WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US Attorney General Loretta Lynch yesterday defended her decision not to take legal action against Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server.

“The matter was handled like any other matter,” Lynch said in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill.

Republican lawmakers have been sharply critical of the department’s decision not to pursue Clinton, the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee for the presidency.

FBI Director James Comey announced last week at the conclusion of an investigation that the Bureau was not recommending that prosecutors bring charges against the former secretary of state. Lynch accepted this recommendation the following day.

She has denied having been influenced by contact with former President Bill Clinton, who Lynch crossed paths with late last month on the tarmac of an airport in Phoenix, Arizona.

“The former president indicated he wanted to say hello. I agreed to say hello,” Lynch said at the hearing, describing what she said was a chance encounter with Clinton, who appointed her to her first post as a federal prosecutor in 1999.

“Nothing of any relationship to the email investigation was discussed, nor were any specific cases or matters before the Department of Justice discussed,” Lynch said.

House Republicans did not drop the matter, however.

Two among them on Monday asked the Justice Department to begin an investigation of Clinton on suspicion of perjury, accusing her of having made false statements to lawmakers during testimony in October.

While Comey did not recommend charges, he sharply criticised Clinton’s handling of classified information on the private server which she used while serving as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.

Some of that criticism was echoed by lawmakers on yesterday.

“Her extreme carelessness suggests she cannot be trusted with the nation’s most sensitive secrets if she is nevertheless elected president,” said Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, a Republican.

Democrats, who have attacked Republicans for their tenacity in pursuing the email controversy, have suggested that their motives are rooted in election year politics, with just four months until voters go to the polls.

“If any of my colleagues are not yet convinced, it is because they do not want to be convinced,” said John Conyers, the top Democrat on the panel.