Hillary Clinton’s former chief of staff Cheryl Mills and two other staffers were granted immunity as part of the now-closed FBI probe into the former secretary of state’s email practices, according to a top House Republican who questioned whether the numerous deals hindered the bureau’s ability to build a case.
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Chaffetz told AP he was “absolutely stunned” that the FBI cut a deal with someone as close to the investigation as Mills, and said by including the emails recovered from the laptops in the immunity agreements, “the Justice Department exempted key physical evidence from any potential criminal case against the aides”.
Chaffetz says the two others granted immunity were John Bentel, then-director of the State Department’s Office of Information Resources Management, and Clinton aide Heather Samuelson. She was informed that the name used was a pseudonym for the President, to which she explained, “How is this not classified?”
“The fact an IT staffer maintaining Clinton’s secret server called a new retention policy created to delete emails after 60 days a “Hillary coverup operation” suggests there was a concerted effort to systematically destroy potentially incriminating information”, Trump spokesman Jason Miller said in a statement. Afterward, roughly 30,000 emails were deleted and another 30,000 turned over to the State Department as government records. I’ve lost confidence in this investigation and I question the genuine effort in which it was carried out. Republicans said the timing of the immunity news was not intentional; they only learned on Friday of the arrangements with Mills, Samuelson and Bentel and nearly immediately disclosed them to the AP, which first reported the story.
The immunity deal promised that the Justice Department would not prosecute Mills or Samuelson based on information obtained from the laptops, committee Democrats report. At all points, my clients cooperated with the government’s investigation, including voluntarily participating in interviews with the FBI and DOJ.
All this weeks after FBI Director James Comey, under what level of coercion from Loretta Lynch (and the White House) we can only guess, made his determination not to make a legal referral in the matter of Hillary Clinton.
The disclosures come within days of Clinton’s first debate with Republican Donald Trump on Monday.
Pagliano and Combetta have refused to testify before Congress by invoking their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
Ms. Mills served as a top aide to Mrs. Clinton at the State Department and also served as her personal attorney after both left the department.
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The latest revelations in the Clinton email scandal are certain to play a central role in Trump’s line of attack Monday, when the two meet for their first presidential debate in NY.
