A top Republican senator has provided Just the News a
timeline written by FBI investigators laying out the repeated political
obstruction those agents faced from their own bosses and the Justice
Department during the 2016 election and beyond as they probed whether
Hillary Clinton engaged in a pay-to-play corruption scheme involving her
family foundation.
“Field agents were frustrated. But HQ would not let it go
forward,” the newly-released and lengthy investigative timeline reveals.
“We were trying to explore the [Clinton] Foundation, and we were told
‘NO’ by FBI HQ.”
Not the first timeline showing interference
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley made the records produced to him by FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi available to Just the News this weekend.
This follows Patel unearthing
a shorter timeline, written in 2017, which also chronicled the
extensive stonewalling that bureau investigators in three cities faced
from the Obama-era DOJ and FBI during the 2016 election.
FBI agents tried to get the help of federal prosecutors to
determine whether or what crimes occurred while Hillary Clinton served
as Secretary of State, most notably, because at that time, her family
foundation solicited hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign and
U.S. interests with business before her department.
"Shut it down!" then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates is
quoted as demanding in the shorter timeline of the politicized barriers
that agents in New York City, Little Rock, Ark., and Washington D.C.
reported.
The shorter timeline — written by a DOJ lawyer assigned to
the FBI under former bureau Director James Comey — was secured by top
aides to Patel and was obtained by Just the News
earlier this year. The newly-released and longer timeline was handed
over to Grassley’s office by the FBI along with a host of corroborating
internal emails and was recently provided to Just the News.
The final entry in the shorter timeline came in August
2017. The longer timeline continued to lay out the slow-walking and
interference by the FBI up through early 2020.
You can read the new and lengthier timeline and newly-public internal records here:
Clinton Foundation - Investigative Timeline
Altogether, the evidence makes clear that the DOJ, former
Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and other officials within the FBI
placed hurdles in front of agents who believed they had evidence to
justify a public integrity criminal case.
Grassley: DOJ can't pick "winners and losers"
“The mainstream media smeared any investigation into
Hillary Clinton as unfounded nonsense, but in reality, line agents and
federal prosecutors seeking to follow up on legitimate leads were
sidelined by partisan leadership looking to save Clinton’s reputation.
That’s a night-and-day departure from how the Biden Justice Department
handled the Arctic Frost investigation against President Trump,”
Grassley told Just the News. “For too long, our Justice
Department has chosen winners and losers instead of enforcing the law
without regard to power, party or privilege. That must never happen
again. I thank Attorney General Bondi and Director Patel for turning
over these records, so the American people finally know how their
Justice Department failed in the Clinton investigations.”
The Clinton Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Agents struggled for years to investigate Clinton Foundation
The longer timeline indicated that questions about the
Clinton Foundation’s potential criminality were raised as early as April
2010, when there was a “consensually-monitored call between [Redacted]
Sant Singh Chatwal” during which there was a “description of
conversations with foreign donors (Amar Singh, Lakshmi Mittal, Deepak
Chopra, Praful Patel, Subhash Chandra) about giving to HRC.”
The lengthier timeline noted that there was an
investigation by the FBI’s New York Field Office and the U.S. Attorney’s
Office for the Eastern District of New York “regarding campaign finance
violations” which “included use of CHS [confidential human sources],
consensual recordings, and Title Ill intercepts.” The timeline’s notes
pointed out that Chatwal was a “Democratic fundraiser. Long-time friend
of the Clintons. [Clinton] Foundation donor and Board Member.”
Chatwal, an Indian-American businessman and wealthy hotelier, was a close Clinton ally. The Justice Department announced
in April 2014 that Chatwal had “pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate
the Federal Election Campaign Act by making more than $180,000 in
federal campaign donations to three candidates through straw donors who
were reimbursed, and to witness tampering.” He received only probation.
Chatwal did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent through his hotel.
