Fmr AG Ashcroft on FBI Docs: ‘Illegal’ To Offer a Benefit for a Concession, So Is Changing Classification of Doc Under Subpoena

On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Varney & Co.,” John Ashcroft, who served as Attorney General during the George W. Bush administration stated that while he hasn’t given “a thorough investigation to FBI documents alleging Patrick Kennedy pressured the FBI to change the classification of material in an email on Hillary Clinton’s server, it’s illegal to offer “a public official a benefit in return for the public official making a concession of some kind,” and “to change the classification of the document, which is under subpoena, by the United States Congress, is asking someone to do something that I believe is illegal, in an effort to defraud the Congress by providing false information.”

Ashcroft said, “I don’t — haven’t given a thorough investigation, but offering a public official a benefit in return for the public official making a concession of some kind is illegal. And not only is it illegal if it’s — you’re asking a public official to do something illegal, it can be bribery if you offer a public official an incentive, a benefit in order to do something that is legal. If you offered to pay him, or to give him a benefit to issue a grant to you or to your organization, issuing grants is legal, but it’s not legal to offer a benefit in order to get it. Now, to change the classification of the document, which is under subpoena, by the United States Congress, is asking someone to do something that I believe is illegal, in an effort to defraud the Congress by providing false information. And secondly, really, I think given the context wherein it’s probably an effort to defraud the American people, contaminate their judgment in an election by altering the facts of something that most people think is relevant in this political campaign.”

(h/t LawNewz)

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