(REUTERS/Samantha Sais)
FARRELL: Justice Department’s Non-Investigation of the Clinton Foundation Warrants a Special Counsel
You can’t use the swamp to drain the swamp. Three years into the Trump presidency and this bitter lesson is still being realized.
The investigation led by U.S. Attorney John Huber into cases of possible corruption regarding the Clinton Foundation and the Uranium One deal when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State “has largely finished and found nothing worth pursuing,” as gleefully reported by The Washington Post. The tone of the article was classic Bezos-era journalism, saying the inquiry was only launched to “mollify conservatives” who were “clamoring for more investigations” in addition to a “meandering probe into the Clinton Foundation” in Arkansas. The Post’s anonymous-as-usual sources said, “they never expected the effort to produce much of anything.”
Well, of course not. We at Judicial Watch were skeptical that Huber would turn up anything either. Huber was appointed by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who did so on the recommendations of his career professional staff. You know who they are: the Sally Yates-Bruce Ohr clone army subversively staffing Justice Department headquarters.
To paraphrase my colleague Tom Fitton, you shouldn’t be surprised to have a non-finding from a non-investigation. Recall that Huber skipped a critical congressional hearing on the Clinton Foundation in December 2018, and his investigators kept “losing” thousands of pages of evidence handed over by whistleblowers who did testify (and whose names we know, incidentally). It has long been clear that the Huber effort was a charade.
Besides, the Huber “investigation” was not going to lead to indictments in any case because that was not its mandate. Huber was simply surveying a wide array of issues to see if further investigation was merited.
Judicial Watch meanwhile has been investigating Clinton corruption for many years. We have documented that Hillary Clinton repeatedly broke the law and lied to investigators and the American people. Our persistent efforts have forced the government to admit that it recovered at least 5,000 of the 33,000 emails Clinton admitted she deleted. The FBI and Justice Department have done everything they can to keep this information from seeing the light of day, slow-rolling their release and redacting large sections of the records they do hand over, usually when compelled by court order.
Most of the emails deal with official government business, which means Clinton lied when she said they were all about yoga and wedding planning. Many contain classified information, the transmission of which in the clear is a criminal offense. We even know now that she regularly transmitted sensitive security information about her schedules — which placed her life and those around her in danger. The number of such documented security violations increases with each new tranche of emails the FBI is forced to release because of Judicial Watch litigation.
Transmission of classified information through unsecure channels is a crime whether Clinton intended to or not. But intent can be proven as well. In a June 17, 2011 email then-Secretary Clinton instructed senior State Department adviser Jake Sullivan to strip security markings from a classified document to send it to her over nonsecure channels. That is a felony.
The most recent record release revealed that Hillary was conducting official and sometimes classified business via text messages, something that had been suspected but not proved until now. So now we have the matter of how many texts she sent and what they contained, for which we have no answers — yet. But it does make clear why her staff demolished cell phones with hammers.
Judicial Watch also uncovered evidence that foreign governments and individuals were working through the Clinton Foundation to get special favors. It seems like a cruel joke the Clinton’s were playing when they called one of their shell companies the “Acceso Worldwide Fund” since they were basically selling worldwide access. And Judicial Watch also found evidence that Russia had hacked Hillary’s nonsecure email system, but the Justice Department has been loath to acknowledge this because to admit it would only prove how damaging her illicit server was to U.S. national security.
The leak-sourced Washington Post article on Huber may have been intended to blunt speculation on what landmines might be lurking in Hillary Clinton’s future. But in showing that Huber’s team was not serious from the get-go, the article convincingly made the case for the need of a real investigation.
President Trump should appoint a special counsel outside of the FBI and Justice Department, since these agencies have proven they are utterly corrupt and incapable of policing themselves. In fact, they have been working with Clinton’s legal team to try to shut down our investigations. Judicial Watch’s investigations and litigation are the only things producing results. President Trump should order the immediate release of all government records pertaining to these matters to stop the FBI’s slow-rolling obstruction effort, and let the American people finally know the whole truth.
Chris Farrell is director of investigations and research for Judicial Watch, a nonprofit watchdog group. He previously worked as a counterintelligence case officer.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.
From dailycaller.com