The longer timeline states that, according to Martin
Coffey, the now-former assistant U.S. attorney for EDNY, “case agents
sought to expand investigation to include CF [Clinton Foundation], but
FBI-HQ would not allow.”
The longer timeline also stated that, in July 2015, a
redacted person or entity “files Suspicious Activity Report regarding
Clinton Foundation and related entities, specifically foreign
transactions from 6/10/11 to 5/10/15” in response to “negative news
reports."
The lengthier timeline also stated that, in July or August
2015, then-Washington Field Office special supervisory agent Timothy
Thibault “has brief discussion with USAO-DC Criminal Chief John Malis
regarding allegations raised in Clinton Cash” and that Thibault was
allegedly “attempting to predicate an investigation based on the
allegations.” The timeline said “Malis reportedly expressed interest in
the matter and requested they meet to review supporting information
sometime in the future” but “no meeting took place.”
It was later revealed that Thibault, whom Republicans argue showed extreme anti-Trump bias, demonstrated a willingness to target Trump early in his first term, attempted to slow walk or block the FBI’s investigation into Hunter Biden, and in April 2022 helped spark
the investigation dubbed "Arctic Frost" — later carried on by special
counsel Jack Smith — which led to criminal charges against Trump related
to the Capitol riot.
McCabe stops the Clinton Foundation investigation from moving forward in 2016
The shorter timeline revealed that as early as February
2016, the Justice Department “indicated they would not be supportive of
an FBI investigation.” The shorter 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 roadblocks just kept coming, both timelines show, to
the great frustration of the agents and the U.S. Attorney's Office in
Little Rock, which had gathered enough information to move on a fully
predicated criminal investigation.
The shorter 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.”
Yates did not immediately respond to a request sent to her
via her law firm email, and McCabe did not immediately respond to a
request for comment sent to him through George Mason University.
Once the investigation had essentially been delayed for a
year and dragged past the November 2016 election, the shorter 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.”
McCabe was the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s
Washington Field Office, but he soon ascended to Deputy Director of the
FBI under Comey, where the Justice Department's Inspector General said
he “had an active role in the supervision of the Midyear [Clinton
emails] investigation, and oversight of the Clinton Foundation
investigation, until he recused himself from these investigations on
November 1, 2016” — just days before the election. By that time, most
political fallout against Hillary Clinton from the FBI's probes had been
neutralized.
Inspector General Horowitz noted
that his investigation “found that McCabe did not fully comply with
this recusal in a few instances related to the Clinton Foundation
investigation.”
No matter where agents turned to get support to investigate
Clinton's alleged corruption, they were thwarted, both timelines show.
Three offices investigate, and three get sqaushed
The shorter timeline stated that, in July or August 2015,
an FBI supervisory special agent at the Washington Field Office “had a
brief discussion” with a member of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the
District of Columbia “regarding the Clinton Foundation allegations”
which had been focused on by the book Clinton Cash by Peter
Schweizer. At the time, an investigator whose name remains redacted “was
in the process of attempting to predicate an investigation based on the
allegations.”
The longer timeline revealed that — on January 21, 2016 —
then-FBI Executive Assistant Director Randall Coleman held a meeting “to
discuss the opening of the Clinton Foundation investigation” and that
“Coleman authorized all three field offices to open investigations but
to not take any investigative steps until the matter was discussed with
DOJ.”
The Clinton Foundation investigative team requested “access
to e-mails from [Criminal Division’s] Hillary Clinton server
investigation” but were “advised the search/access parameters for their
investigation were limited in scope and specific to the server
investigation.” The Criminal Division “advised they would not be able to
share any server e-mail information with the CF investigative team.”
The shorter timeline stated that the FBI’s New York field
office “initiated a Preliminary Investigation” on January 22, the Little
Rock field office “initiated a Full Field Investigation” on January 27,
and the Washington field office “initiated a Preliminary Investigation"
on January 29, 2016.
