FBI's Clinton probe expands to public corruption track

[TheSanityAnnex]

Hillary misleading about email probe during debate, former FBI agents say

Hillary Clinton used misleading language in Thursday night’s Democratic debate to describe the ongoing FBI investigation into her use of a private email server to conduct official government business while she was secretary of state, according to former senior FBI agents.

In the New Hampshire debate with Senator Bernie Sanders, which aired on MSNBC, Clinton told moderator Chuck Todd that nothing would come of the FBI probe, “I am 100 percent confident. This is a security review that was requested. It is being carried out.”

Not true says Steve Pomerantz, who spent 28 years at the FBI, and rose from field investigative special agent to the rank of assistant director, the third highest position in the Bureau.

“They (the FBI) do not do security reviews,” Pomerantz said. “What they primarily do and what they are clearly doing in this instance is a criminal investigation.”

Pomerantz emphasized to Fox News, “There is no mechanism for her to be briefed and to have information about the conduct, the substance, the direction or the result of any FBI investigation.”

Separately, an intelligence source familiar with the two prongs of the ongoing FBI probe, stressed to Fox that the criminal and national security elements remain “inseparable.” The source, not authorized to speak on the record, characterized Clinton’s statement “as a typical Clinton diversion… and what is she going to say, “I’m 95 percent sure that I am going to get away with it?”

Fox recently learned that one of the FBI's senior agents responsible for counterintelligence matters, Charles H. Kable IV, is working the Clinton case, another indicator the intelligence source said that the FBI probe is “extremely serious, and the A-team is handling.”

Kable, known as "Sandy," was appointed special agent in charge of the counterintelligence division at the Washington field office by Director James Comey in December

[TheSanityAnnex]

Do ents suggest State Dept. asked Clinton to delete classified emails

A series of letters sent back and forth between State Department officials and Hillary Clinton's legal team last year sheds light on the agency's scramble to recover classified do ents that had been stored in unsecured environments.
The letters, made public Wednesday by conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, suggest the State Department was concerned about Clinton's lawyers handling records that had been upgraded to "secret," the second-highest level of classification in government.

Recovering now-classified emails that have been potentially touched by dozens of unqualified people posed problems for the State Department, especially since Clinton's lawyers said they were unable to delete the sensitive records as requested because they faced preservation orders from the House Select Committee on Benghazi.


Patrick Kennedy, State's undersecretary for management and the agency's top record-keeping official, warned Clinton's attorney, David Kendall, in May of last year that an email discussing Benghazi had been upgraded to "secret" and should be deleted from the Clinton's records.


Kendall promised in a subsequent letter to send hard copies of the email to the State Department, but argued Clinton could not delete the "secret" email because she faced separate orders from the Benghazi committee, the State Department inspector general and the intelligence community inspector general.

"I therefore do not believe it would be prudent to delete, as you request, the above-referenced email," Kendall wrote to Kennedy in June.

Contents of some of the letters were first made public in September, when scrutiny of Clinton's private email use had begun to peak ahead of her highly anticipated appearance before the Benghazi committee the following month.
In August, the FBI had confiscated Clinton's server after the two inspectors general who had issued preservation orders discovered emails classified up to "top secret" among the former secretary of state's records.
But the letters hold new significance in light of the news late last month that the State Department had upgraded 22 emails to "top secret," ending the dispute between the intelligence community and State over the highly sensitive nature of those records.


