It wasn’t a chance encounter.
House lawmakers on Wednesday questioned former Obama administration Attorney General Loretta Lynch over her tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton and former FBI Director James Comey’s decision to leave her out of his announcement on the Hillary Clinton email investigation, in what is likely to be the final interview of the Republican-led investigation into the FBI.
Lynch testified behind closed doors Wednesday before the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, where Republicans are probing the FBI’s actions during 2016 in the Clinton and Russia FBI probes.
Leaving the interview, Democrats said there was nothing new to learn from Lynch, while Republicans pointed to her differences with Comey in the Clinton investigation and said there were still questions about her meeting with the former President in 2016.
“You might note she had not recused herself from the Hillary Clinton case, and yet we’re finding some very interesting things about his feeling that he didn’t have to inform her before, during or after he made the decision not to prosecute,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, a retiring California Republican. “There will be details in the transcript, but that’s an area I think of considerable interest just to get a feel for just how insubordinate Comey was during the Obama administration leading to his firing by President Trump.”[…]
Lawmakers said Lynch’s interview was less contentious than Comey, and she and her attorneys weren’t raising objections to questions like Comey did with certain topics.
Issa said there were still questions over what happened with her tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton, suggesting that when Lynch met with him in 2016, Clinton could have helped the career of the nation’s top law enforcement officer.
“I think the one thing that everyone understands is Loretta Lynch is meeting with a very powerful and wealthy man, the former President, somebody controlling a half-billion dollar global fund who also, in fact, could’ve helped during her career considering her career was about to end,” Issa said. “She was leaving office and was going to be looking for contacts. So the influence that somebody like President Clinton had was undeniable.”