The longer timeline said “FBI New York submits case opening
regarding Clinton Foundation and Clinton/Giustra Enterprise
Partnership”; “FBI Little Rock submits case opening requesting full
field investigation regarding Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership,
Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative, Uranium One, Uranium One
Americas, Frank Giustra, Ian Telfer”; and “FBI WFO submits request to
Public Integrity at Main Justice to Open a Preliminary Investigation on
the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.”
Uranium One, a Canadian uranium mining company, is also a
wholly-owned subsidiary of Rosatom. The sale of Uranium One to the
Russian state-owned Rosatom was the focus of great controversy and
scrutiny from Republicans and others who argued that then-Secretary of
State Clinton helped approve the deal and that the Clinton Foundation
may have stood to benefit from it.
The Durham report previously said the FBI’s Little Rock investigation was launched
in part due to an intelligence product and corroborating financial
reporting that a particular commercial "industry likely engaged a
federal public official in a flow of benefits scheme, namely, large
monetary contributions were made to a non-profit, under both direct and
indirect control of the federal public official, in exchange for
favorable government action and/or influence."
The special counsel said the FBI investigation in the nation’s capital was opened
“as a preliminary investigation, because the Case Agent wanted to
determine if he could develop additional information to corroborate the
allegations in a recently-published book, Clinton Cash by Peter Schweizer, before seeking to convert the matter to a full investigation.”
An unnamed investigator “may have had one or two brief
discussions” in the fall of 2015 with an assistant U.S. attorney in the
nation’s capital and with a member of DOJ’s Public Integrity Section,
according to the shorter timeline, where the Clinton Foundation was
“likely ancillary” and “with the intention of informing” the redacted
DOJ officials that an investigator “was continuing to study the matter
to possibly predicate an investigation.”
Report: Foreign governments made, or offered to make, contributions to the Clinton Foundation
Durham also 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.”
Despite that evidence, the shorter timeline stated that DOJ
“indicated they would not be supportive of an FBI investigation” on
February 1, 2016.
The longer timeline pointed out this occurred the day
McCabe became the FBI’s deputy director, and that the meeting about the
Clinton Foundation inquiry involved then-DOJ Criminal Division Assistant
Attorney General Leslie Caldwell and then-Public Integrity Unit Chief
Ray Hulser.
McCabe: "no overt steps" without his approval
The shorter timeline said that personnel from the FBI’s
Little Rock office raised concerns that a redacted official “may not
want to be a party to the briefing because of conflicts of interest”
during an early February 2016 meeting. A redacted Little Rock official
“expressed these concerns due to the possibility that” another redacted
official “was believed to be a supporter of the Democratic Party and
possibly the Clintons.”
There was a meeting between officials from the New York and
Washington field offices, and possibly the Little Rock field office, on
February 17, 2016 according to the shorter timeline. McCabe “led the
meeting” and “was advised” by the New York field office about a
confidential human source (CHS) “who possibly had information on the
matter.” During this meeting, McCabe “directed that no overt
investigative steps were to be taken on the CF investigation without his
approval.”
The shorter timeline stated that the FBI’s Criminal
Investigative Division reiterated that “all overt investigative steps
related to the CF investigation” would “require” McCabe’s approval,
“with the exception of speaking to open CHSs” during a February 22, 2016
meeting. The inquiry was further hobbled during the meeting when the
FBI offices were “directed not to open or recruit any new CHSs, and no
additional overt investigative steps were authorized.”
The lengthier timeline said that, on that same day,
now-former FBI Special Agent-in-Charge David Resch, who was working on
the Clinton Foundation inquiry, learned that “DOJ was implying this case
was just based on open source reporting and fishing through a book.”
The Durham report previously said
that, in late February 2016, a “meeting was convened at FBI
Headquarters to discuss the Foundation investigations” — and McCabe
initially ordered the closure of all the investigations before
backtracking slightly to hamper the investigations by requiring his
personal approval for any significant investigative actions.
The Durham report said “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?"
