The Department of Justice is reportedly investigating how the FBI dealt with claims of political corruption at the Clinton Foundation, according to The New York Times.
U.S. Attorney John Durham, who was assigned to lead the investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, “has sought documents and interviews about how federal law enforcement officials handled an investigation around the same time into allegations of political corruption at the Clinton Foundation, according to people familiar with the matter,” the Times reported.
In August, South Carolina GOP senator Lindsey Graham, who serves as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, stated:
There was a clear double standard by the Department of Justice and FBI when it came to the Trump and Clinton campaigns in 2016. … the Bureau, as it is supposed to do, required that Hillary Clinton be defensively briefed about the matter so she could engage in corrective action. When it came to the Trump campaign, there were four counterintelligence investigations opened against Trump campaign associates. Not one time was President Trump defensively briefed about the FBI’s concerns.
The Clinton Foundation released a statement about the possible investigation by Durham, asserting, “The Clinton Foundation has regularly been subjected to baseless, politically motivated allegations, and time after time these allegations have been proven false.”
The Times reported in 2015 that a Pravda 2013 article delineated how Rosatom, the Russian atomic energy company, had acquired a Canadian company with huge uranium-mining stakes; the deal handed Moscow one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States. The State Department, headed by Hillary Clinton, had to approve the deal.
The Times continued:
As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. … And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.
In 2016, when F.B.I. managers wanted a subpoena, Obama Justice Department criminal division denied the request, claiming there was not enough evidence to justify the subpoena. The Times noted, “Ultimately, the Clinton Foundation dispute embroiled Andrew G. McCabe, then the F.B.I. deputy director, who was accused of leaking information about the case to a reporter and later lying about it to the Justice Department inspector general.”
The Wall Street Journal noted in October 2016:
The FBI field office in New York had done the most work on the Clinton Foundation case and received help from the FBI field office in Little Rock, the people familiar with the matter said. In February, FBI officials made a presentation to the Justice Department, according to these people. By all accounts, the meeting didn’t go well.
Some said that is because the FBI didn’t present compelling evidence to justify more aggressive pursuit of the Clinton Foundation, and that the career anticorruption prosecutors in the room simply believed it wasn’t a very strong case. Others said that from the start, the Justice Department officials were stern, icy and dismissive of the case.