THE FIX: How unusual is it for the FBI to share its notes from an investigation with Congress?

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CHAFETZ: I think it depends on exactly how you characterize it. Executive branch agencies turn over information to Congress every day. I think it's much less common that they'll actually turn over information relating to a potential criminal investigation — especially one that wound up not resulting in charges.

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On the other hand, Congress has a pretty good case to make that: She testified before us, she said something that may or may not have been truthful. If the FBI's notes provide evidence she wasn't truthful when she testified, that's something you could understand Congress wanting to know.

THE FIX: Why do House Republicans want to look over the FBI's notes?

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CHAFETZ: The reasons they give — the high-minded version — is that contempt of Congress is a serious offense, and it's something Congress itself has a right to investigate and to punish.

The more realistic answer is that Congress is not an "it"; it's a "they." And it's made up of lots of members, but in particular two parties. And one of those parties is Republican. And its Republican leaders are trying to see if there's a way they can harm Clinton in her presidential bid.

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THE FIX: What are they looking for?

CHAFETZ: There are two different things they could be looking at. One way to frame this — and this is what they said when [FBI Director James B.] Comey testified before Congress — is "We're actually not investigating Clinton. We're investigating the FBI. We're investigating whether we need to reform the law or think about reforms to the structure of the FBI, because we think Clinton really screwed up here."

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The other way they could frame it is: "We're looking not at Clinton's underlying behavior, but at her testimony before Congress and whether that was truthful." Both of those framings implicate legitimate concerns for Congress.

THE FIX: But can they even release the investigation, or is this destined to stay in a secret room somewhere on Capitol Hill?

CHAFETZ: What can be released and what can't is a really tricky issue.

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The short answer is: If it's classified, then releasing it would require a more complicated internal procedure, or it would require a member to violate the rules of his or her chamber. But for stuff that's not classified, it's not entirely clear why it couldn't be released. Sometimes with criminal investigations, you have privacy concerns, but if Clinton is saying, "No, I want them released," then most of the privacy concerns would go out the window.

THE FIX: So why is Clinton asking for this to be released?

CHAFETZ: I suspect there are a few reasons. Obviously, we don't know for sure. She's either a spectacularly risky bluffer, or she thinks, "There's nothing in here that's any more damaging than what Comey has said publicly."

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She might also think there is stuff in there that if you release it out of context or selectively, then it might look worse than it is. So she'd rather call for it all to be released than allow it to sort of dribble out.

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And she might think the act of calling for it to be released sends a signal to the public that says, "Hey, there's nothing there."

And if it does get released, it'll be a big dump all at once that might overwhelm the public's attention. And at that point, voters might say: "We've already been through this. We heard what Comey said. Why are we relitigating this?"

So she might be figuring that the more stuff that gets out there faster, the more likely you might have fatigue with a public who wants to move past it. That's better than a drip-drip-drip of information between now and Election Day.

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THE FIX: You and I have talked about how Republicans don't really have a lot of options to make the Justice Department press charges for Clinton. Are they grasping for straws here?



CHAFETZ: I think they probably are grasping for straws in one sense. In another sense, one of the most important things that Congress does is oversee the functioning of the executive branch and of the government as a whole. And so looking into how decisions got made — especially decisions that were made with respect to an important actor in the party — there's a good case to be made that we WANT Congress to be doing this. That it's a healthy partisanship.

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Most of the time, this will not turn up anything especially damaging. But we want to err on the side of too many document requests inconveniencing the executive branch than on the side of important stuff not coming out.

THE FIX: So what's your best guess of what will come out of this?

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CHAFETZ: They'll probably find something extremely minor, and they will try to present it as more major than it is, and that will resonate with the subset of partisans who are already inclined not to like Clinton. They can say: "Aha! That's proof that something corrupt is going on."

People already inclined to support Clinton will say, "No, it's nothing." And there will be a battle for a few people who dislike both Clinton and Trump to see if you can persuade a few of them that Congress turned up something new. That's how the Benghazi investigation played out for months.