Virginia Governor and longtime Clinton confidant Terry McAuliffe donated $467,500 to the 2015 Senate campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe. The Virginia Democratic Party (more or less controlled by McAuliffe) donated an additional $207,788 for a grand total of $675,288. This equated to more than a third of Dr. McCabe’s campaign funds. Mr. McAuliffe recruited Dr. McCabe to run in the first place – an election she lost to Republican Dick Black.
Why is this important? Why am I writing about politics on a day when I had told myself I would not do so?
Because Dr. Jill McCabe is married to Andrew McCabe. Andrew McCabe happens to be the Deputy Director of the FBI.
Mr. McAuliffe met with the McCabe’s on March 7, 2015 – the purpose of the meeting was to convince Dr. McCabe to run for office – her first run at any public office.
Mrs. Clinton’s private server was uncovered by the New York Times on March 2, 2015 – five days before Mr. McAuliffe’s first meeting with the McCabe’s.
At the time of McAuliffe’s first meeting with the McCabe’s, Andrew McCabe was running the FBI’s Washington, D.C. field office according to the Wall Street Journal. It was Mr. McCabe’s office that provided personnel and resources to the Clinton email investigation.
The FBI investigation was formally launched in July of 2015. At the end of July 2015, Andrew McCabe was promoted to the number three position within the FBI. He was again promoted in February 2016 – this time assuming the title of Deputy Director and becoming FBI Director James Comey’s number two man. Quite the career trajectory. Quite the timing…
One more interesting note. Not only did the FBI launch an investigation into Clinton’s email server and the Clinton Foundation’s “pay for play” scheme. Turns out they also have an investigation into Mr. McAuliffe himself – over donations made to him as Governor of Virginia by U.S.-based companies controlled by Chinese businessman Wang Wenliang.
I have already touched on the FBI’s handling of the Clinton Investigation in https://www.themarketswork.com/2016/10/13/just-because-youre-paranoid/ so I won’t list everything here but there are some items worth noting.
The FBI found Clinton guilty of essentially every act they investigated. Despite these findings, Director Comey cleared Clinton by making a statement that “no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case”. This allowed Loretta Lynch at DOJ to announce the matter closed. It also allowed Clinton to pronounce herself cleared of all wrongdoing. Note, the FBI does not decide who will be prosecuted. They investigate.
So, no prosecution for Clinton despite this damning statement from Comey “To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions”.
The follow-up release of the FBI’s investigated file was done on the Friday before the long Labor Day weekend – a timing sure to stymie full reporting. A political favor surely given the contents. A few details below.
The FBI granted immunity to five Clinton staff members – and agreed to destroy the evidence (laptops) when finished. These aides included Cheryl Mills, former Chief of Staff and Mrs. Clinton’s personal attorney along with Heather Samuelson, former senior advisor. Both women were present as attorneys for Clinton during the FBI Clinton Interview despite being interviewed as witnesses and offered immunity.
Director Comey did not interview Clinton until the end of the investigation – three days before the press conference where he announced his conclusions. This runs against standard FBI protocol. Typically (always) they get the witness on record early so they can see how the testimony holds against what they find in the investigation.
The FBI ignored direct evidence that Clinton’s aides knew about the server and helped to cover its existence up. This is particularly important in regards to Cheryl Mills. She took on the role of personal attorney to Clinton upon leaving the State Department – since she was able to claim she didn’t know about the server until that time all conversations with Mrs. Clinton are protected by attorney-client privilege. There are emails that were public at the time and in the possession of the FBI that directly show Mills and Huma Abedin discussing the server as far back as 2010.
On March 2, 2015 the NY Times broke the server story. On March 4, 2015 the House Select Committee on Benghazi issued a subpoena for Clinton to produce her emails. On March 31, 2015 an employee of the company that maintained the server deleted the archive mailbox from the server. The FBI found a work ticket related to the deletion that referenced a call with Clinton attorneys David Kendall and Cheryl Mills. This is destruction of evidence under subpoena and somehow the FBI chose not to investigate further.
The FBI did not pursue “intent” with Mrs. Clinton during the late hour interview. While this may not sound all that important, simple acceptance of the explanation that the server was purely for personal convenience allowed for Mrs. Clinton not to be charged with evading federal statutes. Indeed, lack of intent was one of the primary excuses Comey used in his decision to declare her cleared.
There was no investigation regarding Bill Clinton’s famously clandestine meeting with the head of the Department of Justice, Loretta Lynch on a private plane in Phoenix just days before the FBI announced its decision.
The list goes on. I am appalled over Director Comey’s actions during and after the investigation.
I am more appalled at what he has done to the FBI’s once stellar reputation.
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