they had classified information or because there was some other information you 

wanted? 

Mr. COMEY. No. We thought those were the tools, as we understood it, that had been used to sort the emails. And the investigative team very much wanted to understand, if they could, whether 

there was an electronic—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Well—— 

Mr. COMEY [continuing]. Tale of how that had been done. Because the big, big issue was what did they delete, what did they 

keep, and—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. But why did you need an immunity agreement? 

Why didn’t they just cooperate and hand them over? The law firm 

did, didn’t they? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, yes. That is a question really I can’t answer. 

That is between a lawyer and her client and the Justice Department lawyers. For whatever reason, her lawyer thought it was in 

her interest to get an act-of-production immunity agreement with 

the Department of Justice. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. The FBI interviewed David Kendall’s partner but 

did not interview David Kendall. Why didn’t you interview David 

Kendall? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t remember. I don’t remember that decision. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Going back to this Reddit post, this was put up 

on July 24 of 2014. You believe this to be associated with Mr. 

Combetta, correct? 
83 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, I think that is right. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. This is the one that Mr. Jordan put up about the 

need to strip out a ‘‘VIP’s (VERY VIP) email address from a bunch 

of archived emails.’’ He is referring to a Federal record, isn’t he? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know exactly which records he is referring to. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. How is this not a conscious effort to alter Federal 

records? I mean, the proximity to the date is just stunning. 

Mr. COMEY. I am sorry, what is the question? 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. How is this not a conscious effort to alter a Federal record? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, depending upon what the record was and exactly what he was trying to do and whether there would be disclosure to the people they were producing it to saying, we changed 

this for privacy purposes. I just don’t know, sitting here. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. These are documents that were under subpoena. 

These Federal records were under subpoena. They were under a 

preservation order. Did Mr. Combetta destroy documents? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know whether that was true in July of 2014, 

they were under a subpoena. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Did he ultimately destroy Federal records, Mr. 

Combetta? 

Mr. COMEY. Oh. I have no reason to believe he destroyed Federal 

records. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. He used BleachBit, did he not? 

Mr. COMEY. Yeah, the question is what was already produced before he used the BleachBit. The reason he wanted immunity was 

he had done the BleachBit business after there was publicity about 

the demand from Congress for the records. That is a potential—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And not just publicity. There was a subpoena. 

Mr. COMEY. Right. That is potentially—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And there was communication from Cheryl Mills 

that there was a preservation order, correct? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And he did indeed use BleachBit on these records. 

Mr. COMEY. Sure. That is why the guy wouldn’t talk to us without immunity. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And so when he got immunity, what did you 

learn? 

Mr. COMEY. We learned that no one had directed him to do that, 

that he had done it—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You really think that he just did this by himself? 

Mr. COMEY. I think his account—again, I never affirmatively believe anybody except my wife. But the question is do I have evidence to disbelieve him, and I don’t. His account is credible, that 

he was told to do it in 2014, screwed up and didn’t do it, panicked 

when he realized he hadn’t, and then raced back in and did it after 

Congress asked for the records and The New York Times wrote 

about them. That was his, ‘‘Oh, s-h-i-t,’’ moment. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. But he—— 

Mr. COMEY. And that was credible. Again, I don’t believe people, 

but we did not have evidence to disbelieve that and establish someone told him to do that—no email, no phone call, nothing. 

The hope was, if he had been told to do that, that would be a 

great piece of evidence; if we give him immunity, maybe he will tell 
84 

us so-and-so told me to, so-and-so asked me to, and then we are 

working up the chain. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. But he did indeed destroy Federal records, and he 

was told at some point to do this, correct? Who told him to do that 

initially? When he was supposed to do it in December and he didn’t 

do it, who told him to do that? 

Mr. COMEY. One of Secretary Clinton’s staff members. I mean, I 

can’t remember, sitting here. We know that. One of her lawyers; 

it might have been Cheryl Mills. Someone on the team said, ‘‘We 

don’t need those emails anymore. Get rid of the archived file.’’ 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. This is what is unbelievable about this, because 

there is classified information, there is—there are Federal records 

that were indeed destroyed. And that is just the fact pattern. 

Here is the other thing that I would draw to your attention that 

is new. September 15 of this year, I issued a subpoena from the 

Oversight and Government Reform Committee on these Reddit 

posts. Four days later, they were destroyed—or taken down. They 

were deleted. I would hope the FBI would take that into consideration. Again, we are trying, under a properly issued subpoena, to 

get to this information. 

Let’s go to Heather Mills real quick. How does the—in the 2016 

interview with Cheryl Mills, she says, quote, Mills did not learn— 

in the interview report that you—the interview summary from the 

FBI—Mills did not learn Clinton use using a private email server 

until after Clinton’s tenure. 

Also, you have this interview with Mr. Pagliano, who said he approached—quote, Pagliano then approached Cheryl Mills in her office and relayed a State Department employee’s concerns regarding 

Federal records retention and the use of a private server. Pagliano 

remembers Mills replying that former Secretaries of State had done 

similar things, to include Colin Powell. 

It goes, then, on to a page 10, and this is what I don’t understand. The FBI writes, Clinton’s immediate aides, to include Mills, 

Abedin, Sullivan, and a redacted name, told the FBI they were unaware of the existence of a private server until after Clinton’s tenure at State or when it become public knowledge. 

But if you look back at the email from Heather Mills, if you go 

back to 2010—this is to Justin Cooper, okay? Mills to Cooper, who 

does not—he works for Clinton; he doesn’t work for the State Department. ‘‘FYI, HRC email coming back. Is server okay?’’ Cooper 

writes back, ‘‘You are funny. We are on the same server.’’ 

She knew there was a server. When there is a problem with Hillary Rodham Clinton’s emails, what did they do? She called the 

person who has no background in this, who is not a State Department employee, no security clearance, and then tells the FBI, 

‘‘Well, I never knew about that,’’ but there is direct evidence that 

contradicts this. 

How do you come to that conclusion and write that in the summary statement, that she had no knowledge of this? 

Mr. COMEY. That is a question? 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Yes. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The time of the gentleman has expired, but the 

Director will answer the question. 
85 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t remember exactly, sitting here. All—having 

done many investigations myself, there is always conflicting recollections of fact, some of which are central, some of which are peripheral. I don’t remember, sitting here, about that one. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. DeSantis, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Director Comey, violent crime is up in this country, isn’t it? 

Mr. COMEY. Our UCR stats we just released show a rise in homicide and other violent crime in 2015. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Violent crime, I think, was about 4 percent, but 

the homicides were up 10 percent. Is that correct? 

Mr. COMEY. Ten-point-eight percent. 

Mr. DESANTIS. And that is a pretty startling, concerning increase. Do you agree? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. It is concerning. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Now, I don’t know if you have data in 2016, but 

is your sense that 2016 is going to look closer to 2015, is there any 

indication that the rate is going to go back down? 

Mr. COMEY. No. We continue to see spikes in some big cities in 

a way we can’t quite make sense of. There is no doubt that some 

15 to 30 cities are continuing to experience a spike. Whether that 

will drive the whole number up, I don’t know. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Now, the FBI has now assumed control of the 

Dahir Adan, the Minnesota stabbing terrorist investigation. Is that 

confirmed, that that was a terrorist attack, at this point? 

Mr. COMEY. We are still working on it. It does look like, at least 

in part, he was motivated by some sort of inspiration from radical 

Islamic groups. Which groups and how we are not sure of yet. 

Mr. DESANTIS. But he was praising Allah, was asking at least 

one of the potential victims whether they were Muslim, and I know 

ISIS did take responsibility for it, correct? 

Mr. COMEY. They claim responsibility. That isn’t dispositive for 

us, because they will claim responsibility for any savagery they can 

get their name on. But we are going through his entire electronic 

record and history of all of his associations to try and understand 

that. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Now, there was a report from the House Homeland Security last year that said that Minnesota was actually the 

number-one source for ISIS fighters in the United States. One, do 

you acknowledge that that—or do you agree that that is true? And, 

if so, why is Minnesota churning out so many jihadists? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know for sure whether that is true, but it 

sounds about right. We have very few ISIL fighters from the 

United States, even over the last 2 years. 

There have been a number of Somali-American-heritage young 

men who have gone to fight with Al Shabaab in Somalia and with 

ISIL. I suspect the reason is that is one of the few areas in the 

United States where we have a large concentration that is susceptible to that recruiting. 

The great thing about America is everybody is kind of dispersed. 

That is one of the areas where there is an immigrant Muslim community that seems to be susceptible for some reason—in small 
86 

measure. Again, we are talk about eight people, I think the number 

is. But that is my reaction to that. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, what is the FBI doing to deal with the problem? You have an insular community that may make this problem 

more significant, so how is the FBI combating that? 

Mr. COMEY. Oh, in a bunch of difference ways. With lots of partners to make sure we know the folks in the—especially the SomaliAmerican community in Minneapolis. The U.S. attorney there has 

done a great job of—— 

Mr. DESANTIS. Have they been helpful with the FBI? 

Mr. COMEY. Very. Very. Because they don’t want their sons or 

daughters involved in this craziness any more than anybody else 

does. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Now, with Paul Combetta, I am just trying to figure out what happened here. He never said that he remembered 

anything from that March 25 phone conversation with the Clinton 

people. Of course, that was days before he BleachBit’d the emails. 

