FBI Director James Comey says there is no pressure to finish a probe of Hillary Clinton’s email server before the Democratic National Convention in July.
“The urgency is to do it well and do it promptly,” he told The Niagara Gazette on Monday. “And ‘well’ comes first. [I’m staying] close to this one to make sure we have the resources to do it competently.”
{mosads}The FBI formally confirmed it is investigating Clinton’s personal storage device in a letter from FBI general counsel James Baker last February.
Critics charge that Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of State potentially jeopardized sensitive national intelligence.
Clinton said last Sunday she is unconcerned that the FBI’s probe of her server may not conclude before her party’s convention this summer.
“No, I’m not,” she said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” when asked if she is worried about the issue lingering until the event in Philadelphia.
“I don’t think anything inappropriate was done,” the Democratic presidential front-runner added. “And so I have to let [the FBI] decide how to resolve their security inquiry, but I’m not at all worried about it.”
The State Department announced last Friday it is deferring its own investigation of Clinton’s email practices until the FBI’s probe concludes.
The agency began examining 22 of Clinton’s emails in February, double-checking the classification status of the messages during her tenure there.
At issue is whether the emails should have been classified at the highest level of “top secret” when they were sent, or if the information was not given that status until after they were sent.
“While the ongoing law enforcement investigation is taking place, our internal review is on hold, pending the completion of that,” State spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said last Friday. “We do not want our internal review to complicate or impede the progress of their ongoing law enforcement investigation.”