‘Shut It Down!’: Obama DAG’s 2016 Email to FBI Agents Investigating the Clinton Foundation
“The declassified timeline revealed that as early as February 2016, the Justice Department ‘indicated they would not be supportive of an FBI investigation.'”
Investigative journalist and editor of Just the News, John Solomon, has released a newly declassified 2017 memo detailing the “extensive political obstruction” FBI agents investigating alleged Clinton Foundation corruption encountered from top officials in the Obama administration’s Justice Department and FBI.
The timeline features a 2016 email in which then–Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates told FBI agents to “Shut it down!”
Solomon obtained the memo from FBI Director Kash Patel, who had been tipped off by a whistleblower on the memo’s existence and location. Solomon noted that Patel uncovered additional related documents, which he plans to turn over to Congress.
During the 2016 election cycle, FBI agents in New York City, Little Rock, Arkansas, and Washington, D.C., were investigating allegations that donors to the Clinton Foundation made considerable contributions in return for “political favors.”
The predicate for the probe was Peter Schweizer’s 2015 book, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. Schweizer reported that during Hillary Clinton’s service as Secretary of State, the Clinton Foundation was taking in massive donations from “foreign and U.S. interests with business before her department.”
Breaking: ‘Shut it down’: Bombshell FBI timeline exposes political interference in Clinton corruption probe https://t.co/YMJg4IIE6p
— John Solomon (@jsolomonReports) August 14, 2025
Solomon reported that the FBI agents approached four U.S. Attorneys’ offices for assistance; three rejected the request outright, effectively saying, ‘You’re on your own.’ He wrote that the timeline and the corroborating internal emails “make clear that both the DOJ and former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe placed significant impediments in front of agents who believed they had evidence to justify a public integrity criminal case.”
The declassified timeline revealed that as early as February 2016, the Justice Department “indicated they would not be supportive of an FBI investigation.” The timeline also shows that, in mid-February 2016, McCabe ordered that “no overt investigative steps” were allowed to be taken in the Clinton Foundation investigation “without his approval” — a command he allegedly repeated numerous times over the coming months.
The timeline can be viewed at this link: Declassified Timeline on Clinton Foundation Investigation
According to Solomon:
The timeline detailed how Yates ordered one of the federal prosecutors to “shut it down” likely in the March 2016 timeframe. Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) and Eastern District of New York (EDNY) purportedly said in August 2016 that they “would not support the investigation” into the Clinton Foundation, according to the timeline, and that “no explanation was given.”
Once the investigation had essentially been delayed for a year and dragged past the November 2016 election, the timeline shows that DOJ officials under Trump then began to raise their “concerns regarding the statute of limitations” around the investigation, with one still unnamed official saying that they “wanted to close this chapter and move forward.”
Solomon cites a June 2018 Justice Department inspector general report, which discussed McCabe’s role in both the Midyear [Clinton emails] investigation and the Clinton Foundation investigation, and his curious recusal from them on November 1, 2016. The report “found that McCabe did not fully comply with this recusal in a few instances related to the Clinton Foundation investigation.”
In other words, he continued to meddle. McCabe, you will recall, was ultimately fired from the FBI for what officials described as his “lack of candor.”
According to the memo, FBI agents encountered repeated obstruction from DOJ officials.
Solomon highlighted a meeting “between multiple FBI agents and DOJ officials whose names are redacted, including staff from the Criminal Investigative Division and the Office of General Counsel” at the time the investigation into the Clinton Foundation was opened.
An unnamed official whose identity was redacted “authorized all three field offices to open investigations but to not take any investigative steps until the matter was discussed with DOJ.” The FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division “advised the search/access parameters for their investigation were limited in scope” and that the Criminal Investigative Division “would not be able to share” certain redacted information “with the CF investigative team.”
This makes clear the extent to which Obama administration officials sought to maintain tight control over all facets of the investigation.
