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Report: Loretta Lynch Reacted With 'Steely Silence' to Comey's Evidence About Email Investigation

Loretta Lynch
Attorney General Loretta Lynch / AP
June 14, 2017

Former FBI Director James Comey met with the Senate Intelligence Committee in multiple private sessions in which he detailed Loretta Lynch's reaction of silence to his evidence from the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server.

Comey met with the committee multiple times over the last couple months and detailed an encounter with Lynch, who served as former President Barack Obama's attorney general, shortly before Clinton's email probe was shut down, Circa reported.

Comey told lawmakers in the close door session that he raised his concern with the attorney general that she had created a conflict of interest by meeting with Clinton’s husband, the former President Bill Clinton, on an airport tarmac while the investigation was ongoing.

During the conversation, Comey told lawmakers he confronted Lynch with a highly sensitive piece of evidence, a communication between two political figures that suggested Lynch had agreed to put the kibosh on any prosecution of Clinton.

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The sources also said that Comey's testimony in private conflicted with recent reports in the news media suggesting the FBI had intercepted an email between Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who at the time was the Democratic Party chairwoman, and a third party. Those media reports suggested that the information about the email was more than likely fake and a ruse possibly planted by the Russians. The Washington Post story suggested the dubious email is what motivated Comey, who still was not sure of the intelligence, to come forward with his findings in the Clinton investigation and shut down the case.

"[Comey said] the attorney general looked at the document then looked up with a steely silence that lasted for some time, then asked him if he had any other business with her and if not that he should leave her office," a briefed source told Circa.

"[Comey] took that interaction and the fact she had met with Bill Clinton as enough reason to decide he would not allow the Justice Department to decide the fate of the case and instead would go public," the source added.

Another source indicated that the tarmac meeting between Clinton and Lynch was the public excuse for not yielding to Lynch to make the announcement, but said Comey had other evidence that was more concerning to him.