Newly released documents reveal that then-FBI Director James Comey’s draft statement on the Hillary Clinton email probe was edited numerous times before his public announcement, in ways that seemed to considerably water down the bureau’s findings.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, released copies Thursday of the edits to Comey’s highly scrutinized statement.
One showed language was changed to describe the actions of Clinton and her colleagues as “extremely careless” as opposed to “grossly negligent.” This is a key legal distinction.
Johnson, writing about his concerns in a letter Thursday to FBI Director Christopher Wray, said the original “could be read as a finding of criminality in Secretary Clinton’s handling of classified material.”
“The edited statement deleted the reference to gross negligence – a legal threshold for mishandling classified material – and instead replaced it with an exculpatory sentence,” he wrote.
The edits also showed that references to specific potential violations of statutes on “gross negligence” of classified information and “misdemeanor handling” were removed.
The original also said it was “reasonably likely” that “hostile actors” gained access to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email account. That was later changed to say that scenario was merely “possible.”
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