He never said he had any factual knowledge of anything that happened on that call. Is that his basic statement? As I read the 302s, 

he didn’t really provide any information. 

Mr. COMEY. I can’t remember for sure. It would be in the 302. 

You have probably seen it more recently than I have. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, I saw one 302 said that he pled the Fifth. 

Obviously, he was given immunity. Another said that there was an 

invocation of attorney-client privilege at one time in one of the 

other summaries. 

So I am just trying to figure out, you know, what happened with 

Combetta, why was he not able to provide information. He had immunity. This was something that was much more fresh in his mind 

than previous conversations with Clinton people would have been. 

And yet you said he was credible. To me, feigning ignorance, that 

is not credible given the timeline, where you have The New York 

Times saying that this server existed, the House immediately sends 

a subpoena, he has this conversation, and then, lo and behold, a 

few days later, all the emails are BleachBit’d. 

Mr. COMEY. Well, he told us that, with immunity, that no one directed him to do it, instructed him to do it. We developed no evidence to contradict that. 

Again, we are never in the business of believing people; the question is always what evidence do we have that establishes disbelief. 

We don’t have any contrary evidence. His account is uncontradicted 

by hard facts. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, it is—he is in a situation where he has— 

these things are now under a subpoena, and he has conversations 

with people who they potentially could implicate, and then he takes 

this action. So I guess the question is, is it more reasonable to 

think that he just would have said, ‘‘Oh, you know what? I just 

need to all of a sudden BleachBit this stuff,’’ without any direction 

at all? I just find that to be something that is difficult to square. 

Let me ask you this. In September, you sent a memo to your employees at the FBI basically defending the way the Bureau handled 

this investigation. Why did you send that? 

Mr. COMEY. It was about how we were doing transparency, because there was all kinds of business about whether we were trying 
87 

to hide stuff by putting it out on a Friday, and I wanted to equip 

our workforce with transparency about how we were doing our productions to Congress so they could answer questions from their 

family and friends. 

Mr. DESANTIS. But you—— 

Mr. COMEY. I want them to know we are conducting ourselves 

the way they would want us to. 

Mr. DESANTIS. And you have—because you mentioned former 

agents and people in the community. I mean, this has provoked 

some controversy within the ranks of current and former agents? 

Mr. COMEY. Not within the FBI. Again, who knows what people 

don’t tell the Director, but I should have—I should have asked Mr. 

Gohmert. 

If there are agents in the FBI who are concerned or confused 

about this, please contact me. We will get you the transparency you 

need to see that your brothers and sisters did this the way you 

would want them to. 

Mr. DESANTIS. All right. I am out of time, but I will say just, 

when I was in the military—you had said no one would be prosecuted. I mean, maybe that was just for civilian, but I can tell you 

that people, if you had compromised Top Secret information, there 

would have been a court marshal in your future. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Would the Director care to respond to that? 

Mr. COMEY. No. Fine. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. That is a direct comparison to the finding of 

yourself, that, as you stated in your news conference, that no prosecutor would prosecute somebody under similar circumstances. 

Mr. COMEY. I understood Mr. DeSantis to be expressing a personal opinion. I accept that at face value. I just haven’t seen the 

cases that show me on the public record that that is true. But I 

accept his good faith. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, 

Mr. Ratcliffe, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Director, did you make the decision not to recommend criminal 

charges relating to classified information before or after Hillary 

Clinton was interviewed by the FBI on July the 2nd? 

Mr. COMEY. After. 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. Okay. Then I am going to need your help in trying to understand how that is possible. I think there are a lot of 

prosecutors or former prosecutors that are shaking our heads at 

how that could be the case. 

Because if there was ever any real possibility that Hillary Clinton might be charged for something that she admitted to on July 

the 2nd, why would two of the central witnesses in a potential 

prosecution against her be allowed to sit in the same room to hear 

the testimony? 

And I have heard your earlier answers to that. You said that, 

well, it was because the interview was voluntary and they were her 

lawyers. But I think you are skirting the real issue there, Director. 

First of all, the fact that it was voluntary, it didn’t have to be, 

right? You could have empaneled an investigative grand jury, she 

could have been subpoenaed. And I know you have said that you 
88 

can’t comment on that, and I don’t really care about the decision 

about whether or not there should have been a grand jury here, but 

since you didn’t have one, it goes to the issue at hand about whether or not this interview should have ever taken place. 

With due respect to the answers that you have given, the FBI 

and the Department of Justice absolutely control whether or not an 

interview is going to take place with other witnesses in the room. 

Because the simple truth is that under the circumstances as you 

have described those interviews never take place. If there was ever 

any possibility that something Hillary Clinton might have said on 

July 2 could have possibly resulted in criminal charges that might 

possibly have resulted in a trial against her relating to this classified information, well, then, to use your words, Director, I don’t 

think that there is any reasonable prosecutor out there who would 

have allowed two immunized witnesses central to the prosecution 

proving the case against her to sit in the room with the interview, 

the FBI interview, of the subject of that investigation. 

And if I heard you earlier today, in your long career, I heard you 

say that you have never had that circumstance. Is that—did I hear 

you correctly? 

Mr. COMEY. That is correct, but—— 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. Okay. And I never have either, and I have never 

met a prosecutor that has ever had that. 

So, to me, the only way that an interview takes place with the 

two central witnesses and the subject of the investigation is if the 

decision has already been made that all three people in that room 

are not going to be charged. 

Mr. COMEY. Can I respond? 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. Yes. Please. 

Mr. COMEY. I know in our political lives sometimes people casually accuse each other of being dishonest, but if colleagues of ours 

believe I am lying about when I made this decision, please urge 

them to contact me privately so we can have a conversation about 

this. 

All I can do is to tell you again, the decision was made after that, 

because I didn’t know what was going to happen in that interview. 

She would maybe lie during the interview in a way we could 

prove—let me finish. 

I would also urge you to tell me what tools we have as prosecutors and investigators to kick out of an interview someone that the 

subject says is their lawyer. 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. That is not my point. The interview never should 

have taken place if you were going to allow the central witnesses 

that you needed to prove the case to sit there and listen to the testimony that the subject was going to give. It never happens. It has 

never happened to you, and it has never happened to me or any 

other prosecutor that I have met. 

And you know you have defended the people that were involved 

in this of being great, but if it has never happened, I wonder why 

this is a case of first precedent with respect to that practice that 

you and I have never seen in our careers. 

Mr. COMEY. You and I don’t control the universe of what has 

happened. I suspect it is very unusual. 
89 

A key fact, though, that maybe is leading to some confusion here 

is we had already concluded we didn’t have a prosecutable case 

against Heather Samuelson or Cheryl Mills at that point. If they 

were targets of our investigation, maybe we would have canceled 

the interview, but, frankly, our focus was on the subject. The subject at that point was Hillary Clinton. 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. All right. Let me move on. 

According to the FBI’s own documents, Paul Combetta, in his 

first interview on February the 18th told FBI agents that he had 

no knowledge about the preservation order for the Clinton emails, 

correct? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know the dates of that, but I am sure it is 

in the 302. 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. Okay. 

But then 21⁄2 months later, on May the 3rd, his second interview, 

he made a 180-degree turn, and he admitted that, in fact, he was 

aware of the preservation order and he was aware of the fact that 

that meant that he shouldn’t disturb the Clinton emails, correct? 

Mr. COMEY. Yep. 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. Okay. Well, then I need your help again here, because when I was at the Department of Justice, your reward for 

lying to Federal agents was an 18 U.S.C. 1001 charge or potential 

obstruction-of-justice charge; it wasn’t immunity. 

Mr. COMEY. Depends on where you are trying to go with the investigation. If it is a low-level guy and you are trying move up in 

the chain, you might think about it differently. 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. But he lied to an FBI agent. You don’t think that 

is important? 

Mr. COMEY. Oh, it is very important. It happens all the time, unfortunately. It is very, very important. Sometimes you prosecute 

that person and end their cooperation; sometimes you try and sign 

them up. 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. But if they lie to an FBI agent after they are 

given immunity, they have violated the terms of their immunity 

agreement. 

Mr. COMEY. Oh, sure, after, after the agreement. 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. And so that is my point. He shouldn’t have immunity anymore. 

Mr. COMEY. Oh, I am sorry. I may have misunderstood you. He 

lied to us before he came clean under the immunity agreement and 

admitted that he had deleted the emails. 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. No, not according to the FBI’s documents. He 

had the immunity agreement in December of 2015. These interviews took place in February and March and May of this year, 

2016. 

Mr. COMEY. Combetta? 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. Combetta. 

Mr. COMEY. Okay. Then I am—then I am confused and 

misremembering, but I don’t think that is right. 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. Okay. Well, let me—my time has expired, but I 

have one last question, and I think that it is important. 

At this point, based on everything, do you think that any laws 

were broken by Hillary Clinton or her lawyers? 

Mr. COMEY. Do I think that any laws were broken? 
90 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. Yeah. 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t think there is evidence to establish that. 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. Okay. Well, I think you are making my point 

when you say there is no evidence to establish that. Maybe not in 

the way she handled classified information, but with respect to obstruction of justice—and you have a pen here—I just want to make 

the sure the record is clear about the evidence that you didn’t have, 

that you can’t use to prove. So this comes from the FBI’s own report. 

