Watchdogs for the Department of Justice will look into whether “improper considerations” affected the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton emails, including whether ties between department officials and Clinton’s camp precluded an objective assessment of her use of a private email system.
Specifically, the Inspector general will look at whether FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe should have recused himself from Clinton-related matters given that his wife, Jill McCabe, received significant campaign contributions from Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Clinton ally, during her unsuccessful bid for state senate.
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They will also examine whether Clinton perhaps should have been charged for putting classified information at risk, whether the Department’s Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs “improperly disclosed non-public information to the Clinton campaign,” and whether the “underlying investigative decisions” surrounding the email case were approached with integrity.
Those questions are ones many Republicans have raised since the FBI decided not to charge Clinton. But the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General will also examine Democratic complaints that FBI Director James Comey politicized the Clinton probe by holding a July 5 press conference, and sending a letter to Congress on Oct. 28 that he was re-opening the investigation.
Comey announced on July 5 that the FBI would not recommend charges against Clinton or her associates. However, he slammed Clinton for her “extremely careless” treatment of classified information in a lengthy press conference that Democrats later described as unfairly critical.
Comey’s Oct. 28 letter to Congress, in which he alerted lawmakers to the discovery of thousands of new emails potentially related to the original email investigation, has been roundly denounced by Democrats. Some blamed the Comey letter for Clinton’s loss in the election eight days later.
Republicans in Congress have long accused Justice Department and FBI officials of botching the email investigation due to political considerations. Some Republican legal experts said the facts of the case should have warranted criminal charges, and the Justice Department was accused of closing the case solely due to Clinton’s position and her relationship with President Obama.
