Donovan Slack

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Republican lawmakers pummeled Attorney General Loretta Lynch with questions Tuesday about the Justice Department's decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton for sending classified information on a private, unsecured email system, but Lynch repeatedly declined to explain the legal basis for the decision.

GOP members of the House Judiciary Committee suggested Clinton was given preferential treatment, and they highlighted a meeting between Lynch and former president Bill Clinton on June 27, just over a week before Lynch announced there would be no charges in the case.

Lynch testified that it would be “inappropriate” for her to discuss confidential briefings she received on the case and repeatedly reiterated that she took the recommendation not to pursue charges from career investigators and prosecutors. She said FBI Director James Comey — who said Hillary Clinton was “extremely careless” but should not be charged — has already provided more detailed information than is typical for a federal investigation.

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And Lynch said the case was not influenced in any way by her 30-minute meeting with Bill Clinton, which occurred at his request on her government plane when the two crossed paths in Phoenix.

"I agreed to say hello," Lynch testified. "We had a social conversation."

Her refusal to elaborate on the legal basis incensed Republicans. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, Va., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, issued a statement while the hearing was still in progress accusing Lynch of “dodging any responsibility to be forthright to Congress by referring members to the statements of her subordinate.”

Goodlatte said she should have recused herself from the email probe entirely and appointed a special prosecutor, given her prior relationship with Bill Clinton. He appointed her in 1999 as the chief federal prosecutor in New York.

“It’s equally troubling that she met privately with former President Clinton just days before FBI Director Comey announced that he does not recommend criminal charges be filed against Secretary Clinton," Goodlatte said. "The American people deserve transparency about this investigation.”

Loretta Lynch, Bill Clinton meeting raises eyebrows

Did Clinton lie to Congress about email? GOP seeks perjury probe

Goodlatte and House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, on Monday asked the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia to investigate whether Hillary Clinton lied to Congress in testimony about her email.

Democrats on the committee tried repeatedly to steer the hearing to questions about the spate of gun violence that has frayed community-police relations across the country. Following the videotaped shootings by police of two African-American men — Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota — a gunman in Dallas last week killed five police officers at a rally protesting the shootings.

"I have great respect for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, but we are in the midst of a gun violence epidemic here in America," said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said. He called the Republican-led hearing a "fishing expediton" and a ”reckless legislative joy ride” designed to "crash and burn."

Lynch’s department is investigating Sterling's death and could open a probe of Castile’s. She has made police-community relations a central issue of her tenure since being confirmed as the nation’s highest law enforcement official, the first African-American woman to hold the job.

AG Loretta Lynch on Dallas shooting: 'Answer must not be violence'

Following the Dallas shootings, she said she was “heartbroken” and pledged her department would do everything it could to support law enforcement and to protect free speech and assembly rights of protesters. At Tuesday's hearing, she said that work would continue.

"As we grapple with the aftermath of these events, the Department of Justice will continue to do everything in our power to build bonds of trust and cooperation between law enforcement and the communities we serve," she said.

Two Illinois lawmakers wrote to Lynch on Friday urging her to work with them to craft federal policies that could help stem shootings by police. The Dallas shooter, Micah Xavier Johnson, told police he was upset by the shootings and wanted to kill white police officers.

“State by state, city by city, and county by county we might make this reform or that reform, but there is no national strategy to stop police from killing people — especially black people, especially black men,” wrote Democratic Reps. Robin Kelly and Luis Gutiérrez.