By Bronte Price, PoliticKING
The director of the F.B.I. on Wednesday said that he would not be rushed into finishing the agency’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails based on an election timetable. He did not say whether or not the inquiry would be wrapped up by the November presidential election.
“We want to do it well and we want to do it promptly, so I feel pressure to do both of those things,” James Comey, the F.B.I. director, said.
“I don’t tether to any particular external deadline,” he added, “so I do feel the pressure to do it well and promptly, but as between the two, I always choose well.”
Hillary Clinton has said that the investigation is a “security inquiry,” however, Comey said that he was “not familiar with the term.”
The F.B.I.’s case began when the inspectors general of the State Department and the nation’s intelligence agencies submitted a security referral from, over concern that classified information might have been stored outside a secure government network.
FBI Director James Comey questions Hillary Clinton's description of FBI email investigation: https://t.co/19BWGB7hGlpic.twitter.com/8gpsssiBbc
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 11, 2016
Law enforcement officials said the case then became an investigation into whether or not anyone had committed a crime in handling classified information. Comey said he has receiving regular briefings on the status of the investigation, including interviews with some of Clinton’s closest aides at the State Department.
Clinton has maintained that she never mishandled, sent or received any email “marked” classified on her private server. However, government reviews of over 50,000 emails that she had turned over to the State Department, determined that over a thousand of them contained information that later had to be upgraded to classified and withheld from public view. 22 of the emails had to be deemed "top secret."
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