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Washington • Hillary Clinton may have lost the presidential race but will still face ongoing probes into her use of private email servers and handling of classified information, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said Wednesday.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said he still has a "duty and obligation" to investigate the actions of the former secretary of state and it doesn't matter that she won't be occupying the White House come January.
"I'm not out to get her," Chaffetz said, "but I am here to find the truth and make sure that it never happens again."
The chairman's comments did not go over well with Democrats on the committee.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said Wednesday that Chaffetz's relentless pursuit of Clinton flies against the efforts to unite the country after a divisive election.
"It is extremely disappointing that Chairman Chaffetz plans to continue investigating Secretary Clinton for years to come," Cummings said in a statement. "After everything our country has just been through — and particularly given that Donald Trump and Paul Ryan have both called for healing our nation's divisions — I think the American people deserve more from Congress than to continue squandering taxpayer dollars on these baseless Republican accusations and partisan
attacks."
The House's chief investigator, Chaffetz has held several hearings on the former secretary of state's use of private, non-government email to send and receive emails. The FBI concluded in a yearlong review that while Clinton had been reckless it did not amount to criminal wrongdoing.
Chaffetz, who had said before the election that he had years of material to investigate Clinton, says he will bring the same gusto to President-elect Donald Trump's administration, though he said he expects a Republican White House to work with the Oversight Committee rather than fight it like the Obama administration.
The State Department and Clinton said they had turned over tens of thousands of pages of emails to the committee.
The Utah Republican says he will go "wherever the evidence takes us."
"I am optimistic that a Trump administration would actually be cooperative," Chaffetz said. "The Obama administration has given us the stiff arm every single step of the way. I think a new administration would actually work with us to quickly get to the truth, learn what we need to learn and then fix it."