Andy Dukes
PREMIER
Sounds like three options to me.
1. He lied
2. He was correct
3. He was derelict
I'm good with #2 because Comey's speech laid out Hillary's criminal actions: violating 18 U.S.C. 793(f), which states:
Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed . . . Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
(emphasis added)
In criminal law, unless strict liability applies, a statute can require four distinct mental states (“mens rea”) to commit a crime: (i) purpose, (ii) knowledge, (iii) recklessness, and (iv) criminal/gross negligence.
I'm good with #3 because despite the above he chose not to apply the law to Hillary "at this time".
But that also means you think he lied when under oath he testified the following:
“We went at this very hard to see if we could make a case,” Comey told the hastily summoned session of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “The appropriate resolution of this case was not to bring a criminal prosecution.”
“We did not find evidence sufficient to establish that she knew she was sending classified information,”
Comey told the committee it’s “not true” that a separate standard was applied to Clinton or that politics tainted the inquiry. The FBI chief -- who has been a registered Republican in the past but said Thursday that’s no longer the case -- said the investigation was conducted by people who didn’t “give a hoot about politics” and performed their work in “an apolitical and professional way.”