Mr. Comey. That's true.
Mr. Gowdy. And part of it was because you assigned a higher level of knowledge or duty to him, given his role as a general?
Mr. Comey. And the nature of the offense was just proof that he knew he was doing something he shouldn't do was overwhelming, and on top of that, he lied about it to the FBI.
Mr. Gowdy. Right. I really am going to let John go now. He lied to the FBI; that is a crime. Lying to the public is not, as we've established. But is it not evidence of intent and/or consciousness of guilt? I mean, Secretary Clinton told the public that no classified information traversed her server, and that was false, right?
Mr. Comey. She maintained that -- as I recall, that she did not -- she thought she had successfully talked around the classified subjects. And the challenge for the prosecutors and investigators was proving that is false.
Mr. Gowdy. Well, and it would have been really interesting had she phrased it to the public: I did my best to avoid talking around any documents that may have been classified.
But that is not what she said. She said: No classified information was either sent or received.
Do you recall that?
Mr. Comey. Generally. I think that's right. And, as you said, during her interview, she maintained that: I believed we had successfully talked -- we had not crossed the line. We had
