FBI head faces Congress over Clinton email investigation

Washington: FBI Director James Comey made his first appearance Thursday before Congress since announcing the agency's recommendation to not prosecute Hillary Clinton over her private email setup.

Comey fielded questions from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about an FBI announcement that allayed the threat of criminal charges against the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee but also revived public scrutiny of her handling of classified information.

Committee chairman, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told Comey that the FBI's decision revealed a "double standard" for powerful people. Had the "average Joe" done what she had done, he said, he would go to prison.

"If your name isn't Clinton, or you're not part of the powerful elite, then Lady Justice will act differently," Chaffetz said in his opening statement, adding that the FBI had set a "dangerous precedent" in letting Clinton off the hook without consequences.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Wednesday that she accepted the recommendations and findings of Comey and of her career prosecutors and would not file charges against Clinton. Lynch is likely to face questions of her own next week at a separate oversight hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.

Comey's decision, and the way he delivered it, infuriated Republicans who felt that the FBI director in his unusually detailed and critical televised statement Tuesday had laid out a sufficient basis for prosecution.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has said "there are a lot more questions that need to be answered" and, in a letter to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, requested that Clinton be barred from receiving classified briefings for the rest of the campaign, a move that "certainly constitutes appropriate sanctions." Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump complained that the system was "rigged."

The hearing served as a means to energize a conservative base that might be disillusioned with Trump, as Republicans are working to hold onto their majority in Congress. But privately, some Republicans question the decision to pick a fight with Comey, a Republican from the Bush Justice Department with a reputation for independence.

On Tuesday, in a stinging assessment of her email practices as secretary of state, Comey rebuked Clinton and her aides for being "extremely careless" in their handling of classified information and contradicted many of the defenses and explanations she's put forward for months. But he also said there was no evidence anyone willfully or intentionally mishandled classified information and that "no reasonable prosecutor" would pursue such a case.

Comey, who served as deputy attorney general in the George W. Bush administration, was appointed in 2013 to a 10-year term as FBI director by President Barack Obama.