Earlier this year, top officials at the Justice Department and FBI began formulating a rough plan for how the findings in the unusual Clinton probe would be announced, officials close to the matter said.The idea that some top officials supported was that the FBI and the Justice Department, which have jointly managed the probe, would announce their decision together and at the same time announce how they came to it. This would prevent the spectacle of the FBI concluding its investigation then handing over recommendations to the Justice Department for review, with a final decision to be announced by Lynch.
But as the investigation drew to a close in the late spring, Comey began having other thoughts.The political furor of the investigation was reaching a fever pitch.FBI officials and Clinton’s lawyers began discussing plans for her interview and possible dates when she could come by FBI headquarters, preferably without a mob of reporters following her. There were some internal disputes about timing, with some at the FBI believing the interview could have happened weeks ago and Justice lawyers pushing to wait for more investigative work to be completed.And last week, just when the political atmosphere surrounding the FBI investigation couldn’t seem more charged, things took a new bizarre turn. Former President Bill Clinton charged uninvited onto Lynch’s plane parked on the tarmac at the Phoenix airport. Lynch and the former president said they discussed nothing related to the probe and kept the visit to social matters. More on all the pre-planning and political planning is here from CNN.
State Dept. to release deleted Clinton emails uncovered by FBI
You can bet these emails wont be released until after the November election, right?
WashingtonExaminer: State Department officials plan to publish all work-related emails discovered on Hillary Clinton’s private servers by the FBI once agents turn over the records Clinton withheld from the government.
“Just as we processed the material turned over to the department by former Secretary Clinton, we will appropriately and with due diligence process any additional material that we receive from the FBI to identify work-related records and make them available to the public,” agency spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday.
Clinton had previously stated her legal team provided everything that could possibly considered related to her State Department work to the agency in late 2014.
However, the year-long FBI investigation into her treatment of classified material discovered “several thousand” work-related records on the servers agents took into custody last year.
Clinton has yet to address the contradiction in her statement and the findings of the FBI.
Kirby did not provide a timeline of when the newly-uncovered emails would be available to the public.
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While much attention has been given to the meeting between Loretta Lynch and former President Bill Clinton on her private plane, there are symptoms the decision was made long before to close the case and not prosecute Hillary Clinton for violations of the Espionage Act. When Hillary made the ‘gesture’ to meet with the FBI for 3.5 hours on a Saturday morning, nothing was gained such that the FBI did not take her responses with any seriousness to continue with the investigation. So…..what is the chatter at the water coolers at the FBI?
Source: FBI Agents Believe An ‘Inside Deal’ Protected Hillary Clinton
Was the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information cooked from the very beginning? According to the New York Post, FBI agents investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of an unsecured, private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State were required to sign unprecedented non-disclosure agreements prohibiting them from disclosing anything about their investigation of Hillary.
A former FBI chief told the New York Post that such a requirement is “very, very unusual.”
While FBI agents are typically required to sign vanilla non-disclosure agreements as part of their security clearances, law enforcement sources say they’ve never heard of a “Case Briefing Acknowledgment,” the agreement agents investigating Clinton were reportedly required to sign.
“FBI agents believe there was an inside deal put in place after the Loretta Lynch/Bill Clinton tarmac meeting,” a source told the Post.
Last week, FBI Director James Comey said that despite Clinton being “extremely careless” with classified information, the agency would recommend the presumptive Democratic nominee not face any criminal charges. Following his comments, the U.S. Department of Justice formally closed the Clinton email case.
A week before the DOJ closed the case, Attorney General Loretta Lynch privately met with Bill Clinton aboard a private jet on the tarmac of an airport in Phoenix — raising serious concerns about the integrity of the investigation.
Hillary Clinton is reportedly planning to keep Lynch on as AG if she wins in November, according to The New York Times.
During a congressional hearing last week, Comey told the House Oversight Committee the FBI had no transcript or recording of its July 4 weekend interview with Hillary Clinton, nor was she required to swear an oath promising to tell the truth.