{"id":52053,"date":"2016-10-12T17:14:56","date_gmt":"2016-10-12T21:14:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=52053"},"modified":"2016-10-12T17:21:41","modified_gmt":"2016-10-12T21:21:41","slug":"fbi-doj-in-turmoil-over-comeys-betrayal-lynch-interference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=52053","title":{"rendered":"FBI and DOJ In Turmoil Over Comey&#8217;s Betrayal, Lynch&#8217;s Cover-up"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>FBI, DOJ roiled by Comey, Lynch decision to let Clinton slide by on emails, says insider<\/h1>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nBy Malia Zimmerman, Adam Housley<br \/>\nFOX News<\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/video.foxnews.com\/v\/embed.js?id=5167071450001&#038;w=466&#038;h=263\"><\/script><noscript>Watch the latest video at <a href=\"http:\/\/video.foxnews.com\">video.foxnews.com<\/a><\/noscript><\/p>\n<p>The decision to let Hillary Clinton off the hook for mishandling classified information has roiled the FBI and Department of Justice, with one person closely involved in the year-long probe telling FoxNews.com that career agents and attorneys on the case unanimously believed the Democratic presidential nominee should have been charged.<\/p>\n<p>The source, who spoke to FoxNews.com on the condition of anonymity, said FBI Director James Comey\u2019s dramatic July 5 announcement that he would not recommend to the Attorney General\u2019s office that the former secretary of state be charged left members of the investigative team dismayed and disgusted. More than 100 FBI agents and analysts worked around the clock with six attorneys from the DOJ\u2019s National Security Division, Counter Espionage Section, to investigate the case.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo trial level attorney agreed, no agent working the case agreed, with the decision not to prosecute &#8212; it was a top-down decision,\u201d said the source, whose identity and role in the case has been verified by FoxNews.com.<\/p>\n<p>A high-ranking FBI official told Fox News that while it might not have been a unanimous decision, \u201cIt was unanimous that we all wanted her [Clinton\u2019s] security clearance yanked.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is safe to say the vast majority felt she should be prosecuted,\u201d the senior FBI official told Fox News. \u201cWe were floored while listening to the FBI briefing because Comey laid it all out, and then said \u2018but we are doing nothing,\u2019 which made no sense to us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Andrew Napolitano, former judge and senior judicial analyst for Fox News Channel, said many law enforcement agents involved with the Clinton email investigation have similar beliefs.<\/p>\n<div class=\"election-2016-article-promo\"><\/div>\n<p>\u201cIt is well known that the FBI agents on the ground, the human beings who did the investigative work, had built an extremely strong case against Hillary Clinton and were furious when the case did not move forward,\u201d said Napolitano. \u201cThey believe the decision not to prosecute came from The White House.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The claim also is backed up by a report in the New York Post this week, which quotes a number of veteran FBI agents saying FBI Director James Comey \u201chas permanently damaged the bureau\u2019s reputation for uncompromising investigations with his cowardly whitewash of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton\u2019s mishandling of classified information using an unauthorized private email server.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe FBI has politicized itself, and its reputation will suffer for a long time. I hold Director Comey responsible,\u201d Dennis V. Hughes, the first chief of the FBI\u2019s computer investigations unit, told the Post.\u00a0 Retired FBI agent Michael M. Biasello added to the report, saying, \u201cComey has singlehandedly ruined the reputation of the organization.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Especially angering the team, which painstakingly pieced together deleted emails and interviewed witnesses to prove that sensitive information was left unprotected, was the fact that Comey based his decision on a conclusion that a recommendation to charge would not be followed by DOJ prosecutors, even though the bureau\u2019s role was merely to advise, Fox News was told.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBasically, James Comey hijacked the DOJ\u2019s role by saying \u2018no reasonable prosecutor would bring this case,\u2019\u201d the Fox News source said. \u201cThe FBI does not decide who to prosecute and when, that is the sole province of a prosecutor &#8212; that never happens.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know zero prosecutors in the DOJ\u2019s National Security Division who would not have taken the case to a grand jury,\u201d the source added. \u201cOne was never even convened.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Napolitano agreed, saying the FBI investigation was hampered from the beginning, because there was no grand jury, and no search warrants or subpoenas issued.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe FBI could not seize anything related to the investigation, only request things. As an example, in order to get the laptop, they had to agree to grant immunity,\u201d Napolitano said.<\/p>\n<p>In early 2015, it was revealed that Clinton had used a private email server in her Chappaqua, N.Y., home to conduct government business while serving from 2009-2013. The emails on the private server included thousands of messages that would later be marked classified by the State Department retroactively. Federal law makes it a crime for a government employee to possess classified information in an unsecure manner, and the relevant statute does not require a finding of intent.<\/p>\n<p>Although Comey found that Clinton was \u201cextremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,\u201d he said \u201cno charges are appropriate in this case.