Durham said that, at the end of the meeting, Services
Branch Executive Assistant Director Randall Coleman “directed that for
any overt investigative steps to be taken, the Deputy Director's
[McCabe’s] approval would be required.”
The shorter timeline showed that the FBI’s Little Rock
office “sent an email” to the Criminal Investigative Division
“requesting concurrence” to “obtain supporting documents” for the
investigation on March 1, 2016, but the Little Rock investigators “never
received permission to seek the documents.” The longer timeline said
this was the FBI office unsuccessfully seeking access to the
aforementioned suspicious activities report.
The shorter timeline also said that, possibly in March
2016, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Arkansas
informed the FBI’s Little Rock investigators that Yates “ordered” the
federal prosecutors to “shut it down.”
Clinton allies scrutinized but not fully investigated
The lengthier timeline contended that the State
Department's Inspector General shared a report with the FBI’s Washington
Field Office “that alleges violations of 18 U.S.C. 208 by Cheryl Mills
and Huma Abedin” — top Hillary Clinton aides — “related to the Clinton
Foundation” and that the “report also discusses Dennis Cheng” — the
former chief development officer at the Clinton Foundation. This report
“requests assistance from FBI to advance investigation” but “State
Department informed that FBI would not support this investigation.”
Cheng did not respond to a request for comment sent through a foundation where he currently appears to work.
The longer FBI timeline said that — on March 15, 2016 — the
FBI New York Field Office interviewed “CHS from Chatwal Case” who
“confirms information from 2010.”
The timeline said that one of the "Do Outs" following this
CHS interview was to interview Cheng, whom the timeline identified as
being the “subject” of an FBI public integrity investigation as of May
2020 “for foreign political donations from 2016 who has emails to/from
Huma Abedin on the Weiner Laptop that have never been reviewed.” The
timeline said “Additional Subjects to be interviewed included” Mills,
Abedin, and top Clinton aide Doug Band, but “no interviews were ever
authorized in 2016” — and that Mills and Abedin were never interviewed.
Further investigation required approval from FBI HQ
A “white paper” written by the FBI’s New York Field Office a
few months later also recorded that “in March 2016, FBI Headquarters
directed that no investigative activity take place going further until
otherwise notified by FBI HQ,” according to the longer timeline.
Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch met with former
President Bill Clinton on Lynch’s plane on the tarmac of a Phoenix
airport on June 27, 2016. Lynch and Bill Clinton both claimed
to the DOJ watchdog that they did not discuss the Midyear Exam
investigation or any other DOJ investigations during their lengthy and
private conversation.
Then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch told a reporter
at the start of July 2016 that she ”fully expect[ed]” to accept the
recommendation of the career FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors who
conducted the Clinton emails investigation, and said that “I’ll be
briefed on [the findings] and I will be accepting their
recommendations.”
The proposed questions also included asking about the
allegation that “the majority of the funds raised by CGSGI [Clinton
Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative] are eventually sent to the
Clinton Foundation” and about “the funding sources for CGSGI and how
many foreign governments send donations to CGSGI.” The proposed
questions also included: “On how many occasions did the Foundation
disregard the official agreement to accept contributions from countries
you had State Department business in?”
The longer timeline noted that — on July 2, 2016 — “HRC
interviewed by FBI concerning MYE Clinton Email Investigation only. FBI
DOES NOT ask questions identified by Diego Rodriguez in April of 2016 of
HRC related to Clinton Foundation Investigation.”
Comey cleared
Hillary Clinton of criminal wrongdoing for transmitting classified
information on an insecure and private email server in a speech on July
5, 2016 — just weeks before greenlighting the Crossfire Hurricane
investigation against Trump in late July 2016.
DOJ and Clinton's lawyers make cozy deal regarding her emails
Disgraced fired FBI special agent Peter Strzok later testified to Congress
in 2018 that the FBI "did not have access" to Clinton Foundation emails
that were on Clinton's private server because of a consent agreement
"negotiated between the Department of Justice attorneys and counsel for
Clinton."
