News

The GOP Is Pushing Aside Las Vegas & Puerto Rico To Investigate Hillary Clinton's Emails

by Jenny Hollander
Matthew Horwood/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Like Groundhog Day, 2016 will never end. On Tuesday, two House Republicans and committee chairmen, Bob Goodlatte and Trey Gowdy, announced the launch of a full investigation into the FBI's Hillary Clinton probe. The announcement came after a bombshell few months in American politics, which included the most devastating mass shooting in modern history and a humanitarian crisis in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. And yet, as several observers on Twitter noted, some House Republicans believe that only the FBI's investigation into Clinton's email server requires a closer look.

As one activist noted on Twitter: "It’s been a month since the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Puerto Rico is in ruins. The GOP is investigating Hillary’s emails."

Puerto Rico and Las Vegas are just the most recent disturbing news events: Earlier this summer, neo-Nazis and white supremacists protested in Charlottesville with literal torches. And that's without touching on the consistent and concerning evidence suggesting that Russia hacked the U.S.' democracy to interfere with the 2016 general election. Again: two House Republicans are focusing their attention on the now-closed FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton, which ultimately found no reason to bring criminal charges against the former secretary of state.

These findings, according to Goodlatte and Gowdy, require closer attention. In a statement, the two said: "Decisions made by the Department of Justice in 2016 have led to a host of outstanding questions that must be answered."

They went on to name these decisions:

FBI’s decision to publicly announce the investigation into Secretary Clinton’s handling of classified information but not to publicly announce the investigation into campaign associates of then-candidate Donald Trump; FBI’s decision to notify Congress by formal letter of the status of the investigation both in October and November of 2016; FBI’s decision to appropriate full decision making in respect to charging or not charging Secretary Clinton to the FBI rather than the DOJ; FBI’s timeline in respect to charging decisions.

Of these decisions by the FBI, the two noted: "The Committees will review these decisions and others to better understand the reasoning behind how certain conclusions were drawn. Congress has a constitutional duty to preserve the integrity of our justice system by ensuring transparency and accountability of actions taken."

Drew Angerer/Getty Images News/Getty Images

The investigation into an investigation comes at a time when the Trump administration is still grappling over what to do about Puerto Rico, which is still largely without power and faces a long and painful road to recovery. It's also been just weeks since the Las Vegas shooting, in which 58 people were killed while attending a country music festival. Little progress has been made on gun reform, even though the Las Vegas shooting is just the latest mass shooting to set a macabre record (the Pulse massacre was just one year ago).

Many observers on Twitter mocked the apparent contradiction of House Republicans addressing the "issue" of Clinton's email servers in the midst of these crises.

An Alternate Universe

Our National Priorities

It hasn't been a good day for the Clintons: Also on Tuesday, congressman Devin Nunes opened an investigation into the uranium deal between Russia and the United States during Obama's presidency. This investigation has the possibility of implicating Hillary Clinton in regard to Clinton Foundation donations at the time.