Remember way back in 2016, when then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton learned that her alleged use as Secretary of State of a private, unsecured email server for classified information was once again being investigated by then-FBI Director James Comey? Remember how Democrats screamed about political interference?
Well, it turns out that the FBI behaved very differently back then compared to how it’s handling its probe into former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents.
The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project obtained through the Freedom of Information Act a 74-page, heavily redacted transcript of an interview with Trisha Anderson, who, at the time, served as a deputy assistant FBI director.
Anderson told investigators at the Office of Special Counsel that “public perception would be that the attorney general herself was not maintaining an appropriate degree of independence.”
The remark referred to then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who famously met with former President Bill Clinton on a Phoenix airport tarmac while the investigation into Hillary was ongoing.
Also at issue was Comey’s July 2016 press conference during which he announced that the FBI would not recommend that Clinton face criminal charges over her alleged mishandling of classified documents — a move over with which Anderson said “there were a lot of concerns.”
(Video: YouTube)
According to Anderson, FBI officials discussed multiple times “whether the [FBI] director should or should not make a recommendation to the attorney general” to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate Hillary’s emails.
“It was really clear, especially in the weeks leading up to the [Comey] statement, that at least the public perception would be that the attorney general herself was not maintaining an appropriate degree of independence with respect to the decision making in this investigation,” Anderson said. “And I’m referring to, I mean, I think there were concerns even preceding this, but [in particular] the incident that was extensively reported in the media involving the attorney general’s meeting with former President Clinton on the airplane tarmac.”
The interview was conducted in 2017 by the Office of Special Counsel.
“That independent agency was investigating whether Comey had violated the Hatch Act, the law that prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activity on government time or with government resources,” reports The Daily Signal, The Heritage Foundation’s news outlet.
“The interview and overall OSC investigation underscore differences in how the FBI’s Clinton email probe, including the vulnerability of classified information, was conducted compared to the FBI’s probe of former President Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified information,” the outlet states.
When a complaint suggested the FBI under Comey was weaponized, the OSC “almost immediately” responded.
“However, the office terminated its probe of Comey after Trump fired him in May 2017, since it investigates only federal employees.” according to The Daily Signal.
“A report by the Justice Department’s own Office of Inspector General on the Russian collusion allegations against Trump wasn’t completed until 2019. A subsequent report by special counsel John Durham into the origins of those Trump-Russia allegations and the investigations that followed wasn’t completed until earlier this year—two years after Trump left office,” the outlet continues. “Both reports criticized the FBI for procedural abuses amid a lack of evidence that Trump or his associates did anything wrong.”
Mike Howell, director of Heritage’s Oversight Project, notes that, unlike Trump, Clinton is still being protected.
“The only people to ever hold Hillary Clinton accountable for anything are the American voters, who rejected her bid for president,” he told The Daily Signal. “It’s seven years after the infamous tarmac meeting where her husband leaned on the then attorney general, and the government is still redacting information.”
There is, according to Howell, a direct line that can be drawn between the treatment Clinton received and the alleged corruption of the Biden family.
“The failure to hold Clinton accountable paved the way for the Biden family corruption scheme, which is essentially an unsophisticated version of the Clinton Global Foundation,” Howell said. “Failing to hold Hillary Clinton accountable for Jake Sullivan and her campaign’s creation of the Russia hoax led to Jake Sullivan as Biden’s national security adviser, where he has hopscotched the globe leaving disasters in the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and our southern border.”
“Someone needs to be held accountable for a change,” Howell warned, “because everyday Americans are living with the consequences.”
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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