Horowitz’s 2018 report
concluded Comey’s actions seemingly exonerating Clinton were
“extraordinary and insubordinate” when he announced Clinton wouldn’t be
charged.
The longer timeline noted that Clinton was officially
nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate on July 26, 2016 —
and that the FBI opened the Crossfire Hurricane Trump-Russia
investigation on July 31, 2016.
The shorter timeline said that on August 1, 2016, the FBI
field offices in Little Rock and the nation’s capital were “directed to
close their investigations” while the New York office “was advised no
overt investigative action was to take place” unless McCabe authorized
it.
The longer timeline said that on September 1, 2016 the FBI
investigative teams were again told that McCabe was “DIRECTING NO OVERT
ACTION, review only” and that “McCabe had received call from ODAG
[Office of the Deputy Attorney General] asking why NYO was shopping the
CF case around.”
Strzok had exchanged a host of anti-Trump texts in 2016
with now-former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, with whom he was having an affair.
Horowitz wrote, “We did not have confidence that Strzok’s decision to
prioritize the Russia investigation over following up on the
Midyear-related investigative lead discovered on the Weiner laptop was
free from bias.”
Strzok wrote in his 2020 book Compromised
that “of course” he prioritized the Trump-Russia investigation over the
Clinton emails investigation because “there was simply no equivalence
between Midyear and Crossfire.”
IG report: McCabe misled investigators
Horowitz’s report
in 2018 detailed multiple instances in which McCabe “lacked candor”
with Comey, FBI investigators, and inspector general investigators,
including while under oath, about his authorization to then leak sensitive information to The Wall Street Journal
in late October 2016 that revealed the existence of the FBI
investigation into the Clinton Foundation (while not revealing how
McCabe had put the inquiry in leg-irons for nearly a year).
The Horowitz report concluded
“the evidence is substantial” that McCabe misled investigators
“knowingly and intentionally” about leaking to the media. Comey said he
did not permit McCabe to tell the media, and Horowitz wrote that
McCabe’s actions were “designed to advance his personal interests at the
expense of Department leadership” and “violated the FBI’s and the
Department’s media policy and constituted misconduct.”
The shorter timeline said that in a conference call on
October 25, 2016, McCabe was also “reminded that EDNY had previously
stated not interested in pursuing CF matter, but then changed to no
legal process… until after the election.”
McCabe forced to recuse himself from investigations into Clinton Foundation
The Wall Street Journal published
a story titled “Clinton Ally Aided Campaign of FBI Official's Wife” —
about McCabe’s wife’s unsuccessful run for Virginia state senate — on
October 24, 2016. The Journal then ran a piece titled “FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe” on October 30, 2016.
McCabe talked to an unnamed official about the Journal
article which had included details about the Clinton Foundation inquiry
and about his “concern over leaks and need to advise folks of media
policy” during an October 30, 2016, meeting, according to the shorter
timeline. McCabe, as he well knew, had been the source of the Clinton
Foundation leak.
It was only the next day — November 1, 2016 — that McCabe
“sent an email recusing himself from the Clinton Foundation
Investigation,” according to the shorter timeline. McCabe had
successfully slow-walked the inquiry all the way up to just prior to
Election Day 2016.
The same day, a request was made “to add CF investigative
personnel to Weiner review team or to provide CF briefing to the Weiner
review team,” according to the lengthier timeline.
Shortly after Trump won, potentially fresh new leads on the
Clinton Foundation were provided to the FBI, but investigative efforts
were soon stymied again.
New leads in the Clinton Foundation investigation
The longer timeline said that in-mid November 2016 a
retired agent from “Immigration and Naturalization Service files
complaint with FBI related to Clinton Foundation role in helping UAE to
obtain Pre-Clearance Facility at Abu Dhabi airport.” Just a few days
later, the FBI’s New York Field Office held an interview with a redacted
official from the global consulting firm Teneo, with the longer
timeline saying that there was a “routine nature of quid pro quo between
Foundation donors and Teneo related to political favors.”