Solomon cites the May 2023 Durham report, which said the FBI’s Little Rock and New York investigations “included predication based on source reporting that identified foreign governments that had made, or offered to make, contributions to the Foundation in exchange for favorable or preferential treatment from Clinton.” But, Solomon reports, “Despite that evidence, the FBI timeline stated that DOJ ‘indicated they would not be supportive of an FBI investigation’ on February 1, 2016.”
The Durham report said that during a late February 2016 meeting, “McCabe initially directed the field offices to close their cases, but following objections, agreed to reconsider the final disposition of the cases.”
Paul Abbate, then the assistant director in charge of the Washington Field Office, described McCabe as “negative,” “annoyed,” and “angry” about the Clinton Foundation cases, with McCabe saying that “they [the DOJ] say there’s nothing here” and with McCabe asking “why are we even doing this?”
Following then-FBI Director James Comey’s egregious July 5, 2016, exoneration of Hillary Clinton in the email probe, the memo said the FBI field offices in Little Rock and Washington were “directed to close their investigations” into the Clinton Foundation. The New York office “was advised no overt investigative action was to take place unless McCabe authorized it.”
Summing up the new information, Solomon wrote:
Kid gloves vs. brass knuckles: Newly-declassified timeline shows how the investigation of the Clinton Foundation was hamstrung by [the] FBI and DOJ while baseless Russia collusion marched forward in both agencies against Donald Trump.
On Wednesday evening, Solomon interviewed Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who, along with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), spent years trying to obtain records from a recalcitrant DOJ and FBI. He expressed frustration that, due to the expired statutes of limitations, the “deep state partisan actors complicit” in these frauds on the American people are not likely to be held accountable.
He mentioned the Hillary Clinton-led State Department’s approval of the sale of the Canadian uranium mining company, Uranium One, which had assets in the U.S., to the Russian energy company Rosatom. This deal gave Russia control over approximately 20% of U.S. uranium production.
According to a Congressional report, the deal was considered controversial because Rosatom investors had “reportedly donated millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation.” Additionally, President Bill Clinton “received a $500,000 speaking fee in Russia and reportedly met with Vladimir Putin around the time of the deal.”
Regarding the investigation into the Clinton Foundation, or perhaps better called the non-investigation of the Clinton Foundation, Johnson said, “You’ve got Sally Yates saying ‘shut it down’ while they are ramping up the completely false Russian hoax” against President Donald Trump.
The best we can hope for is exposure, he lamented.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
Where are all these documents hidden that a whistleblower had to Patel where it was hidden? Who knows what else there is that Patel is unaware of?
They were probably in the burn bags that Comey and company hid.
I will assume that when items are to be destroyed there is a log in procedure. The person delivering the docs and the person receiving. Then some schedule is followed showing when the items were disposed of. I’m guessing here, some honest employee decided to stash these docs so in some future day they could be resurrected to reveal the truth. Not all of the FBI were corrupted. Many underlings had to have some idea of the wrongs being done.
If they RICO it, does that statute of limitations come into play?
Why not just extend the statute of limitations to 20 years for crimes committed by government employees and office holders?
This would not be an ex post facto law nor an ex post facto application of the law. The prohibition on ex post facto law prevents a crime from being defined by statute and charged today for an act committed yesterday. It was made unconstitutional to prevent people from being charged for acts committed at a time when they had no notice the acts were crimes. Extending the statute of limitation on existing law wouldn’t do this. These Deep State criminals had notice at the time of their acts that their actions were crimes.
Alvin Bragg did something similar, although indirectly. He managed to reclassify a crime from “misdemeanor” to “felony,” thereby extending the statue of limitations on the same criminal act for which the statute had already expired. This was not an ex post facto application of the law because the law, although only a misdemeanor, existed at the time of the “offense,” giving the necessary notice that certain acts were illegal.
Remove any and all statute of limitations for crimes commited by government officials and employees in office on the public time or any semblance of official capacity.
