WND EXCLUSIVE
IS ATTORNEY GENERAL LYNCH PREPARING A 'NOVEMBER SURPRISE'?
Quick email review could be 'spun as yet another exoneration of Hillary Clinton'
Garth Kant
WASHINGTON – Is Attorney General Loretta Lynch preparing a “November surprise” that would help Hillary Clinton?
As the Democratic Party candidate’s poll numbers plummet following the “October surprise” revelation that the FBI has reopened the investigation into her private email server, supporters of Republican candidate Donald Trump fear there is a lifeline that might resuscitate her flagging campaign.
Hillary Clinton (Photo: Twitter)
A statement before the election from the Justice Department or the FBI announcing they had found nothing incriminating Clinton could give her campaign desperately needed new life.
There appear to be several indications the groundwork is being laid to do that.
- Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy wrote in National Review on Tuesday that “the FBI is now under enormous pressure to review tens of thousands of e-mails stored on the laptop shared by Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner.”
- He continued, “The point is to hound the bureau into announcing before Election Day whether any new classified e-mails have been found. If none are found, this outcome will be spun as yet another ‘exoneration’ of Hillary Clinton.”
- That pressure was applied Friday when Clinton demanded Comey release the “full and complete facts” about the investigation, and on Saturday, when Democrat members of Congress sent two letters demanding the FBI reveal what information it had found.
- Democrat Sens. Patrick Leahy, Dianne Feinstein, Benjamin Cardin and Thomas Carper demanded “more detailed information about the investigative steps being taken, the number of emails involved, and what is being done to determine how many of the emails are duplicative of those already reviewed,” and they gave Comey and Lynch a deadline of Monday to respond.
- Democrat Reps. Elijah Cummings and John Conyers wrote to “request that the FBI and Department of Justice issue a more complete accounting of the details behind this letter, based on information from your career investigators and prosecutors, in order to debunk these conspiracy theories and correct the public record.”
- On Monday, the Los Angeles Times reported how that pressure on the FBI was working: “Investigators had planned to conduct the review over several weeks but, after a torrent of criticism over the weekend, began scrambling to examine the trove of emails, according to law enforcement officials. The FBI hoped to complete a preliminary assessment in the coming days, but agency officials have not decided how, or whether, they will disclose the results of it publicly, and officials also could not say whether the entire review would be completed by election day.”
- The Times also reported: “To work faster, agents are using a computer program to winnow which emails need to be individually inspected, a federal law enforcement official said. A platoon of FBI agents, assisted by the Justice Department, has been dispatched to pore over the emails.”
- Also on Monday, the Associated Press tweeted: “BREAKING: Justice Dept. says it’ll dedicate all needed resources to quickly review emails in Clinton case.”
- And finally, on Monday, a letter from the Justice Department responded favorably to the Democrats’ letters demanding speedy answers. Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik replied, “We assure you that the Department will continue to work closely with the FBI and together, dedicate all necessary resource and take appropriate steps as expeditiously as possible.” He added, “The Department of Justice … appreciates the concerns raised in your letter.”
Conflict of interest?
But sharp questions then arose about a possible conflict of interest and the impartiality of Kadzik, who joined the Justice Department in 2013 and is now leading its review of the newly discovered emails.
Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik
Of sudden relevance was an email released by WikiLeaks the week before, indicating the cozy relationship between Kadzik and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.
And now it has become clear that the relationship between Podesta and Kadzik is not only extremely close, it goes back decades.
- Zero Hedge reported how an email revealed, “The day after Hillary Clinton testified in front of the House Select Committee on Benghazi last October, John Podesta, Hillary’s campaign chairman met for dinner with … Kadzik, superlobbyist Vincent Roberti and other well-placed Beltway fixtures.”
- Further evidence of their close ties: “Podesta and Kadzik met several months later for dinner at Podesta’s home, another email shows. Another email sent on May 5, 2015, Kadzik’s son asked Podesta for a job on the Clinton campaign.”
- It turns out, the relationship goes much further back, when Podesta served in President Clinton’s administration, ultimately as chief of staff.
- Kadzik represented Podesta as his attorney during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and investigation.
- Kadzik also “lobbied Podesta on behalf of Marc Rich, the fugitive who Bill Clinton controversially pardoned on his last day in office.”
- Last week, the Washington Free Beacon unearthed in WikiLeaks a 2008 email in which Podesta recommended Kadzik for a job in the Obama presidential campaign, including the glowing review, that he was a “fantastic lawyer” who “kept me out of jail.”
- On Tuesday, Zero Hedge reported Kadzik had tipped off Podesta about Clinton’s email server investigation in May 2015.
- And, to complete the circle of connections between the Clinton campaign and the Justice Department, it was Kadzik who led the effort to secure the nomination of Loretta Lynch for attorney general.
To review the essentials, the FBI is now under tremendous pressure to release some findings on its newly reopened Clinton email investigation before the election.
And, the man in charge of the Justice Department’s work with the FBI on the investigation is a close ally of the Clinton campaign chairman.
Will feds clear Clinton, again?
Given those explosive factors, and for insight, WND consulted McCarthy, who has been following developments closely and with surgically precise analysis.
In his article in National Review on Monday, the former federal prosecutor again made his point that Comey erred in judging there was insufficient evidence to prove Clinton had criminal intent and, therefore, should not be prosecuted.