But a meeting at the EDNY on November 22, 2016 resulted in further roadblocks.
The longer timeline stated that then-Criminal Chief James
Gatta “advised EDNY had some concerns regarding statute of limitations”
while then-U.S. Attorney Robert Capers said that “the case could have
statute of limitations issues” and that “Capers wanted to close this
chapter and move forward.” The timeline said Capers and Gatta soon
advised that “EDNY would not proceed with the Clinton Foundation
investigation” and that Capers “advised” William Sweeney, the
then-Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office
“that he did not contact DOJ/PIN public integrity unit] again on
matter.”
Capers appears to still be employed with the EDNY, and the EDNY did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lengthier timeline said that, in early December 2016,
after discussions with Preet Bharara, then the U.S. Attorney for the
Southern District of New York, the “SDNY declined to pursue the
investigation into the Clinton Foundation.”
Then-FBI Assistant Deputy Director David Bowdich sent a
mid-January 2017 email “ordering 30 day in-depth review of all open
Clinton Foundation Investigations by [Redacted], Special Counsel to
Director Corney,” according to the longer timeline. Bowdich said that,
at the end of the thirty days, there would be “a recommendation on the
way forward.”
Bowdich then “formally directs” FBI-Little Rock Special
Agent in Charge Diane Upchurch to "re-open the CF case” on July 7, 2017,
according to the longer timeline. The timeline said then-Acting U.S.
Attorney Patrick Harris “submits urgent report to Main Justice
requesting concurrence of Main Justice to open investigation of Clinton
Foundation” a few days later, with the timeline saying “the FBI wants to
reopen the Arkansas investigation involving the Clinton Foundation,
Hillary Clinton, and monies flowing to the Foundation from donors.”
The FBI Little Rock field office “opens case again” on July 24, 2017, according to the longer timeline.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of
Arkansas on August 1, 2017 said that it “was supportive and agreed to
issue subpoenas, but would require DOJ concurrence before moving
forward,” according to the lengthier timeline.
DOJ personnel allegedly “indicated” on August 2, 2017 that
U.S. attorneys “have the autonomy and discretion to pursue any
investigation deemed appropriate” and that the U.S. Attorney’s Office
for the Eastern District of Arkansas “does not require DOJ concurrence
to move forward,” according to the shorter timeline.
The longer timeline then said that over a week later — on
August 11, 2017 — “because DOJ had told them to stand down last year,
Acting USA Harris was going to wait until DOJ gave them concurrence to
proceed” and that “it is unknown if Acting USA Harris had contacted
DOJ.”
The shorter timeline’s final entry — August 23, 2017 — said
the Criminal Investigative Division received a phone call from a
name-redacted investigator “who requested follow-up information
concerning” the “19 CF bank accounts” which had been obtained by the
FBI’s Los Angeles field office “during a separate Campaign Finance Fraud
investigation.”
"All of our jobs are on the line"
Cody Hiland, then the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern
District of Arkansas, received an early November 2017 call from Robert
Hur, then the principal associate deputy attorney general, with the
longer timeline stating that “Hur indicated that EDAR had the green
light to re-open the investigation” and that Hiland “conveyed this
information” back to Harris and Little Rock Special Agent in Charge
Diane Upchurch.
Upchurch allegedly “inquired as to whether there were any
restrictions on the investigation this time” and “Hiland indicated that
no restrictions had been communicated other than to recognize the
sensitivity of the matter.”
The next day, Hiland allegedly received a call from Hur,
who would later be the special counsel who investigated President Joe
Biden’s reported mishandling of classified information, with Hur being
“very concerned” that Upchurch “had communicated to FBI HQ that no
restrictions were in place for the investigation,” the longer timeline
said.