This is incorrect, at least under current SCOTUS precedent. Once the statute of limitations has closed on a crime, reopening it would indeed be an ex post facto law, and would be unconstitutional. Stogner v California
No, that is not similar at all, and that is not why it wasn’t ex post facto. The NY statute on a felony was always ten years. By bringing a felony charge rather than a misdemeanor, he was within the statute and didn’t have to extend anything. Had the statute originally been shorter and then extended, he would not have been able to bring the charge.
Well met, Milhouse!
Although I still think it’s worth a try. Obviously, government officials and employees are particularly well-placed to conceal their crimes and the crimes of persons in their political favor. Crimes go undiscovered because government officials are themselves concealing them. We’ve seen that it can take a changing of the political landscape, after a period of several administrations, for some of these crimes to come to light for being hidden so well by the very people who are supposed to be ferreting out and prosecuting these same crimes. Some times it’s the ferrets themselves who are the guilty parties! It’s a unique situation that demands a unique response. If not making it retroactive, make it so now, so that the crimes of the next Democrat administration won’t go unpunished for their ability to conceal them for so long.
And, having read the case you mentioned (thank you for that), I believe the court made shit up, as usual. The laws that can’t be made ex post facto are those that define the crimes. Adjusting the statute of limitations does not redefine the crime, nor does it define a new crime, in any way. If the authors of the Constitution wished to extend the protections the court claims are found in the ex post facto clause, they would have spelled those protections out, they aren’t found in the Constitution, and deriving them from the clause is a stretch, at least.
I propose two-pronged legislation, with one part post-dating the lengthened limitation and the second part creating a lengthened limitation that goes forward into the future, with a separation clause that would cause them to be considered separately. Imagine the Dems trying to stop a bill that increases the statute of limitations for crimes committed while in government service. As Mika and Admiral Akbar say, “It’s a trap!”
Being elected to office is now like winning the Powerball Lottery every few years.
“I won the Powerball when I married Bill Clinton. That, and a little known political tool I call Arkancide, got me where I am today.” Hillary Rodham
Every time I see thunderthighs it occurs to me it would be appropriate to beat her coat with a rug beater, with her still in it of course.
I’d go for the wire coathanger.
I would love to see the obstructing DOJ prosecuted for their obstruction. If not because of statie of limitations then I want their names publicized far and wide and whomever they work for currently blackballed until they are fired. If their lawyers file charges against them with the bar so they lose their licenses to practice law,
So maybe there’s an outside chance that Hillary ends up in an orange jumpsuit after all?
Pamela Jo Bondi is putting on a show for everyone. Don’t trust her. Nothing is going to happen to any of the people involved in Russiagate.
There will be endless excuses as to why there are no indictments.
No. She wasn’t involved in this obstruction, and the statute has long run on her known crimes.
The general public must be made to understand that the “weaponization of government” is like an iceberg with only the offensive actions (such as those against Trump and his supporters) being visible. The vast bulk of the iceberg is under the surface. It’s the part dedicated to covering up the crimes of the Deep State and its operatives.
Let it happen, rather than clamor for immediate action. This is just starting for real, and it’s rather simple on one level but totally complicated when it comes to the moving parts. Let them tie the knots tighter. Be optimistic. The lawfare will be incredible to observe.
Bill & Hillary had a much more, compared with Biden Inc., sophisticated and ambitious influence peddling scheme. It was more than a bit of open knowledge. amongst the corporate lobbyists. So I am not surprised by the statement from above: “During the 2016 election cycle, FBI agents in New York City, Little Rock, Arkansas, and Washington, D.C., were investigating allegations that donors to the Clinton Foundation made considerable contributions in return for “political favors.” So it turns out that two of Obama’s top lieutenants (Biden and Clinton) were utterly corrupt and selling national favors for their profit. I certainly hope that the Clinton Foundation is investigated. I also hope that someone asks Obama under oath when he knew that Biden and Clinton were corrupt and what sort of kickbacks he got from their operations.
There ain’t no statute of limitations for treason.