'150 agents' working Clinton Foundation probe: Ex-U.S. atty

[MikeWB]

Interesting... looks like Hillary is a shitton of trouble.



http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/clinton-foundation-probe-is-months-old-former-attorney/article/2580136

A former U.S. attorney said the FBI's reported investigation of "public corruption" at the Clinton Foundation has actually been going on for months, although it made headlines for the first time Monday.

Joseph DiGenova, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, said the FBI's foundation probe "has reached such a proportion of inquiry that it's starting to sneak out," but that it was sparked months ago by information pulled from Hillary Clinton's private server and from the tax filings of corporations that have donated to the charity.

"There are now, I am told, 150 agents working on this case," DiGenova told the Washington Examiner Monday, noting that was "a very unusually high number" of investigators to be working on one case.

Talk of Clinton's legal woes returned in full force Monday with reports that the FBI has expanded its investigation to include the alleged exchange of favors between Clinton Foundation insiders and State Department leadership under Clinton.
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The reports came just days after the State Department released a controversial email that suggested Clinton had asked an aide to remove the classification markings from a document and "send it nonsecure."

A spokesman for the Clinton Foundation did not return a request for comment about the new reports.

The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment on reports that the FBI had expanded its investigation.

But DiGenova said the FBI "is making very substantial progress" in its investigation of the "public corruption" allegations against the Clinton Foundation. He said the bureau is presently preparing subpoenas for the foundation's financial records, among other pieces of evidence.

"This was inevitable given the discussions that have appeared over the past few months concerning contributions which were done in tandem with requests for officials acts," DiGenova said.
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"This makes the Bob McDonnell case look like a nothing burger," he added. DiGenova was referring to former Republican Gov. Robert McDonnell of Virginia, who was sentenced in Jan. 2015 to two years in prison for public corruption.

Andrew Herman, a government ethics attorney at Miller & Chevalier, also likened the public corruption allegations against Clinton and her family's foundation to the McDonnell case.

"This is like many previous cases if there's something there," he said. "If there was use of the position for private gain for the foundation, then you're looking at a Menendez-type case, or [a case like that of] Bob McDonnell."

Herman was referring to the April 2015 indictment of Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., on corruption charges stemming from allegations that he helped a friend in exchange for kickbacks.

He said agents would need to uncover evidence that Clinton herself helped donors to the charity in order for the Justice Department to bring public corruption charges against her.
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"They'd have to demonstrate that there was a direct tie between some kind of official act that Secretary Clinton engaged in and contributions to the foundation, or some other way that she gained," Herman said.

Although he said the allegations against the foundation are "significant," he noted "tensions" within the Justice Department could ultimately smother the probe.

"As is often the case, the investigators, the agents may have a certain view of things, but they're not the ones who are going to make decisions about how to proceed," Herman said. "I wonder how they can resolve that internally within the Justice Department, if it's even possible to resolve it within the Justice Department, given the tensions and the various conflicting factors and the fact that this is an administration in which, until very recently, Secretary Clinton was a cabinet member."

DiGenova also said the Justice Department may be reluctant to bring charges against Clinton given her political status, but argued Attorney General Loretta Lynch will have "no choice" but to indict the former secretary of state in the face of enormous pressure from within the FBI.

While the recommendations for prosecution would come in the form of a confidential memo from the FBI director to the attorney general, "the bureau will no doubt let it be known" that such a memo has been sent in order to put additional pressure on Lynch to indict Clinton, DiGenova said.

He said the latest spate of leaks about the public corruption investigation is what the FBI calls "shaking the tree," or making information about a probe public in order to encourage witnesses.

The FBI investigation into Clinton's private email network began last year after a pair of inspectors general found evidence that at least two emails on her server should have been classified the moment they were sent.

Since then, the probe has reportedly mushroomed to include allegations of obstruction of justice, potential violations of the Espionage Act and, most recently, possible public corruption involving the Clinton Foundation.

