The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published a report on Wednesday night describing more internal conflicts at the FBI and Department of Justice (DoJ) regarding investigations into the Clinton Foundation. According to unnamed “people familiar with the matter,” the WSJ claims that agents’ wishes to aggressively pursue an investigation into government corruptions related to the ostensibly charitable philanthropic enterprise were stymied by DoJ prosecutors.
The investigation into the Clinton Foundation was apparently prompted by Peter Schweizer’s book, “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.”
The US attorney for Brooklyn, Robert Capers – an appointee of President Barack Obama – is described as being at “the center of the tension” between the FBI and DOJ. Some at the FBI are said to view him as misleadingly placating both sides of the interagency dispute.
FBI agents and DOJ corruption prosecutors are said to have disagreed over the strength of the evidence regarding allegations that contributors to the Clinton Foundation received favorable political treatment from the State Department during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as its head.
Senior officials in both the FBI and DOJ thought little of the evidence, according to the WSJ’s sources, while the FBI’s agents viewed their investigatory efforts as being suppressed by higher-ups.
The WSJ’s sources claim that some blame is being directed at the FBI’s second-in-command, deputy director Andrew McCabe. McCabe’s wife is a Democrat senatorial candidate in Virginia who received nearly $500,000 from Virginia Governor and Clinton loyalist Terry McAuliffe.
With the aforementioned tensions beginning in February and continuing today, the DoJ instructed investigators to “stand down” in their investigation of possible corruption related to the Clinton Foundation, according to the WSJ’s sources.
Also claimed by the WSJ’s sources is that the FBI had “secretly recorded conversations of a suspect in a public-corruption case talking about alleged deals the Clintons made.” Corruption prosecutors were uninterested in the information, claimed the WSJ’s sources, dismissing it as hearsay and viewing it as weak evidence to present to a grand jury for the purposes of an indictment.
DoJ officials are said to “have become annoyed” with FBI investigators who continued their investigations despite their efforts being rebuffed. Capers is said to have told officials in Washington that the involved FBI agents “won’t let it go.”
A senior DoJ official is said to have called McCabe on August 12 over the matter, concerned that FBI agents were disregarding or disobeying instructions to cease their investigation of possible corruption related to the Clinton Foundation.
H/T Devlin Barrett and Christopher M. Matthews at The Wall Street Journal
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