--- title: Hillary Clinton: Loretta Lynch Investigated in Email Probe description: Senate Judiciary Committee leaders are seeking information about Loretta Lynch's alleged interference in Hillary Clinton's email probe canonical: https://time.com/4831849/loretta-lynch-hillary-clinton-fbi-senate/ author: Aric Jenkins article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-06-24T20:51:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:54:13.729Z article:section: Politics og:title: Senate Investigating Loretta Lynch's Alleged Interference in Hillary Clinton Email Probe og:description: The bipartisan group wants to examine if Lynch meddled in the FBI's investigation og:url: https://time.com/4831849/loretta-lynch-hillary-clinton-fbi-senate/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt57556aed4095dc4f/69889b3a5f570f4861b21a2e/loretta-lynch-dallas-shooting-remarks.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: Attorney General Loretta Lynch Addresses Shooting Of Police Officers In Dallas og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Senate Investigating Loretta Lynch's Alleged Interference in Hillary Clinton Email Probe twitter:description: The bipartisan group wants to examine if Lynch meddled in the FBI's investigation twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt57556aed4095dc4f/69889b3a5f570f4861b21a2e/loretta-lynch-dallas-shooting-remarks.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Senate Investigating Loretta Lynch's Alleged Interference in Hillary Clinton Email Probe > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Watch Former FBI Director James Comey Testimony's In Under 4 Minutes [Watch (HLS stream): Watch Former FBI Director James Comey Testimony's In Under 4 Minutes](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/2q2ri9od.m3u8) (3:58)  _Published 2017-06-08. Former FBI Director James Comey spoke in public for the first time about his relationship with President Donald Trump and the circumstances that led to his firing. He called White House descriptions of his firing as "lies, plain and simple."_ by [Aric Jenkins](https://time.com/author/aric-jenkins/) ## Aric Jenkins Jun 24, 2017 8:51 PM UTC  U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch speaks to members of the media as she makes a statement on the Dallas killing of police officers July 8, 2016 at the Justice Department in Washington, DC. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch speaks to members of the media as she makes a statement on the Dallas killing of police officers July 8, 2016 at the Justice Department in Washington, DC. Alex Wong/Getty Images by [Aric Jenkins](https://time.com/author/aric-jenkins/) ## Aric Jenkins Jun 24, 2017 8:51 PM UTC Senate Judiciary Committee leaders on Friday said they are seeking information about former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s [alleged interference in Hillary Clinton’s private email investigation](http://time.com/4816223/donald-trump-loretta-lynch-hillary-clinton-actions-illegal/). The bipartisan group is inquiring about Lynch’s communication with Clinton campaign aide Amanda Renteria — whom Lynch reportedly assured that the FBI’s investigation wouldn’t “go too far” — as well as documents and information indicating whether the agency probed that alleged conversation. Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), along with other lawmakers including 2016 presidential candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham, sent letters to Lynch earlier this week with the request. A spokesman for Lynch said the former attorney general “will cooperate fully with this inquiry and respond directly to the Senate Judiciary Committee.” “Ms. Lynch is a committed public servant who has dedicated much of her career to the Department of Justice and led the department as attorney general in the fair and impartial administration of justice,” a spokesman said in a statement Friday. The inquiries about Lynch’s communication are part of a larger examination of President Donald Trump’s [dismissal of FBI Director James Comey](http://time.com/4830806/president-trump-james-comey-trust-poll/), who was overseeing the Clinton probe at the time. In a testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this month, Comey said that Lynch during the Clinton probe told him: “Don’t call it \[an investigation\]. Call it a matter. Just call it a matter.”’ “It gave me a queasy feeling,” Comey [said in the testimony](http://time.com/4811380/comey-testimony-loretta-lynch-email/). ## Transcript You solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, the nothing but the truth, so help me God. I do. Please be seated. When I was appointed FBI Director in 2013, I understood that I served at the pleasure of the President. And although the law required no reason at all to fire an FBI Director, the adminstration then chose To defame me, and more importantly, the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple and I am so sorry that the FBI workforce had to hear them. And I'm so sorry that the American people were told them. I don't think it's for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct. I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, but that's a conclusion I'm sure the special counsel will work towards to try and understand what the intention was there, and whether that's an offense. I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, and so I thought it really important to document. You've seen the picture of me walking across the Blue Room, and what the President whispered in my ear was, " I really look forward to working with you ." So after those encounters... And that was just a few days before you were fired. Yeah, that was on the 20... the sunday after the inauguration. The next Friday I have dinner and the president begins by wanting to talk about my job. And so I'm sitting there thinking, wait a minute, three times we've already, you've already asked me to stay or talked about me staying. And my common sense, again I could be wrong, but my common sense told me what's going on here is Hes looking to get something in exchange for granting my request to stay in the job. My impression was something big is about to happen I need to remember every single word that is spoken and again I could be wrong I am 56 years old I've been I've seen a few things my sense was the attorney general knew. He shouldn't be leaving, which is why he was lingering. And I don't know Mr. Kushner well, but I think he picked up on the same thing. And so I knew something was about to happen, and I need to know very close attention to. So look I've seen a tweet about tapes, Lordy I hope they are tapes. President tweeted on Friday after I got fired, that I better hope there's not tapes I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night, cuz it didn't dawn on me originally, that there might be corroboration for our conversation. There might be a tape, and my judgement was, I needed to get that out into the public square. So I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. Didn't do it myself for a variety of reasons, but I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special council. And so I asked a close friend of mine to do it. And then you made a comment earlier about the attorney general, previous attorney general, asking you about the investigation on the Clinton emails saying that you'd been asked not to ask to call it an investigation anymore but to call it a matter. And you said that confused you. Can you give us additional details on that? Well it concerned me because we were at the point where we had refused to confirm the existence, as we typically do, of an investigation for months. And it was getting to a place where that looked silly because the campaigns were talking about interacting with the FBI in the course of our work. The Clinton campaign at the time was using all kinds of euphemisms. Security review, matters, things like that for what was going on. We were getting to a place where the attorney general and I were both gonna have to testify and talk publicly about it. And I wanna know what she gonna authorize us to confirm we had an investigation. And she said yes, but don't call it that. Call it a matter. And I said why would I do that? And she said, just call it a matter. And so that concerned me, because that language tracked the way the campaign was talking about the FBI's work, and that's concerning. All I can do is hope. The President, surely, knows whether he taped me. And if he did, my feelings aren't hurt, release all the tapes. I'm good with it. 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