The lengthier timeline added that Hur “indicates that
Upchurch has a reputation for being too aggressive and Hiland needed to
keep her in line and closely supervise the investigation.” Hur was
quoted as telling Hiland that "all of our jobs are on the line” with the
Clinton Foundation investigation and thus to proceed with caution.
Hur did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent through the law firm where he currently works.
Hiland met with Hur and then-Deputy Attorney General Rod
Rosenstein about the Clinton Foundation inquiry on November 8, 2017,
according to the longer timeline. Hiland was “curious about the lack of
information currently available, what happened with the case originally
being shut down by Main Justice, and the lack of resources available to
conduct the investigation” and was quoted as telling Rosenstein that it
felt as if "we've been asked to take the beaches of Normandy with a
single boat crew.”
The longer timeline said Rosenstein “instructed” Hiland to
contact the then-head of Public Integrity, Ray Hulser, to obtain
information on the case. The next day, Hiland met with Hulser and DOJ
official Annalou Tirol, the timeline said, and Hulser was “dismissive of
the merits of the investigation.”
Hiland allegedly asked Hulser "who made the decision to
shut the case down?" and Hulser responded that "that never happened.”
The lengthier timeline said Hulser provided Hiland with “a two-page FBI
Timeline on the history of the investigation” but that that “Timeline is
a stark contrast from the six-page FBI Timeline” received from the DOJ
watchdog and that “the FBI Timeline received from Hulser had omitted All
references to interference from DOJ and FBI leadership.”
Hiland spoke with Hur the next day and relayed “that it did
not go very well and that Hulser was very dismissive of the
investigation,” the longer timeline said, and “Hur instructs Hiland to
exclude Public Integrity and Hulser from the Clinton Foundation
Investigation going forward.”
Hulser is currently employed at the Office of the Attorney
General for the District of Columbia, which did not immediately respond
to a request for comment.
John Huber, Uranium One, and the continued stalling of the CF inquiry
The Hill had reported
in October 2017 that “before the Obama administration approved a
controversial deal in 2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of
American uranium, the FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian
nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks,
extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic
energy business inside the United States.” The Hill said that
“federal agents used a confidential U.S. witness working inside the
Russian nuclear industry to gather extensive financial records, make
secret recordings and intercept emails as early as 2009 that showed
Moscow had compromised an American uranium trucking firm with bribes and
kickbacks in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.”
“They also obtained an eyewitness account — backed by
documents — indicating Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of
dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton’s
charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to
Moscow,” The Hill reported.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions asked
U.S. Attorney John Huber of Utah to review allegations related to
Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation in late November 2017, but did
not make Huber a special counsel.
Then-Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd had sent a letter
to the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee in 2017 in response to letters
“in which you and other Members request the appointment of a Special
Counsel to investigate various matters, including the sale of Uranium
One, alleged unlawful dealings related to the Clinton Foundation, and
other matters.” Sessions then forwarded that letter to Huber and told
the federal prosecutor that “I have requested that you review the
matters referenced” in the letter but to avoid any matters being looked
at by then-special counsel Robert Mueller.
Huber did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent to the school where he currently works.
DOJ officials again sought to close down the Clinton Foundation inquiry
Harris at the end of January 2018 “sends email to entire
investigative team and U.S. Attorney Hiland indicating that, in his
opinion that we've deemed to be faulty, the statute of limitations for
the entire investigation ends on 2/1/2018,” according to the longer
timeline, which argued that “this opinion is faulty because the FBI had
already learned that UAE provided a $5 million payment to CF on January
6, 2015 after obtaining a controversial preclearance facility in Abu
Dhabi” and that “this opinion failed to include whether Acts of
Concealment such as deleting emails in 2015 and making additional
statements and representations about those deletions would have extended
the statute of limitations.”
Harris did not respond to a request for comment sent to him through the university where he works.
