This hearing is not about an effort to improve FOIA or Federal record-keeping. This is an attack, an attack on Hillary Clinton's candidacy for President of the United States of America and just the latest in a series of attacks.

I think if we don't do anything else, we can try to help with the system of classification because it is so serious and can create all kinds of problems.

I just want to tell you I think we can do better.

I think it is abundantly clear, as I said a little bit earlier, that we can do better.

I was especially pained to hear that because of the actions of the Haitian Government and Haitian officials, someone who everybody agreed should not be in this country was allowed back on our streets to do more harm.

This is one case that shows how serious this situation is and how, when there is failure--and I do consider there are some failures here, something went wrong, a lot went wrong--but we have got to deal with this.

Since then, the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security issued a report at the request of Connecticut lawmakers, including our distinguished colleague Congressman Joe Courtney, who has joined us today.

We are also very honored to have Jim Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court's recent case legalizing same-sex marriage.

I truly appreciate it. It is much more balanced, and I commend the chairman for agreeing to our request.

Today is a terribly sad day for the LGBT community and for all of America.

To say that this hearing is politically tone-deaf is the understatement of the year.

Wow. Like Mr. McCullough's letter, it failed to answer any of the specific questions from the ranking members.

Director Comey made crystal clear that Republican claims and some of the talking heads' claims of bias are completely false.

That is not why our chairman called this emergency hearing 48 hours after you made your recommendation.

Let's work together and introduce legislation to make the same laws apply to us as apply to the executive branch and to Secretary Clinton.

the last thing we should do is criminalize our political system.

I think the grossest double standard here today is the fact that all the members of this committee, every Member of Congress, is not subject to the same law that Secretary Clinton was subject to.

Did you all talk to each other about how you all were going to coordinate and not respond to Members of Congress, ranking members at that?

Do you stand by the FBI's recommendation not to prosecute Hillary Clinton?

As late as yesterday, with the problem in Minnesota with an African American man being killed, I would like to have some hearings still on the criminal justice system.

Secretary Clinton has acknowledged that she made a mistake in using a personal email account, and you explained on Tuesday that she and her colleagues at the State Department were extremely careless with their emails.

So the question is, do you agree with the claim that General Petraeus, and I quote, "got in trouble for far less," end of quote?

One of the things that bothers me about this whole thing is this retroactive classification.

You said: My family and my reputation. My family and my reputation.

At what point--or do you even think about it becoming a chilling effect?