FBI Made Agreements With Two Hillary Aides to Destroy Laptops
Once again, more information only leads to more questions instead of answers.
It. Never. Ends. Judicial Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch after the committee discovered that a few “side agreements” the FBI gave Hillary Clinton aides during its email investigation included destroying their laptops.
Goodlatte asked for in camera reviews of these “side agreements” after the committee discovered them while reviewing the immunity agreements the DOJ gave to a few people, including aides Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson.
Fox News reported:
Sources said the arrangement with former Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills and ex-campaign staffer Heather Samuelson also limited the search to no later than Jan. 31, 2015. This meant investigators could not review documents for the period after the email server became public — in turn preventing the bureau from discovering if there was any evidence of obstruction of justice, sources said.
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The side deals were agreed to on June 10, less than a month before FBI Director James Comey announced that the agency would recommend no charges be brought against Clinton or her staff.
Judiciary Committee aides told FoxNews.com that the destruction of the laptops is particularly troubling as it means that the computers could not be used as evidence in future legal proceedings, should new information or circumstances arise.
Here’s a few of the questions Goodlatte gave Lynch to answer no later than October 10:
- Why did the FBI agree to destroy both Cheryl Mills’ and Heather Samuelson’s laptops after concluding its search?
- Doesn’t the willingness of Ms. Mills and Ms. Samuelson to have their laptops destroyed by the FBI contradict their claim that the laptops could have been withheld because they contained non-relevant, privileged information? If so, doesn’t that undermine the claim that the side agreements were necessary?
- Have these laptops, or the contents of the laptops, in fact been destroyed, thereby making follow up investigations by the FBI, or Congressional oversight, impossible?
Goodlatte wants to know exactly how many documents the FBI review team reviewed on these laptops and which ones the agents deemed privilege, meaning they didn’t hand them over to FBI investigators. He also wants Lynch to tell him “[H]ow many classified documents, broken down by national security classification level, were on each of the Mills and Samuelson laptops.”
This is actually very interesting because when I reviewed the FBI’s notes from the interviews with Mills I couldn’t find anything immunity worthy. I didn’t want to act like a conspiracy theorist, but I wondered if the FBI provided everything Mills told them.
FBI Director James Comey told the committee the DOJ gave Mills immunity “as a request pertaining to the production of her laptop during the investigation.” Comey told Rep. Ben Sasse (R-NB) that Mills needed the immunity “because without it, Mills would have fought investigators tooth and nail in an effort to withhold her computer.” But as Guy Benson points out, Hillary has claimed she and her team have fully cooperated. Well, doesn’t this declaration contradict her statement?
He also admitted to Goodlatte that Mills was in fact a “subject” of the investigation because of her computer. Comey confirmed Mills had classified emails on her computer, but denied she committed a crime because they do not know why she had the emails on her unsecure server.
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Kabuki theater meets banana republic.
How many more hard drives will be destroyed between now and President Trump’s inauguration? BleechBit and paper shredders working overtime.
Might be time to buy stock in BOTH!
If elected, HRC may be the first president since Lincoln to experience difficulties governing. No Fort Sumters, of course. But widespread, if uncoordinated civil disobedience—tax collections, police protection in certain areas, census, environmental and other federal “asks” may become problematic.
It’s rarely a good idea to declare war on your own security services, taxpayers, and middle and working classes. But I suppose with Washington much like the Versailles of the ancien regime, how would they know? Her election would complete the institutional criminalization of government.
They’ve busted the social contract.
It’s the “Central City” of the “Hunger Games” novels. Right down to the disparity between the living standards.
“It’s rarely a good idea to declare war on your own security services, taxpayers, and middle and working classes. But I suppose with Washington much like the Versailles of the ancient regime, how would they know?”
I suspect the sound of the blade dropping will give them a clue. It will be a bit late however.
Is there anyone who didn’t get immunity from the doj????
Every attorney can see through this like a window. It is a contrived way for Obama to destroy evidence under subpoena and at the same time prevent prosecution of any of the guilty parties. Comey is unscrupulous and needs to be impeached.
