Comey: Clinton did not lie to the FBI

Hillary Clinton did not lie to FBI investigators during their probe into her use of a private server as secretary of state, FBI Director James Comey testified Thursday.

"We have no basis to conclude she lied to the FBI," Comey told House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) during one of the hearing's opening exchanges.

Chaffetz then asked whether Clinton lied to the public. "That's a question I'm not qualified to answer. I can speak about what she said to the FBI," Comey said.

Asked whether Clinton lied under oath, Comey remarked that she did not do so to the FBI. Asked whether he had reviewed Clinton's testimony from last October's Benghazi hearing in which the former secretary of state told Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) that "there was nothing marked classified on my emails," Comey said that he had not.

"Did the FBI investigate her statements under oath on this topic?" Chaffetz asked, to which Comey responded, "Not to my knowledge. I don't think there's been a referral from Congress."

After Comey affirmed that Congress needs a referral to investigate Clinton's statements under oath to the FBI, Chaffetz remarked, "You'll have one. You'll have one in the next few hours."

"Did Hillary Clinton break the law?" Chaffetz asked.

"In connection with her use of the email server? My judgment is that she did not," Comey said.

Chaffetz then asked whether it was that he was just not able to prosecute it or that Clinton broke the law.

"Well, I don't want to give an overly lawyerly answer," Comey said. "The question I always look at is there evidence that would establish beyond a reasonable doubt that somebody engaged in conduct that violated a criminal statute, and my judgment here is there is not. "

Comey declined to respond to Chaffetz's question on whether the FBI would grant someone like Clinton a security clearance.

"It would be a very important consideration in a suitability determination," Comey said to which Chaffetz responded, "You're kind of making my point, director. The point being because I injected the word Hillary Clinton, you gave me a different answer. But if I came up to you and said this person was extremely careless with classified information, exposure to hostile actors and used, despite a warning, created unnecessary burdens in exposure, if they said that they had one device and you found out that they had multiple devices, if there had been e-mail chains with somebody like Jake Sullivan asking for classification changes, you're telling me that the FBI would grant a security clearance to that person?"

Comey replied, "I'm not — I hope I'm giving a consistent — I'm not saying what the answer would be, I'm saying that would be an important consideration in a suitability determination for anybody."

If Clinton had worked under the FBI and acted similarly, Comey said, "There would be a security and a range of discipline could be imposed from termination to reprimand and in between, suspensions, loss of clearance."

"You could be walked out, or you could, depending upon the nature of the facts you could be reprimanded," Comey said. "But there is robust process to handle that."