DOJ's Clinton Probe Expected to Be a Bust: Her Lawyers Received FBI 'Special Treatment'
A U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) probe into accusations of corruption at the hands of Hillary Clinton found nothing of consequence because her lawyers received special treatment, conservative watchdog group Juducial Watch (JW) recently indicated.
Through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, JW obtained 211 pages of new emails from two anti-President Donald Trump FBI offials, Peter Strzok and his lover Lisa Page, the watchdog revealed on January 9.
The emails “detail special accommodations given to the lawyers of Hillary Clinton and her aides during the FBI investigation of the Clinton email controversy,” JW learned.
Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton stated:
It is quite apparent why the FBI is slow-rolling the release of these Strzok-Page emails – as they dramatically show how senior officials at the Obama DOJ and FBI gave special and favorable treatment to Clinton and her lawyers. As the Obama Justice Department and FBI bent over backwards to protect Hillary Clinton, these agencies broke every law under the sun to spy on her political opponent, Donald J. Trump. AG [Attorney General William] Barr and [FBI] Director [Christopher] Wray must stop the stonewalling about this corruption and reopen the Clinton email investigation.
Clinton has repeatedly claimed she has turned in all relevant emails she sent using a private email account on a private server that was reportedly wiped clean, yet more emails that she failed to turn in keep turning up.
Clinton also claims she did not send any classified information using her private email, but she deleted thousands of those messages, so it is impossible to determine the veracity of her claim. Mishandling classified information by exclusively using a personal email address hosted on a private server could amount to a criminal offense, a fact that may have prompted Clinton to delete thousands of emails.
DOJ’s special treatment of the lawyers representing Hillary Clinton and her aides may have prompted the executive department charged with the enforcement of the law and administration of justice not to pursue charges against the former secretary of state. JW noted:
The new emails include a discussion about negotiations with Beth Wilkinson, a lawyer for the Clinton aides who gathered and then deleted 33,000 emails for Hillary Clinton, over the destruction of laptops provided to the FBI.
According to the Washington Post, the more than two-year investigation into corruption allegations against Hillary Clinton “has effectively ended with no tangible results, and current and former law enforcement officials said they never expected the effort to produce much of anything.”
The Post, however, failed to take into account the emails obtained by JW, which show that Clinton’s lawyers received special treatment.
Republicans raised concerns about wrongdoing amid the Obama administration’s decision to allow the 2010 acquisition in which Russia’s nuclear energy agency, Rosatom, acquired a controlling stake in the Canada-based company Uranium One. Clinton was serving as secretary of state at the time.
The deal allowed the Kremlin’s Rosatom to receive rights to an estimated 20 percent of the uranium extraction capacity in the United States, the Washington Post acknowledged January 9.
In November 2017, the DOJ tapped U.S. Attorney in Utah John Huber to investigate concerns raised by Trump and his allies in Congress that the FBI failed to fully pursue cases of possible corruption linked to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state.
In late 2017, Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III was supervising the FBI investigation into corruption allegations against Hillary Clinton and her family’s foundation. Trump and his allies were pushing senior law enforcement officials to appoint a second special counsel to pursue the Clinton corruption claims, the Washington Post reported, adding:
[Attorney General Jeff] Sessions did not appoint a second special counsel, but weeks later sent a letter to Huber telling him to “review” a wide array of issues related to Clinton. They included the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One matters, along with the FBI’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state and alleged leaks by former FBI director James B. Comey. At the time, Sessions was facing persistent public and private criticism from Trump, who was upset over his recusal from the Russia probe.
Several mainstream media outlets, including Vanity Fair, gloated that the DOJ inquiry into alleged corruption at the Clinton Foundation and during Clinton’s tenure as former President Barack Obama’s secretary of state, “has been a bust,” citing the January 9 Washington Post report.
The outlets completely ignored the emails obtained by JW that Hillary Clinton’s lawyers received special treatment by DOJ.