It says that the FBI didn’t have the Clintons’ personal Apple 

server used for Hillary Clinton work emails. That was never located, so the FBI could never examine it. An Apple MacBook laptop 

and thumb drive that contained Hillary Clinton’s email archives 

was lost, so the FBI never examined that. Two BlackBerry devices 

provided to the FBI didn’t have SIM cards or SD data cards. Thirteen Hillary Clinton personal mobile devices were lost, discarded, 

or destroyed with a hammer, so the FBI clearly didn’t examine 

those. Various server backups were deleted over time, so the FBI 

didn’t examine that. 

After the State Department and my colleague Mr. Gowdy here 

notified Ms. Clinton that her records would be sought by the 

Benghazi Committee, copies of her emails on the laptops of both of 

her lawyers, Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, were wiped 

clean with BleachBit, so the FBI didn’t review that. After those 

emails were subpoenaed, Hillary Clinton’s email archive was also 

permanently deleted from the Platte River Network with 

BleachBit, so the FBI didn’t review that. And also after the subpoena, backups of the Platte River server were manually deleted. 

Now, Director, hopefully that list is substantially accurate, because it comes from your own documents. My question to you is 

this: Any one of those in that very, very long list, to me, says obstruction of justice. Collectively, they scream obstruction of justice. 

And to ignore them, I think, really allows not just reasonable prosecutors but reasonable people to believe that maybe the decision on 

this was made a long time ago not to prosecute Hillary Clinton. 

And, with that, I yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Director, do you care to respond? 

Mr. COMEY. Just very briefly. To ignore that which we don’t 

have—we are in a fact-based world, so we make evaluations based 

on the evidence we are able to gather using the tools that we have. 

So it is hard for me to react to these things that you don’t have. 

So that is my—that is my reaction to it. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, 

Mr. Farenthold, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much. 

Director Comey, thank you for being here. I know this is—there 

are a lot of things you would probably much rather be doing than 

sitting on the hot seat, so to speak. 

And here is where I am coming from on this. You have been 

asked a lot of questions today about the Clinton investigation. And 

what I am hearing from folks back in Texas—and I am just going 

to take a big-picture view of this—is this stuff just simply doesn’t 

pass the smell test on a lot of areas. 
91 

You just had my colleague from Texas, Mr. Ratcliffe, list a long 

list of things that you all didn’t have in the investigation. You have 

been asked earlier today, well, you know, would you reopen the investigation, what would it take to get you to reopen the investigation. 

We have had five people given immunity, which, basically, we got 

nothing, when, you know, perhaps a plea agreement or something 

else might have worked. You have your interpretation in your previous testimony before Congress that section 793(f) required intent, 

when, in fact, the standard is gross negligence. 

And it is just a long list of things that just have people scratching their heads, going, ‘‘If this were to happen to me, I would be 

in a world of hurt, probably in jail.’’ And how do you respond to 

people who are saying that this is not how an average American 

would be treated, this is only how Hillary Clinton would be treated? 

Mr. COMEY. Yeah. Look, I have heard that a lot, and my response is: Demand—when people tell you that, that others have 

been treated differently, demand from a trustworthy source the details of those cases. Because I am a very aggressive investigator, 

I was a very aggressive prosecutor. I have gone back through 40 

years of cases, and I am telling you under oath that to prosecute 

on these facts would be a double standard, because Jane and Joe 

Smith would not be prosecuted on these facts. 

Now, you would be in trouble. That is the other thing I have had 

to explain to the FBI workforce. You use an unclassified email system to do our business, and in the course of doing our business— 

talk about classified topics—you will be in big trouble at the FBI, 

I am highly confident of that. I am also highly confident, in fact 

certain, you would not be prosecuted. That is what folks tend to 

lump together. 

So I care deeply about what people think about the justice system and that it not have two standards. It does not, and this demonstrates it. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. But you look at General Petraeus and his handling of classified information. You look at—and I will go back to 

what you are saying—— 

Mr. COMEY. But when you look at it, demand to know the facts. 

I don’t want to dump on General Petraeus because the case is over, 

but I would be happy to go through how very different that circumstance is than this circumstance. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And you talk about you tell your FBI agents, 

if you do what we are investigating here with material from the 

FBI, you would be in a world of trouble. I would assume that could 

potentially be fired. 

Is Hillary Clinton in—she didn’t get in any trouble at the State 

Department. The only trouble she has got now is trying to explain 

it to the American people. 

Mr. COMEY. Right. She is not a government employee, so the normal range of discipline that would be applied to FBI employees if 

they did do something similar doesn’t apply. And I gather—I think 

that is some of the reason for people’s confusion, lumping these two 

together, and their frustration, but it is what it is. 
92 

And all I can tell people is: Demand the facts. When people tell 

you, oh, so-and-so has been treated differently, demand the facts on 

that. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. All right. Let’s just do a hypothetical. Let’s say 

somebody here in Congress were to email my personal email some 

classified information, and I am on my—I get it on my phone. It 

comes to my cell phone too. My personal email comes to my personal cell phone. I look at it and go, ‘‘Wow, that probably shouldn’t 

be on there,’’ and don’t do anything. 

I mean, to me, that is being grossly negligent with classified information, and I should—and that is a violation of 793(f). And that 

is exactly what Hillary Clinton did, I think. 

I mean, at what point do you get to intent? The classified information was on an unsecured server, you knew it was there, and 

you didn’t do anything about it. To me, that is gross negligence, period. I would think I would be prosecuted for that. 

Mr. COMEY. Yeah. I am confident that you wouldn’t. But we just 

have to agree to disagree. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. All right. If I ever get in trouble—— 

Mr. COMEY. Don’t do it. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD.—I am going to save this clip. 

Mr. COMEY. Don’t do it. I guess I can’t control Congress. If you 

work for us, don’t do it. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. No, I have absolutely no intention of doing it. 

So, again, I just want to say, don’t get frustrated when we continue to ask these questions. Because we are not badgering you because we want to badger you; we are talking to you because the 

American people are upset about this and don’t think it was handled appropriately. And that is the basis, at least, of my questioning. And I thank you for appearing here. 

Mr. COMEY. And I totally understand that, that I think there are 

lots of questions people have, which is why I have worked so hard 

to try and be transparent. There has never been this kind of transparency in a criminal case ever, but because I understand the questions and the importance of it, I have tried. 

But I hope people will separate two things: questions about facts 

and judgment, from questions and accusations about integrity. As 

I said before, you can call us wrong, you can call me a fool. You 

cannot call us weasels. Okay? That is just not fair. 

And I hope we haven’t gotten to a place in American public life 

where everything has to be torn down on an integrity basis just to 

disagree. You can disagree with this. There is just not a fair basis 

for saying that we did it in any way that wasn’t honest and independent. That is when I get a little worked up. Sorry. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. I am out of time. I—— 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Bishop, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. 

Thank you, Director Comey, and I appreciate your testimony 

here today. 

Just in followup to all this discussion regarding the Clinton investigation, specifically with regard to the interview of Secretary 

Clinton, I am holding in my hand a memorandum from Deputy Attorney General James Cole. It is dated May 12, 2014. This memo-
93 

randum was issued to you and others on the policy concerning electronic recording of statements. 

Are you familiar with this memorandum? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes. Uh-huh. 

Mr. BISHOP. The policy establishes a presumption that the FBI 

will electronically record statements made by individuals in their 

custody. Now, I know that Secretary Clinton was not technically in 

custody, but the policy also encourages agents and prosecutors to 

consider electronic recording in investigative or other circumstances where that presumption does not exist. 

The policy also encourages agents and prosecutors to consult 

with each other in such circumstances. And given the magnitude 

of what we have been talking about today and the huge public interest and demand for information with regard to the public trust, 

I think this is specifically important to this discussion. 

Now, you are aware of this policy, correct? 

Mr. COMEY. Right, that applies to people that are in handcuffs. 

Mr. BISHOP. But not—it also applies to—the policy also encourages agents and prosecutors to consider electronic recording in investigative matter—in other matters where that presumption does 

not exist, does—— 

Mr. COMEY. Sure. 

Mr. BISHOP [continuing]. It not? 

Mr. COMEY. The FBI doesn’t do it, but, sure, I understand that 

they encouraged us to talk about it. 

Mr. BISHOP. So the agents, then, did not consider to conduct the 

interview in a recorded situation then? 

Mr. COMEY. We do not record noncustodial interviews. Now, 

maybe someday folks will urge us to change that policy, but we 

don’t. And we sure wouldn’t want to change it in one particular 

case. 

Mr. BISHOP. Well, that is the policy. I am just reading the policy 

that is issued by the Deputy Attorney General, James Cole, that— 

it was to you and to others in the Department of Justice—that establishes the policy. So if you don’t do it, I assume that you are 

doing it against the policy of the Department of Justice. 

Mr. COMEY. No. That policy only governs custodial interrogations, so people who have been locked up. We do not—and it is not 

inconsistent with Department of Justice policy—record noncustodial, that is, voluntary interviews, where someone is not in our custody. 

Mr. BISHOP. Well, I am reading this differently then, because it 

does say that there is an exception, that it is within your discretion 

to record such—— 

Mr. COMEY. Well, sure, you could. And I don’t know, maybe some 

other Federal investigative agencies do. The FBI’s practice is we do 

not record noncustodial interviews. 

Mr. BISHOP. Okay. Thank you, Director. 

I want to pivot, if I can, and build off Representative DeSantis’ 

questions with regard to the refugees attempting to enter the 

United States and specifically with regard to Syrian refugees. 

