Comey: Our investigation found that there was classified information sent.
Gowdy: It was not true?
Comey: That's what I said.
Gowdy: OK. Well, I'm looking for a shorter answer so you and I are not here quite as long. Secretary Clinton said there was nothing marked classified on her e-mails sent or received. Was that true?
Comey: That's not true. There were a small number of portion markings on I think three of the documents.
Gowdy: Secretary Clinton said "I did not e-mail any classified information to anyone on my e-mail there was no classified material." That is true?
Comey: There was classified information emailed.
Gowdy: Secretary Clinton used one device, was that true?
Comey: She used multiple devices during the four years of her term as Secretary of State.
Gowdy: Secretary Clinton said all work related emails were returned to the State Department. Was that true?
Comey: No. We found work related email, thousands, that were not returned.
Gowdy: Secretary Clinton said neither she or anyone else deleted work related emails from her personal account.
Comey: That's a harder one to answer. We found traces of work related emails in — on devices or in space. Whether they were deleted or when a server was changed out something happened to them, there's no doubt that the work related emails that were removed electronically from the email system.
[
This statement was actually a lie, and James Comey knew at the time he made it that it was a lie. It's one of the reasons you should not believe anyone who says he's anything but a dirty cop. Evidence that Hillary Clinton and her criminal accessories took extraordinary steps to insure that the deleted emails could not be recovered was already in the FBI's possession when he made that statement.
]
Gowdy: Secretary Clinton said her lawyers read every one of the emails and were overly inclusive. Did her lawyers read the email content individually?
Comey: No.
Gowdy: Well, in the interest of time and because I have a plane to catch tomorrow afternoon, I'm not going to go through any more of the false statements but I am going to ask you to put on your old hat. Faults exculpatory statements are used for what?
Comey: Well, either for a substantive prosecution or evidence of intent in a criminal prosecution.
Gowdy: Exactly. Intent and consciousness of guilt, right?
Comey: Right.
Gowdy: Consciousness of guilt, and intent. In your old job, you would prove intent, as you just referenced, by showing the jury evidence of a complex scheme that was designed for the very purpose of concealing the public record. And you would be arguing, in addition to concealment, the destruction that you and I just talked about, or certainly the failure to preserve. You would argue all of that under the heading of intent.
You would also be arguing the pervasiveness of the scheme: when it started, when it ended, and the number of emails, whether they were originally classified or up-classified. You would argue all of that under the heading of intent.
You would also probably, under “common scheme or plan,” argue the “burn bags” of daily calendar entires, or the missing daily calendar entires as a common scheme or plan to conceal.
Two days ago, Director, you said a reasonable person in her position should have known a private email is no place to sand and receive classified information. And you’re right: an average person does know not to do that. This is no average person: this is a former First Lady, a former United States Senator, and a former Secretary of State that the president now contends is the most competent, qualified person to be president since [Thomas] Jefferson. He didn’t say that in ’08, but he says it now.
She affirmatively rejected efforts to give her a state.gov account, she kept these private e-mails for almost two years, and only turned them over to Congress because we found out she had a private e-mail account.
So you have a rogue e-mail system set up before she took the oath of office; thousands of what we now know to be classified e-mails, some of which were classified at the time; one of her more frequent e-mailed comrades was, in fact, hacked, and you don’t know whether or not she was; and this scheme took place over long period of time and resulted in the destruction of public records — and yet you say there is insufficient evidence of intent?
You say she was “extremely careless,” but not intentionally so. Now, you and I both know intent is really difficult to prove. Very rarely do defendants announce, “On this day, I intend to break this criminal code section. Just to put everyone on notice, I am going to break the law on this day.” It never happens that way. You have to do it with circumstantial evidence — or, if you’re Congress, and you realize how difficult it is to prove specific intent, you will formulate a statute that allows for “gross negligence.”