For example, one letter from Kennedy to Clinton's legal team in June laid out a list of 25 emails that had been classified up to that date. Since then, more than 1,600 emails have been upgraded to classified.
Kennedy described each email in detail and outlined specific instructions for the identification and removal of each one, a process that would be difficult and time-consuming if Clinton and her team still had possession of all 55,000 pages of emails.


http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/do...rticle/2582954

[TheSanityAnnex]

Official: Top Clinton aides also handled ‘top secret’ intel on server

At least a dozen email accounts handled the “top secret” intelligence that was found on Hillary Clinton’s server and recently deemed too damaging for national security to release, a U.S. government official close to the review told Fox News. The official said the accounts include not only Clinton’s but those of top aides – including Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, Jake Sullivan and Philippe Reines – as well as State Department Under Secretary for Management Patrick F. Kennedy and others. There is no public evidence they were authorized to receive the intelligence some of which was beyond Top Secret.
A second source not authorized to speak on the record said the number of accounts involved could be as high as 30 and reflects how the intelligence was broadly shared, replied to, and copied to individuals using the unsecured server.
“My contacts with former colleagues and current active duty personnel involved in sensitive programs reveal a universal feeling that the HRC issue is more serious than the general public realizes,” Dan Maguire, a former strategic planner with Africom, and with 46 years combined service, told Fox. “Most opine they would already be behind bars if they had apparently compromised sensitive information as reported.”
Without access to the actual e-mails, Maguire said it was hard to ascertain what damage might have been done by the disclosure of human spying intelligence and secret material.
“Either way, the intelligence community is undoubtedly conducting damage assessments and evaluating the viability of any ongoing operation that may have been exposed to unauthorized personnel. The vulnerability of HRC’s server to foreign government hacking cannot be overlooked - even the DCI, John Brennan, has been the target of hackers,” he said.
Former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey told Fox, “It is counterintuitive to suggest that they (Clinton’s aides) all had authorization and access through a non-secure server to information of that sensitivity.”
The State Department recently confirmed that the messages in question include the most sensitive kind of intelligence. On Jan. 29, Fox News first reported that some emails on Clinton’s server were too damaging to release in any form. The State Department subsequently announced that 22 “top secret” emails were being withheld in full; these were the messages being handled by more than a dozen accounts.
Pressed on whether a damage assessment was being done, State Department Spokesman Mark Toner said, “To your broader question – what is being done to -- as you said spillage – I can’t speak to those efforts today. We’re aware obviously of those concerns. We are taking steps, but I don’t have any more details to provide.”
Aside from this week’s letter confirming the FBI investigation is focused on Clinton’s server, the Bureau has not publicly acknowledged whom it has contracted or interviewed.
Kennedy recently told the House Benghazi Select Committee that he knew about Clinton's personal email from the beginning, but did not understand the "scope" of its use for Clinton’s government business.

Kennedy's testimony now appears to conflict with emails released through the Freedom of Information Act that show he routinely sent and received government business from the Clintonemail.com account.
Toner said Kennedy learned about Clinton’s arrangement later. “He did not have knowledge of the computer server that she had set up [for] personal email or computer server she'd set up at her residence,” he said.
However, on the official State Department website, Patrick F. Kennedy’s biography says that he has worked for the department since 1993 and, in his current position as Under Secretary for Management, he is responsible for the “people, resources, budget, facilities, technology, financial operations, consular affairs, logistics, contracting, and security for Department of State operations.”

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016...l?intcmp=hpbt2

[spurraider21]

If the info was classified at the time of receipt, Obamas going to have to step in.

please. they're going to try to bury the story

[TheSanityAnnex]

please. they're going to try to bury the story

It would have already been buried had Obama wanted it so. He's allowing the DOJ and FBI to continue on, unless the FBI's gone rogue and aren't following his orders.

[TheSanityAnnex]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...c2f_story.html

Clinton Foundation received subpoena from State Department investigators

Investigators with the State Department issued a subpoena to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation last fall seeking do ents about the charity’s projects that may have required approval from the federal government during Hillary Clinton’s term as secretary of state, according to people familiar with the subpoena and written correspondence about it.
The subpoena also asked for records related to Huma Abedin, a longtime Clinton aide who for six months in 2012 was employed simultaneously by the State Department, the foundation, Clinton’s personal office, and a private consulting firm with ties to the Clintons.
The full scope and status of the inquiry, conducted by the State Department’s inspector general, were not clear from the material correspondence reviewed by The Washington Post.
A foundation representative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing inquiry, said the initial do ent request had been narrowed by investigators and that the foundation is not the focus of the probe.

