The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) did not review thumb drives containing potentially significant evidence while investigating Hillary Clinton’s private email server, according to a newly declassified report.
An FBI draft memo from May 2016 stated reviewing the thumb drives would be necessary to conduct a “thorough and complete investigation,” including assessing national security risks associated with the private server. Yet the agency “never finalized the memorandum or submitted this request to the department,” according to the document released Monday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley.
The document is the appendix to a 2018 Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Inspector General (OIG) report examining the FBI’s Clinton investigation. Grassley has been seeking information about it since 2018.
“I commend Chairman Grassley for his unwavering, years-long commitment to exposing the truth and holding those who seek to conceal it accountable,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said Monday in a statement. “This Department of Justice is fully committed to transparency and will continue to support good-faith efforts in Congress to ensure accountability across the federal government.”
Comey publicly stated Clinton was “extremely careless” in handling highly classified information but recommended the DOJ bring no charges in July 2016. He launched the probe into false allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia just weeks later.
The 2018 OIG report found the FBI considered “but did not seek permission from the Department to review certain highly classified materials,” but the declassified appendix offers more details about the materials.
“[T]he vast majority of this data has never been reviewed by the FBI, including for counterintelligence purposes, based on concerns that information from certain U.S. victims may be privileged,” the 2018 report states.
Information contained on the thumb drives, which “included former President Barack Obama’s emails” and State Department information, posed concerns about “Executive and Congressional Privileges,” per the report.
No witness stated they believed reviewing the thumb drives “would have changed the outcome” of the investigation, the report notes. Witnesses told the OIG it was “unlikely to include communications from the beginning of former Secretary Clinton’s tenure showing her intent in setting up and using a private email server.”
Grassley said in a statement he is grateful the document is coming to light after “nearly a decade in the shadows.”
“This document shows an extreme lack of effort and due diligence in the FBI’s investigation of former Secretary Clinton’s email usage and mishandling of highly classified information,” Grassley said. “Under Comey’s leadership, the FBI failed to perform fundamental investigative work and left key pieces of evidence on the cutting room floor. The Comey FBI’s negligent approach and perhaps intentional lack of effort in the Clinton investigation is a stark contrast to its full-throated investigation of the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, which was based on the uncorroborated and now discredited Steele dossier. Comey’s decision-making process smacks of political infection.”
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