Disclosure on Scuttled Clinton Foundation Investigation, The Usual Suspects
By Jonathan Turley
As the Trump Administration finally releases the underlying documents related to prior scandals and investigations, the public has learned a great deal about the origins of the Russian collusion investigation and other subjects. This week, another document was released explaining why the investigation into the Clinton Foundation seemed to go nowhere. What is less surprising are the characters involved in shutting down the investigation. It is, as Claude Rains would say, “the usual suspects” from former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates to former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
Many of us had written about the allegations of influence peddling by the Clintons. While Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, the Clintons raked in hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign sources. Clinton Foundation officials were shown to have intervened for donors at the State Department. Those funds were used not only for the Clinton Foundation programs but also for travel and support for the Clinton family members. (Tellingly, donations reportedly plummeted after Clinton left office).
What is striking is that officials who relentlessly pursued Trump and his associates on little evidence were reportedly opposed to aggressive efforts involving the Clintons.I was one of the loudest critics of Sally Yates, who ordered the entire Justice Department not to assist Trump on immigration efforts after his inauguration. In my view, Yates’s conduct (just days before she was scheduled to leave the department) was a raw political move that shattered standards of professional conduct. It would also make her a heroine on the left and in the media.
Ultimately, Trump prevailed on the underlying claims of authority raised in the immigration orders before the Supreme Court.In these documents, Yates is shown in an email shutting down the investigation into the Clintons. Despite findings of good cause for further investigation into these allegations of pay-to-play corruption, Yates (then-Deputy Attorney General) is quoted as saying, “Shut it down!”
FBI Director Kash Patel released a memo showing a timeline of the interference, including the message from Sally Yates, whom Trump fired as acting attorney general. McCabe, who is now a CNN contributor, is again shown intervening in a crushingly predictable way.
The declassified timeline revealed that as early as February 2016, the Justice Department “indicated they would not be supportive of an FBI investigation.” The timeline also shows that, in mid-February 2016, McCabe ordered that “no overt investigative steps” were allowed to be taken in the Clinton Foundation investigation “without his approval” — a command he allegedly repeated numerous times over the coming months.
[…]
The timeline detailed how Yates ordered one of the federal prosecutors to “shut it down,” likely in the March 2016 timeframe. Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) and Eastern District of New York (EDNY) purportedly said in August 2016 that they “would not support the investigation” into the Clinton Foundation, according to the timeline, and that “no explanation was given.”
Special Counsel John Durham found that the FBI’s Little Rock and New York investigations “included predication based on source reporting that identified foreign governments that had made, or offered to make, contributions to the Foundation in exchange for favorable or preferential treatment from Clinton.” Nevertheless, the FBI timeline stated that DOJ “indicated they would not be supportive of an FBI investigation” on February 1, 2016.
For those of us who closely followed these investigations and wrote about them, this is hardly surprising but still very valuable for historical purposes. The consistent efforts of figures like McCabe only magnify concerns over the role of key figures in pushing investigations of Trump while discouraging investigations of top Democrats.
Once again, the media is largely ignoring the disclosures. The same reporters who exhaustively pushed the false Russian collusion claims have little interest in these countervailing disclosures. As with the conduct of Yates and McCabe, that is also an all-too-familiar pattern.
*********
(TLB) published this article from Jonathan Turley with our appreciation for this perspective
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.
Header featured image (edited) credit: WP open public card
Emphasis added by (TLB)
••••
••••
Stay Tuned…
••••
The Liberty Beacon Project is now expanding at a near exponential rate, and for this we are grateful and excited! But we must also be practical. For 7 years we have not asked for any donations, and have built this project with our own funds as we grew. We are now experiencing ever increasing growing pains due to the large number of websites and projects we represent. So we have just installed donation buttons on our websites and ask that you consider this when you visit them. Nothing is too small. We thank you for all your support and your considerations … (TLB)
••••
Comment Policy: As a privately owned web site, we reserve the right to remove comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats of violence, racism, or personal/abusive attacks on other users. This also applies to trolling, the use of more than one alias, or just intentional mischief. Enforcement of this policy is at the discretion of this websites administrators. Repeat offenders may be blocked or permanently banned without prior warning.
••••
Disclaimer: TLB websites contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, health, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.
••••
Disclaimer: The information and opinions shared are for informational purposes only including, but not limited to, text, graphics, images and other material are not intended as medical advice or instruction. Nothing mentioned is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
Leave a Reply