I am wondering if you can tell me—we have talked about this 

process and the fact that we do not have a process in place that 

we can rely upon. You have indicated before when you testified and 
94 

I asked the question that we just simply don’t have enough information to ensure that we have the information that we need to ensure that these people are not a threat to our country. 

Can you expand upon that now after a year? Can you tell me 

whether or not we have more information, more capabilities to vet 

these refugees? 

And I say this because, in my district in Michigan, in this fiscal 

year, Michigan has taken the fourth most refugees of all States, 

4,178. And we are the—we have taken the third most for Iraq, the 

second most from Syria. Michigan has absorbed an enormous number of refugees, and I think you can understand our concern with 

regard to the fact that we don’t have information necessary to identify whether or not they are a threat. 

Can you assuage my concern and the concerns of my constituents 

that we have a system in place that we can vet these individuals 

and they don’t pose a threat to our country? 

Mr. COMEY. I can assuage in part and restate my concern in 

part. 

Our process inside the United States Government has gotten 

much better at making sure we touch all possible sources of information about a refugee. The interview process has gotten more robust. So we have gotten our act together in that respect. 

The challenge remains, especially with respect to folks coming 

from Syria, we are unlikely to have anything in our holdings. That 

is, with people coming from Iraq, the United States Government 

was there for a very long period of time, we had biometrics, we had 

source information. We are unlikely to have that kind of picture 

about someone coming from Syria, and that is the piece I just 

wanted folks to be aware of. 

Mr. BISHOP. Has anything changed in your vetting process? Have 

you updated it? Do you have any concerns with an increased terrorist activity in the last 6 months, including New York, New Jersey, and Minneapolis. 

Has anything changed in the vetting process? Can you be confident that foreign fighters or other refugees entering the country 

are not planning future attacks on our country? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, as I said, over the last year, since I was last 

before you, the vetting process has gotten more effective in the 

ways I described. 

I am in the business where I can’t ever say there is no risk associated with someone. So we wake up every day, in the FBI, worrying about who might have gotten through in any form or fashion 

into the United States or who might be getting inspired while they 

are here. So I can’t ever give a blanket assurance. 

Mr. BISHOP. Director, I respect your opinion. And this is not a 

policy question. I am asking you based on your personal opinion as 

a law enforcement officer that we rely upon to keep this country 

safe. Is there anything that you would do to ensure, as you said, 

that our country is safe with regard to this refugee process? 

Mr. COMEY. Anything that I would do? 

Mr. BISHOP. Anything that you would do, any recommendations 

you have for Congress, for this country, that would ensure our safety? 
95 

Mr. COMEY. Yeah, I shy away from assurances of safety, given 

the nature of the threats we face. I do think that there may be opportunities to do more in the social media space, with refugees in 

particular. And I talked to Jeh Johnson yesterday about it. I know 

this is a work in progress. 

So much of people’s lives, even if we don’t have it in our holdings, 

may be in digital dust that they have left in different places. Are 

we harvesting that dust on people who want to come into this country in the best way? And I think there may be ground for improvement there. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you, Director. 

And I will yield back. But, Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent to enter the memorandum that I referenced earlier 

dated May 12, 2014, into the record. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Without objection, it will be made a part of the 

record. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
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Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Collins, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Director Comey, I appreciate you being here. You are, I believe, 

forthright, much more so than, you said, in any other criminal case 

we have had. But I am also still in the military. I am still in the 

Air Force Reserve. I went to my drill back in July. I was hit by 

an amazing amount of questions from different servicemembers on 

this issue of how does the former Secretary of State get to do this 

and yet we have members of the military who are prosecuted all 

the time. 

Your statements earlier were fairly startling when you said, I 

don’t know of anybody else that has been classified as this. Just 

since 2009, Department of Justice has prosecuted at least seven 

people under the Espionage Act, all for very similar cases. 

Now, you said go look at the facts. Well, we are looking at the 

facts in these cases. The interesting one—and, you know, you said 

that, in looking back at your investigation, mishandling or removal 

of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support 

bringing criminal charges on these facts. All right. Well, it didn’t 

take nothing but a simple legal search to find a Marine that fall 

in it. Now, I guess their name is not Jane or Joe, so they did get 

prosecuted. Okay? 

And this is the issue under 18 U.S.C. 793(f), gross negligence. 

This is what the Marine did. They took classified information that 

was put into a gym bag, cleaned out, washed, and took. All right? 

Simple mishandling. The court of appeals actually upheld this case, 

and this is what they said, that the purpose of Federal espionage 

statutes is to protect classified documents from unauthorized procedures, such as removal from proper place of custody, which would 

mean how you deal with this. Regardless of means of removal, it 

was apparent gross negligence and was a proximate cause of the 

document’s removal. 

United States v. McGinnis, said it is clear the Congress’ intent 

is to create a hierarchy of defenses against national security, ranging from classic spying to merely losing classified materials 

through gross negligence or the mishandling of. 

It was sort of also ironic for me that when I had to go back in 

July and this past month when I went back, I had to do my annual 

information assurance training. They went through everything that 

we have to do with handling classified information. I had been in 

a war zone, I have been in—this is just common knowledge among 

most everybody in the world. Obviously not to the Secretary. 

How can you then explain to me this Marine’s mistake in taking 

classified documents or mishandling them is more severe than the 

Secretary of State, who sent and received classified emails on a 

regular basis, including those that were originally classified, not 

those that were classified later but were originally classified? 

Mr. COMEY. I am familiar with the case, and I am quite certain 

it is not a 793(f) case. It was prosecuted—— 

Mr. COLLINS. His conviction was under 793(f). 

Mr. COMEY. Yeah, I don’t think—I mean, I will go back and 

check again. I would urge you to too. I am pretty sure it is not 

under the gross negligence prong of 793(f). But it is a Uniform 
103 

Court of Military Justice prosecution, not by the Department of 

Justice. Am I remembering correctly? 

Mr. COLLINS. This was from and is appealed out in the U.S. 

Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces of the United States. 

Mr. COMEY. Okay. But, regardless, I think even—I don’t think 

this is under the same provision, but even there, that is a case involving someone who actually stole classified information, hard copies. 

What people need to remember—and I don’t say this to make little of it. I think it is a very serious matter. What happened here 

is the Secretary used an unclassified email system, her personal 

system, to conduct her business. 

Mr. COLLINS. And let’s just stop right there. That, in and of 

itself—and I understand it’s an uncomfortable—we have been 

through a lot—you have been through a lot of questions. I apologize. But let’s just come back to the basics here. 

We are trying to parse that I didn’t have such as Sandy Berger 

or all these others who have been prosecuted, they took a hard 

copy. In today’s society, and even understanding if you go through 

any information assurance class, anything else, they tell you it cannot be on a personal laptop. In fact, there was another chief petty 

officer who had classified information on a personal computer. It 

went back and forth to a war zone. That is not physical documents. 

It’s on a—to parse words like that is why the American people 

are fed up. They are fed up with the IRS Commissioner when he 

does it. They are fed up here. I am not attacking your—I think you 

are one of the more upright people I met. I think you just blew it. 

I think the Attorney General blew it. I shared this with her. 

And I think when we come to this thing, there is no other way 

that you can say that there is no others that resemble this. As a 

lawyer, you are taught all the time to take facts and put them— 

they might not be exact, but they fit under the law. You can’t—I 

mean, so I guess maybe I am going to change the question, because 

we are going to go down a dead end. You are going to say it wasn’t 

and—— 

Mr. COMEY. Congressman, can I respond—— 

Mr. COLLINS. So let me ask you this. I want to change questions. 

Do you honestly believe that a lady, a woman of vast intelligence, 

who was the First Lady of the United States, who was a Senator 

who had access to classified information all of the Members here 

do, who was Secretary of State who had even further classification 

ability even beyond what we have here, do you believe that in this 

case, honestly, she was not grossly negligent or criminal in her 

acts? 

Mr. COMEY. First of all, I don’t believe anyone other than my 

wife. My question is what evidence do I have to establish that state 

of mind. And I don’t believe I have evidence to establish it beyond 

a reasonable doubt. 

Mr. COLLINS. Then, really, what we are saying here is this, is she 

is—this is in essence what you are saying. You said I can’t prove 

it, and I understand. There are a lot of out folks out there in the 

law that, you know, they come to us all the time. I am an attorney 

as well. And they come to us and say, it is not what we know, it 

is not what we think, it is what we can prove. I get it. 
104 

But here is the problem with this. And this is the person who 

is asking to lead this country. If she can hide behind this and blatantly get approval from the FBI through an investigation, which 

has been covered here thoroughly, then I just do not understand. 

She is either the most arrogant, which probably so, or the most 

insanely naive person we have ever met. 

Because when I actually show evidences of basically the same 

thing, which you can take fact and correlate to law, this is why the 

Armed Forces right now have the new term called the Clinton defense. ‘‘I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to.’’ It is the Clinton defense. 

With questions like this, Director, we have given the ability now 

to where nobody takes this seriously. And this is why people are 

upset. When it was originally classified, she can tell all the stories 

she wants. She can have the backup from you that no prosecutor— 

which is, again, amazing to me, that a law enforcement would tell 

the prosecutor—because how many times I have been on both sides 

of this where the law enforcement agent says I am not sure we 

have a case here, but when the prosecutor looks at it, the prosecutor says, yeah, there is a case here. 

