Comey Will Testify on Clinton Email Probe

FBI Director James Comey is set to testify before the U.S. House Oversight Committee Thursday about the agency's decision not to recommend charges against Hillary Clinton over her use of a personal email server while serving at the State Department, the panel said in a statement.

In the statement on Wednesday, Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said that Congress and the American people have a right to understand the FBI's investigation in the matter. The panel said the hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m.

Earlier, furious House Republicans demanded that Comey appear on Capitol Hill to grill him on his explosive decision to not seek criminal charges against Hillary Clinton despite her "extremely careless" use of her private email server.

House Speaker Paul Ryan and Chaffetz both pushed vigorously for hearings.

"People have been convicted for far less," Ryan said Tuesday night on Fox News' "The Kelly File" program, and that the FBI's decision not to recommend charges against the presumptive Democratic nominee "underscores the belief that the Clintons live above the law."

"This is why we're going to have hearings, and this is why I think that Comey should give us all the publicly available information to see how and why they reached these conclusions," the Wisconsin lawmaker added.

Meanwhile Chaffetz also said he's considering calling Comey to Capitol Hill to testify about both the probe of Clinton and its final recommendation, The Hill reports.

And House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte told CNN he too was "looking at" holding hearings on the FBI's Clinton email probe, "but we haven't made any decisions yet."

In a separate interview on MSNBC, Goodlatte said he'll ask Attorney General Loretta Lynch about FBI findings at hearing scheduled for next week, Bloomberg reports.

Meanwhile, the House Oversight panel's ranking member, Democratic Georgia Rep. Elijah Cummings railed at the prospect of hearings.

"Republican after Republican praised Director Comey's impeccable record of independence-right up until the moment he issued his conclusion," Cummings said in a statement, Bloomberg reports.

"Since Republicans disagree with his recommendation, they are doing what they always do — using taxpayer funds to continue 'investigating' their baseless claims in an effort to bring down Secretary Clinton's poll numbers."

Also in the Tuesday interview on "The Kelly File," Ryan called for the director of National Intelligence to "block" Clinton from accessing classified information as a presidential candidate, given her handling of government secrets over her private email server. 
       
"I don't think she should get classified information," Ryan said.

Material from Reuters was used in this report.

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