With the revelations that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is re-opening its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s illicit private email server kept hidden in her New York home when she was Obama’s Secretary of State, many wonder just what new evidence there could be. After all, the Bureau gave most of the suspects immunity and even destroyed much of the evidence in the original case.
When news broke about the results of the FBI’s first investigation into Hillary’s email scandal, Director James Comey concluded “no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case” and decided not to recommend to the Department of Justice to indict the former Secretary of State for her violations of national security laws. But even as Comey decided there wasn’t enough there to indict, it was also revealed that many of Hillary’s aides were given immunity and the FBI destroyed much of the evidence so it could never be used in any future case.
One Hillary operative given immunity was top adviser Cheryl Mills.
Mills was reportedly given immunity right before FBI investigators started looking through her computer for classified information. This despite Mills seeming never to have been awarded the security clearances necessary to have classified material on her personal devices in the first place.
Not only was Mills excused from culpability by the FBI, the agency even agreed to physically destroy her laptop so that any illegally stored classified material would be forever eliminated from existence, out of the hands of future investigators.
This same immunity deal was given to Hillary aide Heather Samuelson, an ex-campaign staffer and deputy to Mills.
Beth Wilkinson, a Washington-based lawyer who is married to former Meet The Press host and Clinton donor David Gregory, negotiated these “side agreements” for Hillary’s two former aides. In total, Wilkinson represented four of Clinton’s top aides, helping them to skirt culpability in the FBI’s investigation.
The FBI and the Department of Justice also gave an immunity deal to the man who actually deleted thousands of Hillary’s emails — even after he was given a “preserve evidence” order from a congressional committee investigating Hillary’s email scandal.
It was revealed early in September that the FBI and the DOJ gave immunity to Paul Combetta, the man hired by Hillary to maintain the secret email server in her New York home.
It was a deal heavily criticized by Representative Trey Gowdy (R-SC). Gowdy called the deal an act “tantamount to giving the triggerman immunity in a robbery case.”
Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions also criticized the FBI’s move to destroy evidence.
Early in October, the Alabamian pointed out that some of the laptops the FBI destroyed were under subpoena by Congress, but now that the evidence has been permanently, physically destroyed, congress will never be able to find out what was contained on those devices. Sessions called the FBI’s behavior “a breathtaking thing.”
At the very least, the long list of immunity “side agreements” and the physically destroyed evidence should make further investigations harder, not easier.
It appears that some of the evidence being considered in this “re-opened” investigation into Hillary’s email scandal came from the investigation into the sexual misconduct allegations against Anthony Weiner, a former congressman and the husband of Hillary’s top aide, Huma Abedin.
According to The New York Times, the FBI discovered some of Hillary Clinton’s emails on devices owned by Weiner as they investigated allegations of his sexual misconduct with a minor.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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