House Speaker Paul D. Ryan said Wednesday that Congress could step in and try to deny Hillary Clinton access to classified information during the presidential campaign, if the Obama administration doesn’t take that step itself.
Given that the FBI found Mrs. Clinton “careless” in handling top secret information, Mr. Ryan said Director of National Intelligence James Clapper should deny her the regular intelligence briefings a party’s presidential and vice presidential nominees get.
But he said if Mr. Clapper doesn’t do that, Congress could step in.
“We’re not going to forego any options,” he said — though he insisted the administration should do it “on its own.”
FBI Director James Comey said Tuesday that Mrs. Clinton and her aides were “extremely careless” with classified information, and may well have broken the law, though he doubted, based on precedent, that a prosecutor would try to make a criminal case against her.
Mr. Comey said such behavior is usually punished by administrative action or by having security clearances limited — and Mr. Ryan said that’s a good idea.
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“I think the DNI, Clapper, should deny Hillary Clinton access to classified information during this campaign,” he said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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