I don’t really, frankly—no offense—care what—if I am prosecuting, what the law enforcement officer—if I can see the case and 

I can make it, that is my job, not yours. And yet now we have a 

whole system that has been turned upsidedown, not because I don’t 

believe your honesty of your people, but I believe you blew it because you, frankly, didn’t have the whole situation into effect 

where the FBI would look political. 

And, unfortunately, that is all you have become in this. And it 

is a sad thing. Because you all do great work, you have done great 

work, and you will do great work. But I think it is time to start— 

we just bring down the curtain. There is a wizard behind the thing, 

Ms. Hillary Clinton, who is playing all of us. Because she is not 

that naive. She is not stupid. She knew what she was doing, because she was simply too bored. If she, God forbid, gets into 1600 

Pennsylvania Avenue and just gets bored with the process, then 

God help us all. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. COMEY. Mr. Chairman, there are only two—— 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Director is permitted to respond. 

Mr. COMEY. Yeah, two pieces of that I need to respond to. 

First, you said hiding behind something. This case was investigated by a group of professionals. So if I blew it, they blew it too. 

Career FBI agents, the very best we have, were put on this case, 

and career analysts. We are a team. No one hid behind anything. 

American citizens should insist that we bring criminal charges if 

we are able to investigate and produce evidence beyond reasonable 

doubt to charge somebody. That should be true whether you are investigating me or you or Joe Smith on the street. That is the way 

this case was done. It is about evidence. 

And the rest of it I will let go. 

Mr. COLLINS. Mr. Chairman, I will—and I apologize—I am not— 

this is the problem, though. When you take it as a whole—it has 

been said up here this is a unique case. You talk about it being a 

unique case. Director, this is a unique because I truly—and I don’t 

think you convince hardly anybody except your own group that— 
105 

I don’t think you ever said they couldn’t blow it. They blew it. Anybody else would have been prosecuted under this, in my humble 

opinion. 

Mr. COMEY. You are just wrong. 

Mr. COLLINS. You say no. 

Mr. COMEY. You are just wrong. We will just have to agree to 

disagree. 

Mr. COLLINS. Well, unfortunately, there is a lot to disagree on 

this. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The gentleman from Idaho, Mr. Labrador, is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, Director Comey, I have always appreciated your testimony 

before this Committee, and I respect the work that you do for the 

FBI. 

When you made your recommendations to the Department of 

Justice to not prosecute Hillary Clinton, I actually disagreed with 

your decision, but I appreciated your candor in explaining to the 

American people and to us those recommendations. 

Since that decision, I continue to view you as honorable and a 

strong leader for the critical Federal agency. In fact, I did 20 townhall meetings over the recess, and I was lambasted at every one 

of them, in fact I think I lost votes, because I defended your integrity at every one of those townhall meetings and I told them why, 

even though I disagreed with your conclusions, I thought you came 

to it from an honorable place. 

However, as more information has come to light, I question the 

thoroughness—and I am not questioning your integrity, but the 

thoroughness and the scope of the FBI’s investigation. 

In the past week, we have learned of the grants of immunity to 

several key witnesses in the Clinton investigation, including Hillary Clinton’s former chief of staff and one of the individuals responsible for setting up her server. 

I am really disappointed by this revelation and confused as to 

why these immunity grants were necessary and appropriate, given 

the circumstances. It appears to me that the FBI was, very early 

in this investigation, too willing to strike deals and ensure that top 

officials could never be prosecuted for their role in what we now 

know was a massive breach of national security protocol. 

We have a duty to ensure that our FBI is still in the business 

of investigating criminal activity. So at what point in the investigation was Cheryl Mills offered immunity? 

Mr. COMEY. Cheryl Mills was never offered immunity. Not to 

quibble, but she was given letter immunity to govern—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. At what point? 

Mr. COMEY. June of 2016. So June of this year. So about 11 

months into the investigation. 

Mr. LABRADOR. So, and to be clear, was she offered immunity for 

interview and potential testimony or for turning over the laptop as 

evidence? 

Mr. COMEY. Turning over the laptop as evidence. It governed 

what could be done in terms of using it against her, that laptop. 
106 

Mr. LABRADOR. To your knowledge, was Cheryl Mills an uncooperative witness prior to the immunity deal? 

Mr. COMEY. I think our assessment was she was cooperative. I 

forget the month she was interviewed, but she was interviewed 

fully before that. 

Mr. LABRADOR. And she always cooperated? 

Mr. COMEY. I think our assessment was—again, this is the odd 

way I look at the world—we had no reason to believe she was being 

uncooperative. 

Mr. LABRADOR. So could this investigation have been completed 

without these grants of immunity in place? 

Mr. COMEY. In my view, it couldn’t be concluded professionally 

without doing our best to figure out what was on those laptops. So 

getting the laptops was very important to me and to the investigative team. 

Mr. LABRADOR. So in your vast experience as an investigator, as 

a DOJ attorney, now as an FBI Director, how many times have you 

allowed a person who is a material witness to a crime you are investigating to act as the lawyer in that same investigation? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, ‘‘to let’’ is what I am stumbling on. The FBI 

has no power to stop someone in a voluntary—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. No, no, no, no. You are speaking—let’s just be 

honest. You allowed, the FBI allowed Cheryl Mills to act as the attorney in a case that she was a material witness. How many times 

have you—— 

Mr. COMEY. In the same sense that I am ‘‘allowing’’ you to question me—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. How many times have you—— 

Mr. COMEY.—I can’t stop you from questioning me. 

Mr. LABRADOR. How many times have you done that prior? 

Mr. COMEY. I have not had an experience where the subject of 

the interview was represented by a lawyer who was also a witness 

in the investigation. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Okay. So you have never had that experience. 

Mr. COMEY. Not in my experience. 

Mr. LABRADOR. You prosecuted terrorists and mobsters, right? 

Mr. COMEY. Correct. 

Mr. LABRADOR. And during your time in Justice, how many times 

did you allow a lawyer who was a material witness to the case that 

you were prosecuting to also act as the subject of—as the attorney 

to the subject of that investigation? 

Mr. COMEY. As I said, I don’t think I have encountered this situation where a witness—a lawyer for the subject of the investigation 

was also a witness to the investigation. I don’t—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. So this was highly unusual, to have—— 

Mr. COMEY. In my experience, yes. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Okay. 

In your answer to Chairman Chaffetz, you indicated that you 

had no reason to disbelieve Paul Combetta when he told you that 

he erased the hard drive on his own. Is that correct? 

Mr. COMEY. Correct. 

Mr. LABRADOR. However, in the exchange on Reddit, he said, ‘‘I 

need to strip out a VIP’s email address from a bunch of archived 
107 

emails. Basically, they don’t want the VIP’s email address exposed 

to anyone.’’ 

Those two statements are not consistent. How can you say that 

he was truthful when he told you nobody told him to act this way 

but yet you saw this Reddit account that says where ‘‘they’’ told 

him that he needed to act in this way? 

Mr. COMEY. I think the assessment of the investigative team is 

those are two very—about two different subjects. One is a year before about—in the summer of 2014 about how to produce emails 

and whether there was a way to remove or mask the actual email 

address, the HRC, whatever it is, dot-com. And the other is about 

actually deleting the content of those emails sitting on the server. 

Mr. LABRADOR. It seems like in your investigation you found, 

time after time, evidence of destruction, evidence of breaking 

iPhones and other phones, all these different things, but yet you 

find that there is no evidence of intent. 

And I am a little bit confused as to your interpretation of 18 

U.S.C. 793(f). On the one hand, you have said that Secretary Clinton couldn’t be charged because her conduct was extremely careless 

but not grossly negligent, correct? 

Mr. COMEY. That is not exactly what I said. 

Mr. LABRADOR. That is what you said today. But you have also 

said—— 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t remember saying that. 

Mr. LABRADOR [continuing]. There was no evidence of her intent 

to harm the United States. 

But you will agree that a person can act with gross negligence 

or even act knowingly without possessing some additional specific 

intent. So which is it? Is it a lack of gross negligence that she had 

or a lack of intent? 

Mr. COMEY. In terms of my overall judgment about whether the 

case was worthy of prosecution, it is the lack of evidence to meet 

what I understand to be the elements of the crime, one; and, two, 

a consideration of what would be fair with respect to how other 

people have been treated. Those two things together tell me—and 

nothing has happened that has changed my view on this—that no 

reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. 

The specific-intent question, yes, I agree that specific intent to 

harm the United States is a different thing than a gross negligence 

or a willfulness. 

Mr. LABRADOR. So just one last question. You have talked about 

Mary and Joe. And Mary and Joe would be disciplined at the FBI 

if they did what Hillary Clinton did. If Mary and Joe came to you 

and asked for a promotion immediately after being disciplined, 

would you give them that promotion? 

Mr. COMEY. Tough to answer that hypothetical. It would depend 

upon the nature of the conduct and what discipline had been imposed. 

Mr. LABRADOR. And what if they ever asked for a promotion that 

would give them management and control of cybersecurity of your 

agency and the secrets of your agency after they had done these 

things? Would you give them that promotion? 

Mr. COMEY. That is a question that I don’t want to answer. 

Mr. LABRADOR. All right. 
108 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from California, Mrs. 

Walters, for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. WALTERS. Hi, Director Comey. 

