(Adds Grassley interview with Washington Post, paragraphs 11-13) WASHINGTON, Aug 17 (Reuters) – FBI documents about the agency’s investigation into Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state were being reviewed on Wednesday in secure rooms of the U.S. Capitol.
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Sharing classified documents from a closed FBI investigation is very rare, and not surprisingly, the transfer of the Clinton files – an investigative summary, “302” reports on interviews with Clinton and others, and classified emails recovered from her private server – was immediately subject to partisan sniping.
But the new development that work-related emails from Clinton, never previously disclosed to the public, will be handed over to watchdog group Judicial Watch offers Chaffetz and House Republicans another real shot at building a solid perjury case. Documents containing classified information are commingled with those marked as “Unclassified/For Official Use”.
“It does seem a service for that nagging reminder of how this email mess does seem to have tarnished Hillary Clinton”, said POLITICO senior reporter Josh Gerstein, who covers the White House and United States Department of Justice.
This post has been seen 5 times. Though he described Clinton’s actions as “extremely careless”, FBI Director James Comey said his agents found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, warned this week that providing the FBI’s confidential notes to the Republicans will discourage witnesses from cooperating with future investigations.
Clinton said past year that she turned over all 55,000 pages of work-related emails from her server, but said she deleted thousands more she and her lawyers deemed as personal.
Republican committee members plan to bring up the perjury issue at a House Judiciary Committee hearing in September that will focus on oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to a Republican committee aide who was not authorized to speak on the record.
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One of the major products of the email debate was the rise of concerns over whether Clinton Foundation donors were given access to the State Department. The emails, recovered as part of the FBI’s probe, were recently returned to the State Department.