FBI Director James Comey
Furthermore, McCarthy observed, “Under the Comey/DOJ ‘insufficient intent evidence’ rationale, there would be no charges even if previously undiscovered classified e-mails were found on the Abedin/Weiner computer.”
That sounded a lot like the Justice Department, or DOJ, would clear Clinton no matter what the FBI may find.
So, WND asked McCarthy, given the immense political pressure on the DOJ: Should Americans expect it to issue, before the election, some statement of exoneration regardless of what is found, since Clinton has already been cleared of criminal intent in the email server investigation?
“At this point,” he replied, “I do not know what to expect from DOJ or the FBI in the way of a statement.”
McCarthy added, “I hope they do not issue any more statements since they should not be making public statements about pending investigations that have not resulted in the filing of charges to this point.”
Andrew McCarthy
He explained that was because, despite her demands for more information, “Mrs. Clinton is the subject of a criminal investigation (perhaps more than one), but she has not been charged, and she is presumed innocent. She’s not entitled to more than that – she’s not entitled to know the status of the investigation, what phases of it remain open, etc.
“The problem with making statements about uncharged cases is that you implicitly take on the obligation to amend or supplement the record as the facts evolve,” McCarthy observed.
“That’s why,” he reiterated, “the best thing to do is stick with law-enforcement protocols: Neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation, and do not comment publicly on the substance or status of ongoing investigations unless and until charges have been filed.”
‘Why is Lynch rushing?’
McCarthy’s Monday article focused on a potentially explosive but widely overlooked aspect of the scandal: The emails are critical to the Clinton Foundation investigation.
He also zeroed in on what appears to be attorney general’s extremely questionable role in that investigation, asking, “Why is Lynch rushing the search for classified e-mails but blocking the pay-to-play corruption probe?”
McCarthy noted the Wall Street Journal revealed last week that the FBI has been investigating the Clinton Foundation for potential financial crimes and influence peddling for more than a year, which he maintains the DOJ “should be investigating as a possible RICO conspiracy under the federal anti-racketeering laws.”
He also noted in the article that the Clinton Foundation investigators being denied access to evidence by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn are “Loretta Lynch’s prosecutors,” many of whom she hired and supervised when she headed the Eastern District of New York’s United States attorney’s office.
Attorney General Lynch testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee Jan. 28
“The real outrage,” he wrote, is “Loretta Lynch’s Justice Department is blocking the FBI from examining Clinton e-mails in connection with its investigation of the Clinton Foundation — an investigation that is every bit as serious.”
Is there a cover-up?
So WND asked McCarthy point blank: Do you believe the DOJ is involved in a cover-up? Do you think it knows, via WikiLeaks, there is already sufficient evidence in the Foundation inquiry to indict Clinton?
“I am not prepared to accuse DOJ of a cover-up,” stated the former federal prosecutor.
But, in measured words, he added, “For now, I would say that some elements of the Justice Department are sympathetic to the Clintons and are making it more difficult than it should be to collect and have access to evidence.”
And again, he emphasized, “The investigation is nonetheless proceeding, so I think we should let the FBI and U.S. attorneys offices involved do their work before we judge the work-product.”
What if classified emails are found?
Returning to the FBI’s reopened investigation into Clinton’s email server, WND asked: If they do find any new classified emails, would that have any legal significance at all for Clinton, given that Comey has already declared the former secretary of state had no criminal intent?
“I think it is unlikely that the Justice Department and FBI are going to change their theory of what is required to prove an espionage offense,” McCarthy mused. “But it is possible that the new trove of emails will differ from what’s already been reviewed.
Huma Abedin
“As I understand it, with Ms. Abedin, we are not just talking about emails; she also says she had a practice of emailing documents to her private email accounts so she could print them outside the office. If – and I am not saying this happened because I don’t know – she emailed documents that were classified (rather than discussing information that was classified in emails), that could be problematic for her.”
He added, “It’s also important to remember that Abedin and others gave lengthy interviews to the FBI, so there is also the question of whether the newly discovered evidence is in any way inconsistent with what she and others said in their interviews.”
Why was the case reopened?
Finally, WND asked: If it doesn’t matter if they find any classified emails in the new trove (again, because Comey has declared Clinton had no criminal intent), why would Comey have reopened the case at all?
“If there is classified information on a non-secure computer, the FBI really has no choice but to investigate,” McCarthy explained.
“Remember, the FBI is not just our leading criminal-investigative agency; it is also our domestic security agency. It is responsible for the safekeeping of intelligence, regardless of whether the mishandling of intelligence rises to the level of indictable offenses.”
Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin
Still, for Trump supporters, the critical issue appears not be what investigators may find; it may be what the FBI and/or the DOJ announce before the election that they have not found, if they say a cursory or preliminary examination has failed to reveal any evidence of Clinton wrongdoing.
That’s why not every Trump supporter rejoiced at the news delivered on Friday that the FBI had reopened the Clinton email investigation.
Immediately after the news broke, perhaps Trump’s most enthusiastic publicly known supporter, Ann Coulter, retweeted this tweet: “I don’t trust this FBI thing. It feels like an attempt to distract from something larger and then at the last moment declare it nothing.”
Coulter then added her own tweet: “I agree – declaring her ‘innocent’ will be the showstopper. POOR HILLARY!”
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/11/is-attorney-general-lynch-preparing-a-november-surprise/#rLw4X7xkXKOSRo5c.99
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