Despite the absence of an intent mens rea standard in 18 U.S.C. 

section 793(f), you have said that there has never been a prosecution without evidence of intent. Thus, the standard has been read 

into the statute despite the specific language enacted. What exactly 

are the legal precedents that justify reading intent into the statute? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, my understanding of 793(f) is governed by a 

couple things—three things, really: one, the legislative history from 

1917, which I have read, and the one case that was prosecuted in 

the case. And those two things combined tell me that, when Congress enacted 793(f), they were very worried about the ‘‘gross negligence’’ language and actually put in legislative history we understand it to be something very close to ‘‘willfulness.’’ 

Then the next 100 years of treatment of that actually tell me 

that the Department of Justice for a century has had that same 

reservation, because they have only used it once. And that was in 

a case involving an FBI agent who was—in an espionage context. 

So those things together inform my judgment of it. 

Mrs. WALTERS. Okay. 

Considering the importance of protecting classified information 

for national security purposes, a lot of people disagree that an intent standard should be read into that statute. What specific language would you recommend we enact to ensure gross negligence 

is the actual standard for the statute, not intent? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t think that is something the Bureau ought to 

give advice on. It is a good question, as to what the standard 

should be. I could imagine Federal employees being very concerned 

about how you draw the line for criminal liability. But I don’t think 

that is something we ought to advise on, the legislation. 

Mrs. WALTERS. Okay. 

Should we enact a mens rea standard for extreme carelessness 

for the statute? 

Mr. COMEY. Same answer, I think, is appropriate. 

Mrs. WALTERS. Should we enact a civil fine? 

Mr. COMEY. A civil fine for mishandling classified information? 

Mrs. WALTERS. Uh-huh. 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know, actually, because it is already subject 

to discipline, which is suspension or loss of clearance or loss of job, 

which is a big monetary impact to the people disciplined. So I don’t 

know whether it is necessary. 

Mrs. WALTERS. Okay. 

I want to change subjects—— 

Mr. COMEY. Okay. 

Mrs. WALTERS [continuing]. For my next question. As you know, 

the number of criminal background checks for noncriminal purposes, such as for employment decisions, continues to increase annually. 

I don’t expect that you have this information on hand; however, 

would you be willing to provide the Committee and my staff with 

the number of criminal history record checks for fingerprint-based 
109 

background checks that the FBI has conducted over each of the 

past 5 years? 

And what are your thoughts regarding whether the FBI has the 

capacity to process the increasing number of background check requests? 

Mr. COMEY. I am sure we can get you that number, because I 

am sure we track it. So I will make sure my staff follows up with 

you. 

Mrs. WALTERS. Okay. 

Mr. COMEY. I do believe we have the resources. Where we have 

been strained is on the background checks for firearms purchases. 

The other background check processes we run, my overall sense is 

we have enough troops to do that. We are able to—we charge a fee 

for those, and I think we are able to generate the resources we 

need. 

Mrs. WALTERS. Okay. Thank you. 

I yield back my time. 

Mr. ISSA. Could the gentlelady yield to me? 

Mrs. WALTERS. Sure. I would be happy to yield to you, Mr. Issa. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. 

Director, some time ago, you appeared before this Committee, 

and you told us that you had exhausted all of the capability to 

unlock the San Bernardino iPhone, the 5C. Did that turn out to be 

true? 

Mr. COMEY. It is still true. 

Mr. ISSA. That you had exhausted all of your capability? 

Mr. COMEY. That the FBI had, yes. 

Mr. ISSA. So shouldn’t we be concerned from a cyber standpoint 

that you couldn’t unlock a phone that, in fact, an Israeli company 

came forward and unlocked for you and basically a Cambridge professor or student for 90 bucks has shown also to be able to unlock 

and mirror or duplicate the memory? 

I mean, and this is purely a question of—you apparently do not 

have the resources to do that which others can do. Isn’t that correct? 

Mr. COMEY. I am sure that is true in a whole bunch of respects, 

but, first, I have to correct you. I am not confirming—you said an 

Israeli company? I am not confirming—— 

Mr. ISSA. Well, okay. A contractor for you, reported to be, for a 

million dollars, unlocked the phone. So I would ask you to confirm, 

the phone got unlocked, right? 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, it did. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay. So the technology could be created outside of ordering a company to essentially, you know, reengineer their software for you, correct? 

Mr. COMEY. In this particular case, yes. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay. And so you lack that capability. How can this 

Committee know that you are in the process of developing that sort 

of technology, the equivalent of the Cambridge $90 technology? 

Mr. COMEY. How can the Committee know? 

Mr. ISSA. Yeah. I mean, in other words, where are the assurances that you are going to get robust enough? 

We have an encryption working group that was formed between 

multiple Committees to no small extent because of your action of 
110 

going to a magistrate and getting an order because you lacked that 

capability and were trying a new technique of ordering a company 

to go invent for you. 

The question is, how do we know that won’t happen again, that 

you will go to the court, ask for something when, in fact, the technology exists or could exist to do it in some other way, a technology 

that you should have at your disposal, or at least some Federal 

agency should, like the NSA? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, first of all, it could well happen again, which 

is why I think it is great that people are talking about what we 

might do about this problem. 

It is an interesting question as to whether we ought to invest in 

us having the ability to hack into people’s devices, whether that is 

the best solution. It doesn’t strike me as the best solution. But we 

are—and I have asked for more money in the 2017 budget—trying 

to invest in building those capabilities so when we really need to 

be able to get into a device we can. 

It is not scaleable, and I am not sure it would be thrilling to companies like Apple to know we are investing money to try and figure 

out how to hack into their stuff. 

Mr. ISSA. Well, isn’t it true that we have clandestine organizations who have the mandate to do just that, to look around the 

world and to be able to find information that people don’t know you 

can find, keep it secret, get it out there? 

And my question to you is, shouldn’t we, instead of giving you 

the money, simply continue to leverage other agencies who already 

have that mandate and then ask you to ask them to be your conduit for that when you have an appropriate need? 

Mr. COMEY. That is a reasonable question. It may be part of the 

solution. Real challenges in using those kinds of techniques in the 

bulk of our work, because it becomes public and exposed. But that 

has to be an important part of the conversation. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Franks, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. FRANKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you for being here, Director Comey. 

Director Comey, I—the last thing I want to do is to lecture you 

on anything related to the law, because I think you have given 

your whole life to that effort. 

And I guess, in the face of so many things already having been 

said here and asked, that all I can do is to try to sort of reassociate 

this in a reference of why there is a rule of law. You know, we had 

that little unpleasantness in the late 1770’s with England over this 

rule of law, because we realized there is really only two main ways 

to govern, and that is by the rule of men or the rule of law. And 

sometimes it is important for all of us just to kind of reconnect 

what this whole enterprise of America is all about. And I, again, 

don’t seek to lecture you in that regard. 

And I know—and you have to forgive me for being a Republican 

partisan here, because I am very biased in this case. But I know 

that when you interviewed Mrs. Clinton you were up against someone that really should have an earned doctorate of duplicity and 
111 

deception hanging on her wall. I don’t know that you probably 

could have interviewed a more gifting prevaricator. So I know you 

were up against the best. 

But, having said that, when I read the law here that I know so 

many have already referenced—I think maybe that is the best way 

for me to do that. 18 U.S.C. 1924 provides that any Federal official 

who ‘‘becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States and knowingly removes 

such documents or materials without authority and with the intent 

to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location 

shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than 1 

year or both.’’ 

Now, I didn’t miss one word there. It does not require—that section does not require an intent to profit. It doesn’t require harm to 

the United States or otherwise to act in any manner disloyal to the 

United States. It only requires intent to retain classified documents 

at an unauthorized location. 

And I believe, sir, in all sincerity to you, person to person, I 

belive that some of your comments reflected that that is what occurred. And, over the last several months, I believe that is the case. 

And so I have to—it is my job to ask you again why the simple 

clarity of that law was not applied in this case. Because the implications here are so profound. For your children and mine, for this 

country, they are so profound. 

And, again, I don’t envy your job, but I want to give you the remainder of the time to help me understand why a law like this that 

any law school graduate—if we can’t apply this one in this case, 

how in God’s name can we apply it in any case in the world? Why 

is it even written? 

So I am going to stop there and ask your forbearance and just 

go for it. 

Mr. COMEY. Sure. No, it is a reasonable question. 

That is the—18 U.S.C. 1924 is the misdemeanor mishandling 

statue that is the basis on which most people have been prosecuted 

for mishandling classified information have been prosecuted. It is 

not a strict liability statute. I was one of the people, when I was 

in the private sector, who argued against strict liability criminal 

statues. It requires, in the view of the Department of Justice and 

over long practice, proof of some criminal intent, not specific intent 

to harm the United States but a general awareness that you are 

doing that is unlawful. So you have to prove criminal intent. 

So there are two problems in this case. One is developing the evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Secretary Clinton 

acted with that criminal intent. And, second, even if you could do 

that, which you can’t, looking at the history of other cases, what 

would be the right thing to do here? Has anybody ever been prosecuted on anything near these facts? 

And, again, I keep telling the folks at home, when people tell you 

lots of people have been prosecuted for this, please demand the details of those cases. Because I have been through them all. 