A State IG spokesman declined to comment on that assessment or on the subpoena.
Representatives for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and Abedin also declined comment.
There is no indication that the watchdog is looking at Clinton. But as she runs for president in part by promoting her leadership of the State Department, an inquiry involving a top aide and the relationship between her agency and her family’s charity could further complicate her campaign.
For months, Clinton has wrangled with controversy over her use of a private email server, which has sparked a separate investigation by the same State Department inspector general’s office. There is also an FBI investigation into whether her system compromised national security.
Clinton was asked about the FBI investigation at a debate last week and said she was “100 percent confident” nothing would come of it. Last month, Clinton denied a Fox News report that the FBI had expanded its probe to include ties between the foundation and the State Department. She called that report “an unsourced, irresponsible” claim with “no basis.”
During the years Clinton served as secretary of state, the foundation was led by her husband, former president Bill Clinton. She joined its board after leaving office in February 2013 and helped run it until launching her White House bid in April.

Abedin served as deputy chief of staff at State starting in 2009. For the second half of 2012, she participated in the “special government employee” program that enabled her to work simultaneously in the State Department, the foundation, Hillary Clinton’s personal office and Teneo, a private consultancy with close ties to the Clintons.
Abedin has been a visible part of Hillary Clinton’s world since she served as an intern in the 1990s for the then-first lady while attending George Washington University. On the campaign trail, Clinton is rarely seen in public without Abedin somewhere nearby.
Republican lawmakers have alleged that foreign officials and other powerful interests with business before the U.S. government gave large donations to the Clinton Foundation to curry favor with a sitting secretary of state and a potential future president.
Both Clintons have dismissed those accusations, saying donors contributed to the $2 billion foundation to support its core missions: improving health care, education and environmental work around the world.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic primary, has largely avoided raising either issue in his campaign. Last spring, Sanders expressed concerns about the Clinton Foundation being part of a political system “dominated by money.”
Sanders has batted away questions about the email scandal, famously saying at a debate last fall that, “The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.”
The potential consequences of the IG investigation are unclear. Unlike federal prosecutors, who generally use subpoenas issued by a grand jury, inspectors general frequently subpoena do ents without seeking approval from a grand jury or judge.

But their power is limited. They are able to obtain do ents, but they cannot compel testimony. At times, IG inquiries result in criminal charges, but sometimes they lead to administrative review, civil penalties or reports that have no legal consequences.
The IG has investigated Abedin before. Last year, the watchdog concluded she was overpaid nearly $10,000 because of violations of sick leave and vacation policies, a finding that Abedin and her attorneys have contested.
Republican lawmakers, led by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), have alleged that Abedin’s role at the center of overlapping public and private Clinton worlds created the potential for conflicts of interest.

[CosmicCowboy]

[SpursforSix]

An expanding probe! Ouch.

[TheSanityAnnex]

Judge Andrew Napolitano said Thursday that “the FBI now has leverage” in the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server and can indict Clinton’s top aides and trade less punishment for testimony against her.
Citing the report by Fox News’s Catherine Herridge and Pamela K. Browne, Napolitano said on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom” that “Mrs. Clinton’s top aides regularly received from Mrs. Clinton via her private server Top Secret emails. These are emails which the aides lacked the security clearance to receive.”

“So this tells us a couple things,” Napolitano said. “One, Mrs. Clinton was so reckless in the manner in which she sent out Top Secret emails, knowingly sending them to people who weren’t authorized to receive them.” “We know two, their acceptance, discussion and transfer of this is a felony. We know three, that the FBI now has leverage. The Justice Department can indict her top aides and trade with them,” Napolitano said. “What would they want? Testimony against Mrs. Clinton in return for a deal with them. This is the way the government works.”
The aides in question include Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, Philippe Reines, Jake Sullivan and Patrick Kennedy.