A DOJ official allegedly relayed to the FBI in mid-July
2018 that, in 2016, there had been an FBI headquarters Public Corruption
Section “investigation of a Nigerian billionaire (Gilbert Chagoury)
for crimes including election fraud re: straw donors” but that McCabe
“did not want” the results of that inquiry “to be shared with other FBI
field offices.”Chagoury would later plead guilty and in a deferred
prosecution agreement, paid $1.8 million in fines.
Hiland talked with Sessions during an August 1, 2018
discussion about “his concern at the lack of information forthcoming and
the lack of adequate resources available to the district to accomplish
the task,” according to the longer timeline, and Sessions told Hiland
that “he would see to it that resources were made available for the
district to properly conduct the investigation.”
Frustration amongst agents mounts
Huber allegedly called Hiland in late August 2018 to
express that Sessions was “clearly frustrated,” according to the
lengthier timeline, and to say that there was a desire for the FBI’s
Little Rock office to "shake the trees" and “not worry about going
through FBI to visit with other agents to obtain information.”
The longer timeline then alleged that, from late August
2018 until at least March 2020, the FBI began facilitating meetings “to
make sure investigative actions were being performed.”
The lengthier timeline said Hiland sent a request to the
IRS “for assistance in FBI Investigation” into the Clinton Foundation in
November 2018.
Hiland met with then-Acting Attorney General Matthew
Whitaker in early January 2019 to “debrief on three separate
investigations” into the Clinton Foundation, the longer timeline said,
in a meeting which also included Huber, O’Callaghan, and then-U.S.
Attorney John Krickbaum. The timeline said Huber and Krickbaum “both
emphasized” that Hiland “should take steps to review sensitive addendum”
to the DOJ watchdog’s 2018 report on the Clinton email saga
— "A Review of Various Actions by the FBI and DOJ in Advance of 2016
Election" — and that Hiland made the request to O'Callaghan, but that
“as of 5/15/2020, the request has never been authorized.”
The longer timeline said that, in late May 2019, Marty
Coffee, then the U.S. Attorney for EDNY, told DOJ officials “that
Chatwal provided zero cooperation, but that Chatwal knows a lot.”
Blocked again: "HQ would not let it go forward"
The timeline said that “Reason we were stymied: two-fold:
1: Chatwal wouldn't give us a proffer, 2: FBI was told by HQ no
subpoenas, don't go forward [...] “Field agents were frustrated. But HQ
would not let it go forward. We were trying to explore the Foundation,
and we were told ‘NO’ by FBI HQ.”
Hiland then met in mid-August 2019 with DOJ officials at
the Public Integrity Unit “to discuss need for additional resources to
support CF investigation, or in the alternative, closing the case as a
result of insufficient resources and remaining time under statute of
limitations,” according to the longer timeline.
The lengthier timeline said that there was then an
interview of Gilbert Chagoury in London with FBI agents from Little Rock
in early January 2020.
A leak to The Washington Post a few days later indicated
that Huber was winding down his effort by January 2020. It was reported
by Fox News in September 2020 that “aspects” of “Huber’s investigation
into the Clinton Foundation have been assumed” by then-U.S. Attorney
John Durham “as part of his review into the origins of the Russia
probe.”
But John Durham’s 2023 special counsel report
said that his appointment order by then-Attorney General Barr did not
include the Uranium One saga within its scope, with the Durham report stating
that “we have not interpreted the Order as directing us to consider
matters addressed by the former United States Attorney for the District
of Utah.”
The differences in how the Justice Department and FBI
handled cases related to Clinton and Trump were stark — publicly
exonerating Clinton for her mishandling of classified information when
using a private email server as Secretary of State and not even allowing
the Clinton Foundation investigation to get off the ground, while at
the same time launching a sprawling inquiry into the Trump campaign and
the candidate (and then the president) himself on the now-proven-false
pretext of Russian collusion.
Special Counsel Durham later pointed out that “the
immediate opening of Crossfire Hurricane as a full investigation
contrasts with the care taken in connection with the investigation of
the Clinton Foundation and other matters.”