So that combination of what the statute requires and the history 

of prosecutions told me—and, again, people can take a different 

view, and it is reasonable to disagree—that no reasonable prosecutor would bring that case. That, in a nutshell, is what it is. 
112 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, you said it was a reasonable question. That 

was a reasonable answer. But I can’t find that in the statute. 

Thank you, sir. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Richmond, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. RICHMOND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Director Comey—and I am going down a completely different 

path. Our law enforcement in this country have a consistent enemy 

in a group called sovereign citizens. And what I have seen in my 

district, we lost two officers in St. John Parrish about 4 years ago, 

and we just lost another three officers in Baton Rouge, with another couple injured. 

In the case in St. John Parrish, we actually had the perpetrators 

on the radar in north Louisiana, and, at some point, they moved 

to south Louisiana in my district and we lost contact. So, when St. 

John Parrish deputies went to their trailer park, they had no idea 

what they were walking into, and they walked into an ambush 

with AR-15s and AK-47s, and the unimaginable happened. 

So, through NCCIC and other things, are you all focused on making sure—and I think there are about 100,000 of them. But are you 

all focused on making sure that our law enforcement has the best 

information when dealing with, whether it is sovereign citizens or 

terrorist cells or other bad actors, that that information gets to the 

locals so they are not surprised and ambushed? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, we sure are. And I don’t know the circumstances of that case, but I will find out the circumstances. 

In two respects, we want, obviously, people to know when someone is wanted. But, more than that, we have a known or suspected 

terrorist file that should have information in that about people we 

are worried about so that if an officeris making a stop or going up 

to execute a search warrant and they run that address of that person, they will get a hit on what we call the KST file. 

So that is our objective. And if there are ways to make it better, 

we want to. 

Mr. RICHMOND. Now, let’s switch lanes a little bit, because this 

is one of—I think an issue when we start talking about criminal 

justice reform and we start talking about the FBI. In my community and communities of color and with elected officials, there 

seems to be two standards: one for low-level elected officials and 

then one for other people. 

So I guess the facts I will give you of some of our cases—and you 

tell me if it sounds inconsistent with your knowledge of the law 

and your protocol, but nonprofit organizations where elected officials have either been on boards or had some affiliation with, when 

those funds are used in a manner that benefits them personally, 

they have been prosecuted. And I mean for amounts that range 

from anywhere from $2,000 upwards to $100,000. 

Your interpretation of the law, that if nonprofit funds are used 

to benefit a person and not the organization, that that is a theft 

of funds—because I believe that those are a lot of the charges that 

I have seen in my community. Would you agree with that? 

Director COMEY. Sure, it could be. And I know from personal experience, having done these cases, that is often—that is at the center of a case involving a corrupt official. 
113 

Mr. RICHMOND. Now, let’s take elected official out and just take 

any foundation director or board director or executive director who 

would use the funds of a nonprofit to pay personal debts or bills 

or just takes money. You would agree that that would constitute 

a violation of the law, criminal statute? 

Mr. COMEY. Potentially. On the Federal side, potentially of wire 

fraud, mail fraud, or a tax charge, potentially. 

Mr. RICHMOND. The other thing that I would say is that, in our 

community, we feel that it is selective prosecution; that if you are 

rich, you have another standard; that if you are an African-American, you have another standard. 

And there are a number of cases that I will give you off-line, but 

it appears that—and my concern is the authority of your agents to 

decide that a person is bad and then take them through holy hell 

to try to get to the ultimate conclusion that the agent made, and 

they don’t let the facts get in their way. And at the end of the day, 

you have businesspeople who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to protect their reputation and to fight a charge that they ultimately win, but now they are broke, they are defeated, because, 

when it comes out, it says the United States of America versus you. 

So I would just ask you to create a mindset within the Department that they understand the consequences of leaks to the press, 

charges, and what happens if—when those charges are really not 

substantiated, you still break a person. And I think that you all 

have a responsibility to be very careful with the awesome power 

that you all are given. 

And, with that, Mr. Chairman, I thank back—I would yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair thanks the gentleman. 

The Director is welcome to respond. 

Mr. COMEY. I very much agree with what you said, Congressman, at the end of that. The power to investigate is the power to 

ruin. Obviously, charging people can also be ruinous. So it is when 

we have to be extraordinarily prudent in exercising fair, openminded, and careful. So I very much agree with that. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Trott, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. TROTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Director, for being here. And thank you for your 

service to our country. 

When you made your statement at the press conference on July 

5, you said, ‘‘I have not coordinate or reviewed this statement in 

any way with the Department of Justice or any part of government. 

They do not know what I am about to say.’’ 

I have no reason to question your integrity, but is there any 

chance that someone working in your office or as part of this investigation knew what you were going to decide and recommend and 

maybe told one of the Attorney General’s staff what was about to 

happen on July 5? 

Mr. COMEY. Anything is possible. I would—I think I would be 

willing to bet my life that didn’t happen—— 

Mr. TROTT. Okay. 

Mr. COMEY [continuing]. Just because I know my folks. 

Mr. TROTT. So here is why I ask. The facts give me pause. The 

investigation started in July of 2015. Many of us in Congress, in-
114 

cluding myself, suggested that the Attorney General should recuse 

herself because of her friendship with the Clintons and because of 

her desire to continue on as Attorney General in a Clinton administration. 

Then she had the fortuitous meeting on the airplane with former 

President Clinton on June 30. Then on July 2, give or take, she 

came out and said, you know, I have created an appearance of impropriety, and so I am going to just follow whatever the FBI Director’s recommendation is. 

And then, 3 days later, you had your press conference. And in 

your press conference, you said, ‘‘In our system of justice, the prosecutors make the decisions about what charges are appropriate 

based on the evidence.’’ That is not what happened in this case. Ultimately, you made the decision. Isn’t that what happened? 

Mr. COMEY. Well, I made public my recommendation. The decision to decline the case was made at the Justice Department. 

Mr. TROTT. But before you had that press conference, you knew, 

based on the Attorney General’s public comments that she was 

going to follow whatever you recommended. So, ultimately, you 

made the decision in this case as to whether or not charges should 

be filed against Secretary Clinton. Isn’t that the reality of what 

happened? 

Mr. COMEY. I think that is a fair characterization. The only thing 

I would add to that is I think she said—I don’t remember exactly— 

that she would defer to the FBI and the career prosecutors at the 

Department of Justice. 

But, look, I knew that once I made public the FBI’s view that 

this wasn’t a prosecutable case that there was virtually zero chance 

that the Department of Justice was going to go in a different direction. But part of my decision was based on my prediction that there 

was no way the Department of Justice would prosecute on these 

facts in any event. 

So I think your characterization is fair, but I just wanted to add 

that color to it. 

Mr. TROTT. But you can see how some of us would look at the 

dates and the facts leading up to your press conference and think, 

okay, for a year we have been suggesting she is not the appropriate 

person to make the ultimate decision as to whether charges should 

be filed; she won’t recuse herself. And then 3 days before you come 

out with your recommendation, which she has already said she is 

going to follow, she basically decides to recuse herself. Those facts 

give me pause. 

Mr. COMEY. I get why folks would ask about that, but I actually 

think it is—there are two dates that matter. But I think what generated that was the controversy around her meeting with President 

Clinton, not the interview with Secretary Clinton. 

Mr. TROTT. That is a whole other discussion. 

So let’s talk about Cheryl Mills. So you have said earlier today 

that it really wasn’t up to you to weigh in on whether there was 

a conflict for Ms. Mills to act as Secretary Clinton’s lawyer in the 

interview. 

But, again, you are kind of taking your attorney hat on and off 

whenever it is convenient. You decided that at the beginning of 

that interview it wasn’t appropriate for you to weigh in as a lawyer 
115 

suggesting there was a conflict. But then again, your recommendation is, ultimately, as a lawyer, what is being done in this case. Do 

you see little bit of inconsistency there or no? 

Mr. COMEY. No, I see the point about the—look, I would rather 

not have an attorney hat on at any time. I put it on because I 

thought that was what was necessary at the conclusion of this investigation. But I stand by that. The agents of the FBI, it is not 

to them to try and kick out someone’s lawyer. 

Mr. TROTT. Well, what would have happened if you had said, Ms. 

Mills, because of the history here, you can’t be in this interview? 

Mr. COMEY. I don’t know. I don’t know. 

Mr. TROTT. Could you have said that to her? 

Mr. COMEY. I guess you could. It would be well outside our normal role. 

Mr. TROTT. So, a number of times today, you have said there 

really is no double standard. And so now I am just asking you as 

a citizen and not even in your capacity as Director of FBI, can you 

sort of see why a lot of Americans are bothered by a perceived double standard? 

Because if any of the gentlemen sitting behind you this morning, 

who I assume are with the Department, had done some of the 

things Ms. Clinton did and told some of the lies that she told, you 

said in your statement that this is not to suggest under similar circumstances there wouldn’t be consequences. In fact, there would 

be—they would be subjected to administrative sanctions. 

And now we have an election going on where she is seeking a 

pretty big promotion. So maybe your point is she wouldn’t be 

charged under similar facts, but can you sort of see why so many 

people are bothered by the facts in this case, given that really nothing happened to her and now she is running for President of the 

United States? I mean, just, can you see the optics on that are 

troubling? 

Mr. COMEY. Oh, I totally get that. That is one of the reasons I 

am trying to answer as many questions as I can, because I get that 

question. 