Later, Napolitano added when the aides were exchanging the Top Secret information with Clinton, it was “not OK because in the process their of exchanging Top Secret emails … they wittingly or unwittingly, and under the law it doesn’t matter, wittingly or unwittingly, exposed the nation’s most important secrets to persons who would cause us ill when they get those secrets.”

http://dailycaller.com/2016/02/11/na...y-aides-video/

[TheSanityAnnex]

Pressure on Lynch to step aside in Clinton email probe

Loretta Lynch is on the edge of the spotlight, about to be dragged to the center.
If the FBI finds sufficient evidence to launch a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton or one of her top aides for mishandling classified information, Lynch’s Justice Department will have to decide whether to press ahead.





Even if no evidence of wrongdoing is found, Clinton’s many critics are unlikely to take the word of an appointee of President Obama’s and will doubt that justice has been served.

Already, top Republicans are calling for a special prosecutor to be brought in and evaluate the situation.

No. 2 Senate Republican John Cornyn (Texas) took to the floor of the Senate last week to call for a special counsel to be appointed “because of the conflict of interest by asking Attorney General Lynch to investigate and perhaps even prosecute somebody in the Obama administration.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) agrees that Lynch ought to consider a special counsel, a representative said, to reassure the country that decisions are made “without regard to any political considerations.”The Justice Department, however, has so far declined the request.
“This matter is being reviewed by career attorneys and investigators and does not meet the criteria for the appointment of a special prosecutor,” department spokeswoman Melanie Newman said in a statement.
Federal officials are currently investigating the security of Clinton’s bespoke email arrangement and whether classified information may have been mishandled.
Critics of Clinton have called for indictments to be handed down following revelations that more than 1,500 classified emails — including 22 classified at the highest level — were found on her personal server. None of the messages were marked as classified, and accounts differ as to whether they should have been classified at the time they were sent.

During a Democratic presidential debate last week, Clinton insisted that she was “100 percent confident” that the FBI’s review will not evolve into a criminal matter.

Instead, she and other Democrats have decried the criticism about the emails as simple political gamesmanship designed to drag down her presidential campaign.

“I think the American people will know it’s an absurdity, and I have absolutely no concerns about it whatsoever,” said Clinton.

Lynch’s critics are unconvinced that the attorney general can be a neutral arbiter.

“I think they probably won’t indict her, because the attorney general is from New York, who I believe is a friend of Hillary Clinton,” Donald Trump, a leading Republican presidential candidate, said on Fox News’s “Fox and Friends” in October.
Skeptics of Lynch have also pointed to an October interview in which President Obama appeared to dismiss concerns about Clinton’s private server.
“I can tell you that this is not a situation in which America's national security was endangered,” Obama said on CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
“It might appear that he’s trying to influence the conduct of the investigation,” Cornyn said on the Senate floor this week. “That’s a real problem.”
No close ties
Lynch and Clinton never had much of a personal relationship, former colleagues told The Hill in recent days.

“I’m not aware of any relationship with Hillary Clinton,” said Steven Edwards, who worked alongside Lynch for nearly a decade at the law firm Hogan Lovells (the firm was previously called Hogan & Hartson when Lynch joined it in 2001).

Lynch was appointed to be the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York in 1999 by President Bill Clinton, Hillary’s husband.
However, she was personally recommended for the position by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), and one government official said Clinton himself had a relatively minor role in the selection process.
For a period of months, she also worked as the district’s top prosecutor while Hillary Clinton was serving as the junior senator from New York, until Lynch left for private practice in 2001.
Lynch would return to become the U.S. attorney in 2010, before she was tapped to be the nation’s top law enforcement official last year.

But unlike some U.S. attorneys — such as former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani or Preet Bharara, the current U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York — Lynch never appeared to glad-hand with politicians, former colleagues say.

