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Judiciary committee asks Lynch to disclose Clinton email conversations

Posted at 2:50 PM, Jun 23, 2017
and last updated 2017-06-23 15:49:01-04

(CNN) -- The Senate judiciary committee sent a letter Friday to former Attorney General Loretta Lynch asking her to disclose any conversations with Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee about the FBI's investigation into the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee's use of a private email server.

The committee asked Lynch about any conversations she had with Clinton staffer Amanda Renteria or former DNC Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz about the email investigation.

The panel also asked for Renteria and Leonard Benardo and Gail Scovell of the Open Society Foundations to disclose about their conversations with the FBI and Lynch over the Clinton investigation.

The Washington Post reported last month there was a document claiming that Schultz sent a letter to Bernado claiming Lynch had been in private communication with Renteria about the investigation claiming the she would not let the FBI investigation go too far.

The document, however, was believed to be bad intelligence, according to the Post.

The request for information from Lynch and the others is the judiciary committee's newest element of its investigation into political interference at the FBI, one that may also probe whether President Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice in his firing of former FBI Director Jim Comey.

By requesting information from Lynch as well, the judiciary committee is expanding its probe on political interference to cover both the Obama and Trump administrations.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and top Democrat on the panel, Dianne Feinstein, reached an agreement this week on the scope of their investigation, which includes political interference as well as Russia's election meddling.

Grassley and Feinstein -- as well as Sens. Lindsey Graham and Sheldon Whitehouse, who lead the subcommittee looking into Russia's meddling -- met with Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller on Wednesday to discuss de-conflicting his probe with the Senate investigation.

They said afterward they had a productive discussion to ensure the two investigations can proceed without impeding the other.

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