On Tuesday, conservative watchdog Judicial Watch released 79 pages of Justice Department records showing FBI leadership discussions about perceived conflicts of interest with the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
According to Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton, the watchdog obtained emails with FOIA lawsuit filed on July 24, 2017. The FOIA was prompted after the Justice Department officials refused to respond to an October 24, 2016 request.
Judicial Watch reports:
Judicial Watch today released 79 pages of Justice Department documents concerning ethics issues related to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s involvement with his wife’s political campaign. The documents include an email showing Mrs. McCabe was recruited for a Virginia state senate race in February 2015 by then-Virginia Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam’s office.
The news that Clinton used a private email server broke five days later, on March 2, 2015. Five days after that, former Clinton Foundation board member and Democrat party fundraiser, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, met with the McCabes. She announced her candidacy on March 12. Soon afterward, Clinton/McAuliffe-aligned political groups donated nearly $700,000 (40% of the campaign’s total funds) to McCabe’s wife for her campaign.
[…]
An October 23, 2016, email shows McCabe running the response effort to a Wall Street Journal article that was published that day, titled “Clinton Ally Aided Campaign of FBI Official’s Wife.” McCabe provides Michael Kortan, the assistant director of Public Affairs, his version of a timeline of events surrounding the Clinton investigation and his wife’s campaign. McCabe said he contacted then-FBI Chief of Staff Chuck Roseburg about Jill McCabe’s candidacy and was told that “the D [Comey] has no issue with it.” (Judicial Watch earlier this month released documents showing that McCabe finally did recuse himself from the Clinton investigation only a week before last year’s presidential election.)
“Internally, the Wall Street Journal article started a flurry of emails among Mrs. McCabe’s campaign, Kortan, Director McCabe, and the FBI’s General Counsel. Part of that exchange is an email from McCabe to someone in the General Counsel’s Office: “Sucks pretty much. Buckle in. It’s going to get rough.” The colleague responds, “I know. It’s awful. I shouldn’t be shocked by now, but I really am appalled,” recounts Fitton.
On October 24, 2016, a memo was sent FBI leadership concerning the Wall Street Journal article discussing campaign activities of Director McCabe’s wife with an attachment titled “Overview of Deputy Director McCabe’s Recusal Related To Dr. McCabe’s Campaign for Political Office.”
In 2016, then House Government Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz sent a letter to McCabe raising the posibility that a conflict of interest existed between his investigation of Clinton’s emails and Hillary headlining a Virginia fundraiser for his wife on June 26, 2015.
“A significant amount was donated after the FBI had initiated its investigation and begun meeting with Secretary Clinton’s attorneys in August 2015,” wrote Chaffetz.
“These new documents show that the FBI leadership was politicized and compromised in its handling of the Clinton email investigation,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton on Tuesday.
“It well past time for a do-over on the Clinton emails that requires a new, honest criminal investigation of her misconduct,” Fitton added.
Click here to read the rest of Judicial Watch’s report.