“I worked with her very closely and you know, I’ve got lots of partners who, when we chitchat, talk about their involvement in political campaigns or their lunches with people in Washington,” said Dennis Tracey, a partner at Hogan Lovells who worked with Lynch. “But she never did.”

“If Rudy is at one end of the spectrum, Loretta is at the other one, in terms of being political,” echoed Edwards, who is now at Quinn Emanuel. “She is a very, very cautious person and doesn’t operate that way.”

Lingering in the background is the prospect that Lynch’s decision may affect her own future.

Lynch was confirmed by the Senate last year after a five-month delay largely unrelated to her own qualifications. That left the nation’s top lawyer with just a year and a half in office, during Obama’s lame duck period in which policy efforts are likely to stall.

If Clinton becomes the next president, however, Lynch may be asked to stay on, at least for a short time. As such, she may have a little bit of skin in the game.

“That Hillary Clinton could be the Democrat nominee and potential next president represents an extraordinary cir stance that commends the appointment of a special counsel,” said Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), the head of the House Oversight subcommittee on national security, in a statement to The Hill. “For a Democrat-appointed attorney general such as Lynch, this is obviously something that distinguishes the Clinton investigation from other cases.”

Along with 43 other Republicans, DeSantis wrote a letter to the Justice Department last year asking for a special counsel to be appointed so that the investigation can be conducted “impartially.”

Former colleagues of Lynch rejected the notion that she would be biased in the Clinton probe.

“I cannot imagine allowing any personal relationship to affect her work. It’s just not the way she is,” said Tracey.

Special prosecutor
So far, the Justice Department has declined congressional requests to appoint a special prosecutor to oversee the Clinton issue.

In a letter to DeSantis in November, assistant attorney general Peter Kadzik said that the law allowing for a special counsel “has rarely been used.”

“Any investigation related to this referral [into Clinton’s server] will be conducted by law enforcement professionals and career attorneys in accordance with established department policies and procedures designed to ensure the integrity of all ongoing investigations,” Kadzik wrote.

The FBI has refused to share details about its investigation. So far, however, the bureau does not appear to be conducting a criminal probe, and officials have said it is not directly targeting Clinton.

Multiple lawyers watching the case have suggested that Clinton’s top aides may be in more trouble than she is.

As one former senior Justice Department official noted, there are many options for the government to take apart from either nothing or an indictment against Clinton.

“It could play out with people agreeing to plead to … a misdemeanor charge, people agreeing to leave office or withdraw in return for a pardon,” the former official said.

“I think ultimately, one of those events is going to happen,” the former official added.

“It’s no

http://thehill.com/policy/national-s...on-email-probe

[TheSanityAnnex]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...7df_story.html




U.S. judge orders discovery to go forward over Clinton’s private email system

[ChumpDumper]

So what is your call here, TSA?

How many years do you say Clinton will spend behind bars?

[TheSanityAnnex]

So what is your call here, TSA?

How many years do you say Clinton will spend behind bars?

My call would be to put a special prosecutor on the case, I don't trust Loretta Lynch to act in good faith.

[ChumpDumper]

My call would be to put a special prosecutor on the case, I don't trust Loretta Lynch to act in good faith.

That was not my question. Nice dodge.

Again.

[TheSanityAnnex]

That was not my question. Nice dodge.

Again.

da ? You just asked what my call was.

[ChumpDumper]

So what is your call here, TSA?

How many years do you say Clinton will spend behind bars?

lol still dodging

[Blake]

da ? You just asked what my call was.

Damn your reading comp skills blow

[TheSanityAnnex]

lol still dodging

All depends on if a special prosecutor is put on the case.

[ChumpDumper]

All depends on if a special prosecutor is put on the case.

If there is a special prosecutor, how many years?

[TheSanityAnnex]

If there is a special prosecutor, how many years?

Depends on how many charges are brought. Do you have a point to make? If you want to know if I'd like to see her behind bars most definitely.