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Well before Comey\u2019s announcement, which came days after Bill Clinton met in secret with Comey\u2019s boss, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, there were signs the investigation would go nowhere, the source told FoxNews.com. One was the fact that the FBI forced its agents and analysts involved in the case to sign non-disclosure agreements.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is unheard of, because of the stifling nature it has on the investigative process,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n<p>Another oddity was the five so-called immunity agreements granted to Clinton\u2019s State Department aides and IT experts.<\/p>\n<p>Cheryl Mills, Clinton&#8217;s former chief of staff, along with two other State Department staffers, John Bentel and Heather Samuelson, were afforded immunity agreements, as was Bryan Pagliano, Clinton&#8217;s former IT aide, and Paul Combetta, an employee at Platte River networks, the firm hired to manage her server after she left the State Department.<\/p>\n<p>As Fox News has reported, Combetta utilized the computer program \u201cBleachbit\u201d to destroy Clinton\u2019s records, despite an order from Congress to preserve them, and Samuelson also destroyed Clinton\u2019s emails. Pagliano established the system that illegally transferred classified and top secret information to Clinton\u2019s private server. Mills disclosed classified information to the Clinton\u2019s family foundation in the process, breaking federal laws.<\/p>\n<p>None should have been granted immunity if no charges were being brought, the source said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[Immunity] is issued because you know someone possesses evidence you need to charge the target, and you almost always know what it is they possess,\u201d the source said. \u201cThat&#8217;s why you give immunity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mills and Samuelson also received immunity for what was found on their computers, which were then destroyed as a part of negotiations with the FBI.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMills and Samuelson receiving immunity with the agreement their laptops would be destroyed by the FBI afterwards is, in itself, illegal,\u201d the source said. \u201cWe know those laptops contained classified information. That&#8217;s also illegal, and they got a pass.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mills\u2019 dual role as Clinton\u2019s attorney and a witness in her own right should never have been tolerated either.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMills was allowed to sit in on the interview of Clinton as her lawyer. That&#8217;s absurd. Someone who is supposedly cooperating against the target of an investigation [being] permitted to sit by the target as counsel violates any semblance of ethical responsibility,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery agent and attorney I have spoken to is embarrassed and has lost total respect for James Comey and Loretta Lynch,\u201d the source said. \u201cThe bar for DOJ is whether the evidence supports a case for charges &#8212; it did here. It should have been taken to the grand jury.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Also infuriating agents, the New York Post reported, was the fact that Clinton\u2019s interview spanned just 3\u00bd hours with no follow-up questioning, despite her \u201c40 bouts of amnesia,\u201d and then, three days later, Comey cleared her of criminal wrongdoing.<\/p>\n<p>Many FBI and DOJ staffers believe Comey and Lynch were motivated by ambition, and not justice, the source said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLoretta Lynch simply wants to stay on as Attorney General under Clinton, so there is no way she would indict,\u201d the source said. \u201cJames Comey thought his position [excoriating Clinton even as he let her off the hook] gave himself cover to remain on as director regardless of who wins.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The decision by Comey and Lynch not to prosecute has renewed FBI agents\u2019 belief that the agency should be autonomous.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is why so many agents believe the FBI needs to be an entity by itself to truly be effective,\u201d the senior FBI official told Fox News. \u201cWe all feel very strongly about it &#8212; and the need to be objective. But that truly cannot be done when the AG is appointed by a president and attends daily briefings.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Adding to the controversy, WikiLeaks released internal Clinton communication records this week that show the Department of Justice kept Clinton\u2019s campaign and her staff informed about the progress of its investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Leaked emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta\u2019s gmail account show the Clinton campaign was contacted by the DOJ on May 19, 2015.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDOJ folks inform me there is a status hearing in this case this morning, so we could have a window into the judge\u2019s thinking about this proposed production schedule as quickly as today,\u201d Clinton press secretary Brian Fallon wrote in relation to the email documentation the State Department would be required to turn over to the Justice Department.<\/p>\n<p>Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, who previously served in the U.S. Treasury Department in the Office of Chief Counsel for the IRS, where he was responsible for litigation in the U.S. Tax Court, said it was clear from the start that the FBI never intended to prosecute.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis was a fake, false investigation from the outset,\u201d Sekulow said.<\/p>\n<p>Adam Housley joined Fox News Channel (FNC) in 2001 and currently serves as a Los Angeles-based senior correspondent.<\/p>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/2016\/10\/12\/fbi-doj-roiled-by-comey-lynch-decision-to-let-clinton-slide-by-on-emails-says-insider.html\">http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/2016\/10\/12\/fbi-doj-roiled-by-comey-lynch-decision-to-let-clinton-slide-by-on-emails-says-insider.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FBI, DOJ roiled by Comey, Lynch decision to let Clinton slide by on emails, says insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}