FBI Director James Comey played himself yesterday by attempting to placate his Republican colleagues by condemning Hillary Clinton's actions without recommending any charges against her.
The centerpiece of Comey's criticism was the presence of a tiny number (2 or 3) classified emails found among a pile of over 30,000 unclassified emails, but according to the State Department those emails did not include sensitive material.
The State Department says those emails were erroneously classified through "human error."
"It appears that those...that those markings were a human error. They didn’t need to be there. Because once the secretary had decided to make the call, the process is then to move the call sheet, to change its markings to unclassified and deliver it to the secretary in a form that he or she can use," Kirby said. "And best we can tell on these occasions, the markings — the confidential markings — was simply human error. Because the decision had already been made, they didn’t need to be made on the email."
Kirby said such "call sheets" are often treated as classified when being prepared but as unclassified when forwarded to the secretary for his or her use.
Thanks to House Republicans, we now know far more about the minutiae of classification that, as far as can we can tell, is an incomprehensible maze of gobbledygook.
This maze, as it were, is the entire foundation of the Republican accusation that Hillary Clinton somehow compromised national security. The Republican story is that Hillary Clinton exposed secret information that somehow led to the attack on the American embassy in Benghazi, but the truth is no Republican in Congress could even tell you what information exactly she is alleged to have compromised.
As for James Comey, he's learning his lesson right now as of this writing. Comey testified in front of the Oversight Committee today and it did not go as Republicans had planned.