ADVERTISEMENT

Warren: Clinton Email Scandal Sets Precedent for More FBI Transparency on Financial Crisis

September 15, 2016

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) argued Thursday that the FBI should release more documents on the 2008 financial crisis because of the precedent the FBI set with Hillary Clinton’s email scandal.

Warren said on Bloomberg TV the "intense public interest" with Clinton’s private email server compares to that of the 2008 financial crisis.

"You make a clever case here in your letter to the director of the FBI. You say there is precedent here because the FBI released so much information about their investigation with Hillary Clinton and her email server that they should be able to do the same thing for the investigation here," host David Gura said to Warren.

"He [FBI Director James Comey] stood up and had a long press conference about it and then went in and testified about it," Warren said. "And his own standard was he did that, he said, because there was intense public interest in that topic and that is what happened with Hillary Clinton’s emails."

Warren, known as one of the more liberal members of the Senate, has been demanding an independent probe to see why no big bankers were prosecuted and jailed after the financial crisis, the Hill reported Thursday.

The FBI usually does not make public its reasoning behind not pursuing charges in a criminal case. But Warren is looking to build on Comey’s decision to release files related to the investigation into Clinton’s private email server, arguing there is now a clear precedent for releasing FBI files if it is in the public interest.

The senator has renewed her calls for the FBI to disclose documents relating to the 2008 crisis amid the 8th anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers.