in the house as early as thursday. as always, we'll have live gavel to gavel coverage on c-span. senator charles grassley spoke on the senate floor monday about former secretary of state clinton's use of a private e-mail server. he spoke about his continuing investigati investigation. >> in march of 2015 i began our long investigation into secretary clinton's use of non-government e-mail for official business. since then i have written hundreds of letters, held hearings, and discussed my findings and concerns right here on the senate floor. after all, the public's business ought to be public. today we can add more findings to that ongoing list of

secretary clinton's and other associate's wrongful conduct. the other week, i released a report from the state department that finalized their administrative review of how secretary clinton's private server setup caused hundreds of security violations. that review found, i think, five things i'm going to mention. first, 91 valid security violations were identified and attributable to 38 individuals, that means 38 individuals mishandled classified information and were punished for it. the sanctions for a violation included suspension or revocation of their security clearance, suspension without pay or termination among other

forms of punishment. second, an additional 497 valid violations were identified, however, the state department was unable to determine who was culpable. state department was unable to identify culpability because some former department employees didn't sit for interviews or because secretary clinton kept her server secret from government officials so it was impossible for the department to monitor security protocol in real-time. the review also noted that there was a five to nine-year gap between beginning of secretary clinton's state department tenure when the security incidents began and when she finally turned over

the e-mails, which she initially refused to do. this many year's long gap made it very challenging to determine who was culpable for every violation of regulation and law covering national security issues and the need for classification. in total, secretary clinton's use of non-government server for government business caused 588 security violations for mishandling classified information. some of that classified information was classified at the very highest levels, including top secret, special access program information. according to the fbi, secretary clinton sent and received

e-mails that contained highly classified information. now it's hard to fathom how this wouldn't undermine our national security. if the average american did that, they'd lose their clearance, their job, and might even go to jail. that's what happened to navy sailor christian he took six photographs inside his submarine at the confidential level. he mishandled classified information and sentenced to one year in federal prison. people asked me how come some people go to prison for violating classification and

other people don't? let's go to the third point. the review found secretary clinton's non-governmental service -- server increased the risk of unauthorized disclosures. fourth, the review found that the non-government servers increased the risk of security compromi compromise. clinton's private server setup had been described as being so badly secured that it's almost impossible to detect who attempted to attack it and gain access to it. anyone could have done it. fifth and last, the review found that some classified information was deliberately transmitted via unclassified e-mails and resulted in

adjudicated security violations. many in the press, as well as partisan clinton defenders, have hung their hat on the state department's finding that there was, quote, no persuasive evidence of systemic deliberate mishandling of classified information, end of quote. take, for example, the newspaper washington post. their headline, quote, state department probe of clinton e-mail find no deliberate mishandling of classified information, end of quote. well, that headline was entirely wrong. the state department report said, quote, instances of classified information being deliberately transmitted via

unclassified e-mails were the rare exception and resulted in adjudicated security clearance-- security violations, end of quote. that statement clearly says some individuals deliberately transmitted classified information on unclassified systems. those individuals were subject to security sanctions, but the state department failed to describe who the violators were and what the sanctions were. those answers ought to be forth coming so consequently, you know my reputation, i intend to follow up. ensuring the proper handling of highly classified information is an issue that should garner bipartisan support. this may sound like history, but there's a lesson to be

learned from this history that classified information should be classified for protecting national security. furthermore, if government officials deliberately exposed classified information on an unclassified system, why didn't the fbi find the same during their investigations? we all know then director comey refused to recommend any charges related to the clinton investigation because the fbi could not identify the requisite criminal intent. now, it seems to me that deliberately sending classified information on unclassified channels is intentional conduct. again, if the average american did that, they'd be in big, big

trouble, as i pointed out about the navy sailor spending one year in prison. now, during the course of my oversight activities, i acquired drafts of comey's july 5th, 2016 public statement exonerating clinton. comey's initial draft stated the following, now this is the initial draft, quote, there is evidence to support a conclusion that secretary clinton and others used the private e-mail server in a manner that was grossly negligent with respect to the handling of classified material, end of quote. comey also said this, quote, similarly, the sheer volume of information that was properly classified as secret at the

time it was discussed on e-mail, that is excluding the up-classified e-mails, supports an inference that the participants were grossly negligent in handling of that information, end of comey, comey quote. gross negligence, the words used by comey, is a criminal standard under title 18 section 793. now, he later dumbed down his statement to a noncriminal standard, quote, although we did not find clear evidence that secretary clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive

highly classified information, end of quote. and that was before he finished the investigation and interviewed 17 witnesses, including secretary clinton. director comey never once said that some individuals deliberately sent classified information on an unclassified system. according to the state's department's findings, comey should have come to that conclusion and made that statement. clearly deliberate conduct rises beyond gross negligence. so who deliberately sent unclassified information on an unclassified -- let me start over again. so who deliberately sent classified information on

unclassified channels and has the department communicated this new finding to the fbi? just last week. i spoke on this floor how the fbi pulled its punches during the clinton investigation. i talked about how the fbi agreed to limit the scope of review to her time as secretary of state. that decision eliminated potentially highly relevant he will mails before or after her tenure that could have shed light on why she operated the nongovernment server. it also eliminated e-mails around the time of the conference call between clinton's attorneys and the administrator of her server that led to the deletion of her e-mails. that limitation of scope defies reason. and lastly, the fbi agreed to

destroy records and laptops of clinton's associates after reviewing them. that's an astonishing agreement in light of the fact that those records could have been relevant to ongoing congressional inquiries that the fbi knew about. secretary clinton's actions caused 588 security violations and highly classified information to be exposed to a nonclassified system. some of those violations were very deliberate, but that's the first that we've heard of it. the public ought to know. if those folks involved were punished according to the letter of the law, or were given special treatment. equal application of the law without regard to power, party,

or privilege ought to be the norm. with what we know up to this point, the clinton investigation failed to hit its mark. i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. >> senate leaders mcconnell and schumer came to the floor monday to talk about the death of former north carolina senator kay hagan. the impeachment inquiry in the u.s. house, and the raid that killed the leader of isis. >> first i was saddened that our former colleague senator kay hagan had passed away. during the time kay hagan was just that gentle lady. she had a service with a friendly and colgi