Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, asked the U.S. District Attorney for the District of Columbia on Tuesday to look into whether Hillary Clinton and her aides obstructed justice by destroying federal records that had been requested by the government.

In his letter to the DA's office, Chaffetz cited findings from the FBI's year-long probe that suggested aides to the Democratic nominee scrambled to wipe the memories of any device that contained Clinton's emails after the House Select Committee on Benghazi issued a preservation order for those records.

Chaffetz also pointed to the use of BleachBit, an anonymous deletion tool, in his request for an obstruction of review of Clinton's activities.

His letter follows an FBI report that suggested Clinton and her staff withheld thousands of emails from the administration and even used a hammer to destroy some of the devices that had once stored those emails.

Chaffetz sent a second letter to Platte River Networks, the technology firm tapped to manage Clinton's email server, asking about the company's involvement in the effort to conceal emails.

The FBI's notes revealed that at least one Platte River Networks employee scrubbed emails from Clinton's server despite knowing that a congressional request for the documents had been issued.

Chaffetz has pushed for answers related to several questions raised by the FBI's investigative summary, which was provided to Congress before its partial release last week.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, the Oversight Committee's top Demcorat, said Republicans on the panel objected to the FBI's findings for "political reasons."

"Unfortunately, this is the latest misguided attempt to use taxpayer funds to help the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, and to essentially re-do what the FBI has already investigated," Cummings said.

US Attorney for District of Columbia Letter



