WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department's investigation into Hillary Clinton's email setup in her tenure as secretary of state has been formally closed without any criminal charges, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Wednesday.

The decision was largely a formality after FBI Director James Comey recommended a day earlier against any prosecution. Before Comey's public statement, Lynch had said she intended to accept the recommendations of the FBI director and of her prosecutors in the Justice Department.

Lynch said she met with Comey and prosecutors Wednesday and agreed that the investigation, which looked into the potential mishandling of classified information, should be concluded.

"I received and accepted their unanimous recommendation that the thorough, year-long investigation be closed and that no charges be brought against any individuals within the scope of the investigation," Lynch said in a statement.

Comey is scheduled go before Congress today to explain his decision to recommend against criminal charges for Clinton, a House committee chairman announced Wednesday.

The FBI did not immediately confirm that Comey would comply, but the announcement by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, came after House Speaker Paul Ryan said Clinton should be barred from receiving classified information.

"The FBI's recommendation is surprising and confusing," Chaffetz said in a statement. "Individuals who intentionally skirt the law must be held accountable. Congress and the American people have a right to understand the depth and breadth of the FBI's investigation."

Comey said Tuesday that "no reasonable prosecutor" would pursue a criminal case and that he was advising the Justice Department against filing any charges. But he also rebuked Clinton, who relied exclusively on a private email server while she was secretary of state, and her aides for being "extremely careless" with their handling of classified information.

FBI agents spent the past year investigating the matter after a referral from the intelligence community's inspector general. As part of that inquiry, investigators pored through tens of thousands of State Department emails and interviewed top Clinton aides. The investigation culminated in an interview with Clinton last weekend.

Last week, Lynch announced she was prepared to accept whatever findings and recommendations were presented to her. Though she said she had already settled on that process, the announcement came days after she had an unscheduled meeting with Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, aboard Lynch's plane in Phoenix. Lynch said the investigation was not discussed, but she acknowledged that the meeting had "cast a shadow" on the process and led to questions about the independence of the investigation.

Lynch will appear next week before the House Judiciary Committee, and that committee's chairman, Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., made clear he would focus on Lynch's impromptu meeting with Bill Clinton.

The decision not to prosecute "is uniquely troubling in light of Attorney General Lynch's secret meeting with former President Bill Clinton," Goodlatte said Wednesday in announcing the hearing. "No one is above the law."

GOP demands answers

Ryan said he believes that Hillary Clinton received preferential treatment from the FBI, and he offered a series of next steps Republicans will take to push the case themselves.

"What bothers me about this is the Clintons really are living above the law," Ryan said on The Kelly File on Fox News Channel. "They're being held by a different set of standards -- that is clearly what this looks like. This is why we're going to have hearings, and this is why I think Comey should give us all the publicly available information to see how and why they reached these conclusions."

Ryan said the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, should deny Clinton the standard top-level briefings given to candidates once they claim the presidential or vice presidential nomination because she was "so reckless" with the use of the private email server while serving as secretary of state.

Ryan separately told reporters that Comey has now opened the door to more questions about Clinton than there were just a few weeks ago.

"There are a lot of questions that have to be answered, and so we're going to be asking those questions," Ryan said, adding that it looked like Clinton had gotten preferential treatment. "We have seen nothing but stonewalling and dishonesty from Secretary Clinton on this issue, and that means there are a lot more questions that need to be answered."

In a letter to Comey on Wednesday, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a Republican and chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, demanded information on the number of FBI employees assigned to the investigation of Clinton's emails, a list of all FBI resources detailed to the investigation, a cost estimate for the FBI and any other federal department or agency involved in the investigation, and an explanation of the difference between "extreme carelessness" -- the phrase that Comey used to describe Clinton's behavior -- and gross negligence, a prosecutable offense.

Those questions and more should be answered by July 19, the senator said.

Democrats were furious over Chaffetz's decision to haul Comey before his committee.

"Republican after Republican praised Director Comey's impeccable record of independence -- right up until the moment he issued his conclusion," said the oversight committee's top Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland. "The only emergency here is that yet another Republican conspiracy theory is slipping away."

Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon denounced Chaffetz's hearing as "another taxpayer-funded sham."

Comey's scheduled testimony will coincide with Donald Trump making his first appearance before the full House and Senate Republican caucuses on Capitol Hill.

Trump critized Clinton during a rally Wednesday in Cincinnati, contrasting her statements about the email server with what Comey said and labeling the former secretary of state "a dirty, rotten liar."

Reading from a script, Trump ticked off several of what he called Clinton's "lies" about the servers, including that she only used one email device and that she did not have any emails marked as "classified" on the private server.

"She made so many false statements," Trump said. "Is she going to be brought before Congress? Is something going to happen?"

For the Clinton campaign, Fallon criticized the timing of Comey's testimony and Trump's meeting with Republicans.

"This should end well," Fallon posted on Twitter.

Information for this article was contributed by Eric Tucker, Erica Werner and Matthew Daly of The Associated Press; by David M. Herszenhorn and Emmarie Huetteman of The New York Times; and by Paul Kane and Matt Zapotosky of The Washington Post.

A Section on 07/07/2016