But, again, folks need to realize, in the FBI, if you did this, you 

would be in huge trouble. I am certain of that. You would be disciplined in some serious way. You might be fired. I am also certain 

you would not be prosecuted criminally on these facts. 

Mr. TROTT. And you have said that, and I appreciate it. 

Let me just ask one quick question, because I am out of time. 

But Mr. Bishop started to talk about this, and his district is affected, as well, in Michigan. But my district in southeast Michigan 

has the third-largest settlement of Syrian refugees of any city in 

the country, behind San Diego and Chicago. That is Troy, Michigan. 

And you said last fall in front of a Homeland Security Committee 

hearing that you really didn’t have the data to properly vet the 

Syrian refugees that are trying to come in, and you said that again 

this morning. 

But, you know, last weekend, I am at a grocery store and a 

Starbucks, and two different constituents walked up to me and 

said, ‘‘Can’t you stop the President’s resettlement of Syrian refugees into Troy, Michigan? We are all afraid.’’ And they are based 
116 

on, largely, your comment that we don’t have the database to really 

vet these folks. 

Anything I can tell the folks back in Michigan that we are doing, 

other than—all I say now is we just have to wait for a new President, because this President has increased the number of refugees 

by 60 and 30 percent year over year the last 2 years, we just have 

to wait for a new President. I would like to be able to say the FBI 

is doing something different than they were doing last year when 

you made those comments. 

Mr. COMEY. Well, as I said earlier, they can know that we are— 

if there is a whiff about this person somewhere in the U.S. Government’s vast holdings, we will find it. And the second thing they can 

know is, if we get a whiff about somebody once they are in, we are 

going to cover that in a pretty tight way. 

What I can’t promise people is that if—I can’t query what is not 

in our holdings. That is the only reservation I offer to people. 

Mr. TROTT. Thank you, sir. 

I yield back. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Well, Director Comey, during questioning earlier, there was a dispute that arose over the contents of one or 

more of the immunity letters that were issued, particularly with regard to the issue of whether or not it contained immunity for destroying documents, emails. 

The individual who was questioning you about that was former 

Chairman Issa of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and I want him to be able to clarify. Because we have contacted the Department of Justice and asked them to read the immunity letters to us. 

So the gentleman is recognized briefly. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I will try to be very 

brief. 

Under the immunity agreement with one or more individuals— 

we will use Cheryl Mills as, clearly, one of the individuals—she negotiated a very, very good deal from what we can discover. She did 

not just receive immunity related to the production of the drive, 

computer, and the contents but, in fact, received immunity under 

18 U.S.C. 793(e) and (f), 1924 U.S.C.—18 U.S.C. 1924, and the socalled David Petraeus portion, 18 U.S.C. 2071. And I will focus on 

2071. Her immunity is against any and all taking, destruction—or 

even obstruction, the way we read it—of documents, classified or 

unclassified. 

Now, the only question I have for you is—and I know you are 

going to put this to Justice and we may have to ask them separately—for the purposes of what you needed as an investigator, because you were the person that wanted access to the computer, 

does that deal make any sense, to, in return for things which she 

could have objected to as an attorney and held back but which had 

no known proffer of leading to some criminal indictment of somebody else, she received complete immunity, as we read it, from obstruction or destruction of documents, classified and unclassified. 

And that is based on a re-review of the immunity agreement. 

Mr. COMEY. You know, I think this is—you are right, this is a 

question best addressed to Justice. But I think you are misunderstanding it. 
117 

As I understand it, this was a promise in writing from the Department of Justice: If you give us the laptops, we will not use anything on the laptops directly against you in a prosecution for that 

list of offenses. It is not immunity for those offenses if there is 

some other evidence. 

Now, that said, I am not exactly sure why her lawyer asked for 

it, because, by that point in the investigation, we didn’t have a case 

on her to begin with. 

Mr. ISSA. Well, I understand that. But based on the Reddit discovery and others, the ‘‘they asked me to do it’’—and you said so 

yourself, it was probably Cheryl Mills, the ‘‘they.’’ You have an immune witness who has to tell you who they were. If the ‘‘they were’’ 

told me to delete, and that is Cheryl Mills, then, in fact, you have 

evidence from an immune witness of a crime perpetrated by Cheryl 

Mills, the ordering of the destruction of any document, classified or 

unclassified, which, clearly, she seems to have done. 

Mr. COMEY. Then she wouldn’t be protected from that. If we developed evidence that she had obstructed justice in some fashion— 

all she is protected from is we can’t use as evidence something that 

is on the laptop she gave us—— 

Mr. ISSA. Right. So the information put into the record today, 

which included these Reddit discoveries, show that there is a they 

who asked to have the destruction of information. Under 18 U.S.C. 

2071, if she doesn’t have immunity for that order, she could, and 

by definition should, be charged. Because ordering somebody else 

to destroy something, as an attorney, well after there were subpoenas in place that were very specific, that is clearly a willful act, 

isn’t it? 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, would you yield? 

Mr. ISSA. Of course. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Your line of questioning—well, first, let me 

show my cards. I believe that Cheryl Mills has an impeccable character, as my line of questioning suggested that Director Comey and 

his staff have impeccable character. 

But, my good friend, there is immunity given—I don’t think this 

applies to Ms. Mills, and I looked at the sections that you are 

speaking of—if you take local, criminal, and State actions, given to 

the worst of characters for a variety of reasons. That was not the 

reason given to Ms. Mills. I am sure that it is a lawyer that was 

trying to be the most effective counsel to Ms. Mills as possible. 

Mr. ISSA. Well, reclaiming my time, the gentlelady’s point may 

be true. I am only speaking to the Director based on things were 

done that should not have been done. We now have evidence in 

front of this Committee, in the record, of people destroying records 

of activities as late as a few days ago. 

So the fact that there still should be an open question, first of 

all, as to could she be prosecuted, and if in fact the ‘‘they have told 

me to destroy this,’’ under the exact same statute that included 

David Petraeus, who was no longer on Active Duty, 18 U.S.C. 2071, 

there is at least a case to be made. 

Now, the problem we have is the lawyer negotiated a set of terms 

which hopefully doesn’t mean that she gets a free pass even if she 

willfully ordered the destruction of documents, which it does appear she did. 
118 

And, look, my job is not to be judge, jury, or hangman. My job 

is to look at what has been presented to us, ask the highest law 

enforcement officer in the land to, in fact, look into it. Because it 

does appear as though it is there. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. A brief yield, my good friend. 

Mr. ISSA. Of course. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Certainly, we have an oversight responsibility 

of the Director. I think he has been very forthright. But none of 

the actions of destruction can be—I don’t think we have anything 

in evidence that suggests that Ms. Mills contributed to the dictating or directing—— 

Mr. ISSA. Well, the gentlelady may not have been—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE [continuing]. Any destruction. 

Mr. ISSA. The gentlelady may not have been here—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. So we can’t speculate here. 

Mr. ISSA. The gentlelady may not have been here at the time, but 

the Director himself, when asked who would the ‘‘they’’ would have 

been in that order to destroy, at least said it probably was or likely 

could have been Cheryl Mills. We are not saying it is. What we are 

saying is you have an immune witness. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The gentleman will suspend. 

Mr. ISSA. Of course. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The purpose of this was to set the record 

straight as to what the content of the document was. That has been 

accomplished. And the debate will continue on—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOODLATTE [continuing]. And continue on outside of this 

hearing room. 

Mr. ISSA. And I would only—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. We can state; we cannot speculate. I yield—— 

Mr. ISSA. And I would only ask the Director be able to review 

those document at Justice and follow up with the Committee. It 

would be very helpful to all of us. 

I thank the Chairman. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Director has answered in the affirmative 

that he will do that. 

Mr. COMEY. Yes, we will follow up. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. First of all, I want to thank Director Comey. We 

didn’t make 4 hours and 40 minutes, but we did almost make 4 

hours, and I know you have been generous with your time. 

However, I will also say that I think a lot of the questions here 

indicate a great deal of concern about the manner in which this investigation was conducted, how the conclusions were drawn, and 

the close proximity to that and the meeting of the Attorney General 

with former President Clinton on a tarmac. At the same time, she 

then said, ‘‘Well, I am going to recuse myself,’’ and then, shortly 

after that, you took over and announced your conclusions in this 

case, which are hotly disputed, as you can tell. 

The Committee and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee have referred to the United States Attorney for the Eastern 

District of—for the District of Columbia a referral based upon her 

testimony before the Select Committee on Benghazi, suggesting 

that your statement at your press conference and your testimony 

before the Oversight and Government Reform Committee very 
119 

clearly contradicted a number of statements she made under oath 

before that Committee. 

And I want to stress to you how important I think it is that we 

made that referral for the purpose of making sure that no one is 

above the law. And in many cases regarding investigations, it is 

not just the underlying actions that are important, but they are the 

efforts of people to cover those up through perjury, through obstruction of justice, through destruction of documents. 

And so I would ask that this matter be taken very, very seriously 

as you pursue whatever actions the Department chooses to take, 

making sure that no one is above the law. 

Mr. COMEY. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. With that, that concludes today’s hearing, and 

I thank our distinguished witness for attending. 

Without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days to 

submit additional written questions for the witness or additional 

materials for the record. 

And the hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:56 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(121) 

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD
122 

Note: The Committee did not receive a response from the witness at the time this hearing 

record was finalized. 

Questions for the Record submitted to the Honorable James B. Comey, 

Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation* 
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124 
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