Republicans are also asking James Comey to turn over the FBI’s full investigative file on Benghazi. | Getty Republicans ask DOJ to investigate Clinton for perjury

Two House Committees on Monday asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Hillary Clinton perjured herself on the email controversy while testifying before Benghazi Committee investigators in October.

Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) sent the referral to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, asking him to probe claims Clinton made during the hearing last fall that have proved false.


Clinton testified, for example, that she neither sent nor received emails marked classified, and that she turned over all her work-related emails to the State Department. FBI Director James Comey said those statements were wrong during a hearing last week. She did receive some emails with classified markings, he said; his agents found them during their investigation. And they also discovered thousands of work-related messages her lawyers failed to turn over, he said.

“The evidence collected by the FBI during its investigation of Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal email system appears to directly contradict several aspects of her sworn testimony,” the committee chairmen wrote. “In light of those contradictions, the Department should investigate and determine whether to prosecute Secretary Clinton for violating statutes that prohibit perjury and false statements to Congress, or any other relevant statutes.”

The Justice Department, run by the Obama administration, is unlikely to act on the referral. But the missive suggests Republicans have no intention of dialing back their protest of the FBI's refusal to prosecute Clinton, or their criticism of the presumed Democratic nominee for her email set-up.

Democrats, meanwhile, blasted Republicans for being sore losers now that the FBI has decided against recommending charges for her.

“Republicans are so frustrated with the FBI’s unanimous decision that they are now completely unloading on Secretary Clinton with everything they’ve got— right before the presidential conventions," said Oversight ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings (D-Md.). "They are spending their final days here in Washington climbing all over each other... Republicans are now squandering even more taxpayer dollars in a desperate attempt to keep this issue alive and bring down Secretary Clinton’s poll numbers ahead of the election.”

Chaffetz is also asking Comey to turn over the FBI’s full investigative file on the issue, which would

presumably allow lawmakers to compare what she told the FBI with what she told to Congress.

Also Monday, Goodlatte and Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C) sent a letter to Comey, signed by 200 House Republicans, seeking more answers about his decisions not to recommend that Clinton be prosecuted.

While Comey said there was clear evidence that Clinton was “extremely careless” and mishandled classified information, he said there’s no precedent for prosecuting a case like Clinton's without evidence of her intent to violate the law. The two lawmakers, however, argue that “there is precedent for prosecution," citing an instance in which a Marine was found guilty of "gross negligence."

“You seem to have picked a new standard out of thin air — ‘extreme carelessness’ — to describe the actions of Secretary Clinton and her staff,” the two write. “We do not understand the need to have cited any lack of intent on the part of Secretary Clinton when the law sets forth a felony violation for something less than intentional conduct – ‘gross negligence.’”

The letter continues: “As a former prosecutor, please explain your understanding of the legal difference between actions performed with ‘gross negligence’ and those done ‘extremely carelessly.’ How did you determine that ‘extreme carelessness’ did not equate to ‘gross negligence?’”