The more that comes out about the FBI investigation the more unanswered questions come up. I have never heard or seen anything like this in any criminal case ever. This is what you would expect in Venezuela or Columbia but not here. Comey has taken the FBI from an agency that had shadows in it’s past but now has thrown them into a black cave as a Demoratically controlled agency that can and will be used against their enemies and to help their allies. Sort of like DHS, IRS, EPA State, ATF, ICE, Dept of Edu and many more.
“[H]ow many classified documents, broken down by national security classification level, were on each of the Mills and Samuelson laptops.”
Forming the follow-up and most interesting questions, “Of these documents, how many were *not* within the classification level of the employees, how did they get there, and from whom?
“But as Guy Benson points out, Hillary has claimed she and her team have fully cooperated. Well, doesn’t this declaration contradict her statement?”
That all depends on what the meaning of “cooperate” is.
There’s Clinton “cooperation”, then cooperation as practiced by normal, moral human beings.
And another thing! I don’t know much about Samuelson, but Mills really seems like the real “Dragon Lady” here. A true believer who is willing to do ANYTHING to protect the goddess Hillary. She is a real evil customer.
We live in a banana republic. Makes me want to vomit reading the garbage our officials do in the name of duty.
Is our government a cancer that has metastasized from incompetent to evil over the last 24+ years?
Please vote these morons out , Trump is nowhere near perfect but it would take him a full 8 years to learn this level of criminality and that is if he studies 24/7
Article V Convention of States is the answer. The federal government needs to be neutered.
Go and personally talk to to your State Legislative representatives one on one about an Art. V Convention and you will be amazed at what you hear. The sad fact is the State government is just as corrupt as the Federal government.
Is it even legal to destroy evidence or authorize someone else to destroy evidence?
In short, how much of this evidence was under civil and Congressional subpoena? If any, then Comey had no right to destroy any of it. Nor did the Justice Department.
Comey needs to go. NOW
The obama administration is truly historical, they grant immunity to suspected criminal conspirators and destroy evidence for them.
The big problem with immunity for Mills and possibly others is it was apparently granted without any proffer of valuable evidence in exchange. I’ve never heard of immunity being granted simply because the witness would fight a subpoena – that would make it pretty easy to get. The FBI would clearly have won the fight eventually.
That said, no sane lawyer would allow Mills, given her situation, to answer questions without immunity.
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An even bigger problem is that Mills herself was the attorney of record for at least two other witnesses. If such an arrangement is legal and ethical, it should not be.
And another close Clinton friend was attorney for several other witnesses in the case. Since she herself was not a target, it is not unprecedented – but is still usually only seen in organized crime cases.
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To the extent these odd legal relationships are permitted, the FBI had little choice but to deal with them. That still doesn’t explain full immunity for free, though.
Who is doing a damage assessment? And how can you do a damage assessment without knowing everything that was on those laptops?
We must know what information was compromised so that we can know what our enemies found out — sources and methods. This is basic counter-intelligence 101.
John Mitchell and Web Hubbell went to jail. Why can we not make that happen again?
All of this makes no sense. There seems to be no logical reason for all the FBI’s decisions.
Until you realize who is really being protected.
Obama is likely exposed by his own words throughout the emails. Comey and the FBI have been given one job: keep this away from the White House at all costs. Comey will fall on his sword repeatedly to accomplish this task. If Trump is elected I fear there won’t be any evidence left by the time he takes the oath. Every government system will have been sterilized.
We are no longer a nation of laws…
22 emails from obama to clinton’s server years before obama claimed he just learned about the server on the evening news. The big boss with the final say is the one who engineered this travesty of justice.
What are the odds that Team Clinton kept a copy of those 22 e-mails for safe keeping and with a wink/wink, nod/nod made sure Team Obama was made aware that they were safe until they “could” be anonymously leaked.
No point in whistling past the graveyard. We’ve had a soft coup and are living under a kinder, gentler Stalinism.
What the Muslims demand I believe I can not.