Hillary Clinton's press secretary talks to CNN on Tuesday. Clinton camp: FBI director 'said some very helpful things' in hearing

To hear one of Hillary Clinton's top campaign spokesmen tell it Tuesday, FBI Director James Comey's testimony last week in which he laid out his decision to not recommend charges against the former secretary of state in the email investigation was a positive jolt that has yet to fully boost the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Predicting that the effort by the Republican chairman of two congressional committees to have the Justice Department investigate Clinton for perjury over her testimony before the Benghazi Committee last October would fall flat, press secretary Brian Fallon told CNN's "New Day" that what Clinton told her Justice Department interviewers "is consistent with what she has said all along."


"Look, I think there's no question that in reaction to the press conference that Director Comey held a week ago today that some questions were raised. There seem to be apparent contradictions between what Director Comey laid out on Tuesday and what Secretary Clinton has long said," Fallon acknowledged to host Chris Cuomo. "But then you have to account for what he said at his hearing on Thursday, where he expanded and contextualized a lot of his comments."

Fallon then remarked upon a Washington Post/ABC News poll that Cuomo had mentioned, which found that a majority of Americans disapproved of the FBI's decision not to recommend charges to the Justice Department, noting that it was in the field a full day before Comey testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

"And so for instance, only if you listen to the director on Thursday did you learn that the three emails he initially said were marked classified were actually improperly marked and anybody that was looking at them could quite reasonable conclude that they were unclassified," Fallon said, noting that "only on Thursday" did Comey acknowledge that the FBI had found no evidence for a motive of Clinton's email setup other than a "matter of convenience."

He added, "It was only on Thursday that he said that there was no evidence that he made any untruthful statements to the FBI. So on issue after issue, point after point, that the critics keep trying to harp on, Director Comey said some very helpful things that boosted Secretary Clinton on Thursday. I think the public is still absorbing that."

Asked whether there is anything from her previous testimony that Clinton would retract in light of the referral sent by Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) on Monday asking the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia to look at statements Clinton made last October that were not backed up by the FBI's findings, Fallon was adamant.

"Chris, this is pure partisan overreach. Let me just begin by stressing once again that obviously Hillary Clinton recognizes that this was an error, this was a mistake to set up her email arrangement this way. But the FBI conducted a several months long independent investigation to see whether that mistake at all rose to the level of criminality, and they said absolutely not. Republicans didn't like that outcome," Fallon said. "So now they're trying to keep this issue alive and continue attacking Hillary Clinton over this even though FBI Director Comey, a former Bush Justice Department official, testified last week that no reasonable prosecutor would have brought a case here."