[spurraider21]

correct answer is zero. if she actually got indicted (let alone convicted) then sanders wins the race and pardons her.

[ChumpDumper]

Depends on how many charges are brought. Do you have a point to make? If you want to know if I'd like to see her behind bars most definitely.

My point now is you are still dodging.

[TheSanityAnnex]

My point now is you are still dodging.

Your question was answered with depends on how many charges are brought. Your point now is to continue on with your typical got schtick. Good luck with that.

[TheSanityAnnex]

Gov employee (set up her server lol wtf) who earlier pleaded the 5th now granted immunity. Things are heating up.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...html?tid=sm_tw

The Justice Department has granted immunity to the former State Department staffer who worked on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private email server as part of a criminal investigation into the possible mishandling of classified information, according to a senior law enforcement official.
The official said the FBI had secured the cooperation of Bryan Pagliano who worked on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign before setting up the server in her New York home in 2009.
As the FBI looks to wrap up its investigation in the coming months, agents will likely want to interview Clinton and her senior aides about the decision to use a private server, how it was set up, and whether any of the participants knew they were sending classified information in emails, current and former officials said.
The inquiry comes against a sensitive political backdrop in which Clinton is the favorite to secure the Democratic nomination for the presidency.
So far, there is no indication that prosecutors have convened a grand jury in the email investigation to subpoena testimony or do ents, which would require the participation of a U.S. attorney’s office.

[TheSanityAnnex]

http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/02/politi...ce-department/








Bryan Pagliano, a former Hillary Clinton staffer who helped set up her private email server, has accepted an immunity offer from the FBI and the Justice Department to provide an interview to investigators, a U.S. law enforcement official told CNN Wednesday.

The FBI has been asking for Pagliano's cooperation for months as dozens of investigators pored over thousands of Clinton emails in a secure room on the fourth floor of FBI headquarters.


The probe shifted into a new phase recently as investigators completed the review of the emails, working with intelligence agencies and the State Department to determine whether they were classified.
The Washington Post first reported Pagliano's cooperation.
"As we have said since last summer, Secretary Clinton has been cooperating with the Justice Department's security inquiry, including offering in August to meet with them to assist their efforts if needed," said Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Clinton's presidential campaign.

Read More


Fallon added that the campaign was "pleased" Pagliano was cooperating with the Justice Department.
Last fall, when Pagliano invoked his Fifth Amendment rights and declined to talk to congressional investigators, Fallon said: "(Clinton has) encouraged everyone to cooperate because we want to make every good-faith effort to be transparent and answer any questions people have. With Mr. Pagliano, we encouraged him as well because we don't think he has any reason to not be transparent about the help that he provided from an IT perspective, but unfortunately, it is his choice what to do."
A message left with Pagliano's attorney was not immediately returned.
With the completion of the email review, FBI investigators are expected to shift their focus on whether the highly sensitive government information, including top secret and other classified matters, found on Clinton's private email server cons utes a crime.

The emails released publicly show some Clinton aides sent the sensitive information, often from the State Department's unclassified email system, to others, and eventually to Clinton at her private email address. She didn't use a State Department email account.
The released emails appear to align with her public statements that she didn't send emails that were marked as classified.
She did receive emails from aides that, while not marked as classified, did contain information that should not have been handled outside the government's secure email system, the emails released so far have found.

The FBI reviewers oversaw the process that upgraded the emails now known to be highly sensitive as part of a series of State Department Freedom of Information Act releases that ended Monday.
Clinton has said she hasn't been asked to be interviewed for the FBI probe.
Republican candidates quickly pounced on the development Wednesday night.
"This is an ominous development for the Clinton campaign and for Democrats as a whole," Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told Fox News' Megyn Kelly. "This suggests that the investigation is moving to a whole other level. She is going to be a badly wounded candidate, and if we nominate a strong Republican nominee, we're going to win this general election."