The FBI has remained tight-lipped about the official status of its investigation, pointing to its long-standing policy of declining to comment on ongoing investigations.

But the reported expansion of an already serious probe could spell trouble for Clinton just weeks ahead of the Iowa caucuses.

[MikeWB]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/11/fbis-clinton-probe-expands-to-public-corruption-track.html

FBI's Clinton probe expands to public corruption track

Catherine Herridge

By Catherine Herridge, Pamela Browne
Published January 11, 2016
FoxNews.com
Facebook46376 Twitter0 livefyre Email Print
Catherine Herridge reports from Washington, D.C.

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Now Playing

Report: FBI expands investigation of Hillary Clinton

EXCLUSIVE: The FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of private email as secretary of state has expanded to look at whether the possible "intersection" of Clinton Foundation work and State Department business may have violated public corruption laws, three intelligence sources not authorized to speak on the record told Fox News.

This new investigative track is in addition to the focus on classified material found on Clinton's personal server.

"The agents are investigating the possible intersection of Clinton Foundation donations, the dispensation of State Department contracts and whether regular processes were followed," one source said.

Clinton, speaking to the Des Moines Register, on Monday pushed back on the details of a second investigative track. According to reporter Jennifer Jacobs, Clinton said Monday she has heard nothing from the FBI.

"No, there's nothing like that that is happening," Clinton said, according to a tweet from Jacobs.

Experts including a former senior FBI agent said the bureau does not have to notify the subject of an investigation.
Catherine Herridge reports from Washington, D.C.



The development follows press reports over the past year about the potential overlap of State Department and Clinton Foundation work, and questions over whether donors benefited from their contacts inside the administration.

The Clinton Foundation is a public charity, known as a 501(c)(3). It had grants and contributions in excess of $144 million in 2013, the most current available data. 

Inside the FBI, pressure is growing to pursue the case.

One intelligence source told Fox News that FBI agents would be "screaming" if a prosecution is not pursued because "many previous public corruption cases have been made and successfully prosecuted with much less evidence than what is emerging in this investigation."

The FBI is particularly on edge in the wake of how the case of former CIA Director David Petraeus was handled. 

One of the three sources said some FBI agents felt Petraeus was given a slap on the wrist for sharing highly classified information with his mistress and biographer Paula Broadwell, as well as lying to FBI agents about his actions. Petraeus pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in March 2015 after a two-plus-year federal investigation in which Attorney General Eric Holder initially declined to prosecute.

In the Petraeus case, the exposure of classified information was assessed to be limited.

By contrast, in the Clinton case, the number of classified emails has risen to at least 1,340. A 2015 appeal by the State Department to challenge the "Top Secret" classification of at least two emails failed and, as Fox News first reported, is now considered a settled matter.

It is unclear which of the two lines of inquiry was opened first by the FBI and whether they eventually will be combined and presented before a special grand jury. One intelligence source said the public corruption angle dates back to at least April 2015.  On their official website, the FBI lists "public corruption as the FBI's top criminal priority."

Fox News is told that about 100 special agents assigned to the investigations also were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, with as many as 50 additional agents on "temporary duty assignment," or TDY. The request to sign a new NDA could reflect that agents are handling the highly classified material in the emails, or serve as a reminder not to leak about the case, or both.

"The pressure on the lead agents is brutal," a second source said. "Think of it like a military operation, you might need tanks called in along with infantry."

Separately, a former high-ranking State Department official emphasized to Fox News that Clinton's deliberate non-use of her government email address may be increasingly "significant."

"It is virtually automatic when one comes on board at the State Department to be assigned an email address," the source said.

"It would have taken an affirmative act not to have one assigned ... and it would also mean it was all planned out before she took office. This certainly raises questions about the so-called legal advice she claimed to have received from inside the State Department that what she was doing was proper."

On Sunday, when asked about her email practices while secretary of state, Clinton insisted to CBS News' "Face The Nation," "there is no there, there."

Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent.