Bombshell report finds the FBI Hillary Clinton email server investigation was 'sloppily done and incomplete'
The politically devastating investigation into the then-presumed Democratic presidential nominee was ended in 2016 after then-FBI Director James Comey announced that his agency would not recommend charges for Clinton after she used a personal server to store government emails - an infraction many Republicans argued was a crime.
But an internal review of the FBI's investigation that finished in 2018 by the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that not every stone was unturned.
That 35-page addendum, published on Monday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, says the FBI failed to complete a 'thorough and complete investigation' after the OIG uncovered a thumb drive full of government emails that was never investigated by Comey.
It does not specify how many of Clinton's emails were left untouched.
'This document shows an extreme lack of effort and due diligence in the FBI's investigation of former Secretary Clinton's email usage and mishandling of highly classified information,' Grassley said in a statement. 'Under Comey's leadership, the FBI failed to perform fundamental investigative work and left key pieces of evidence on the cutting room floor,' the statement continued.
Comey's investigation primarily focused on approximately 30,000 emails Clinton sent or received while serving as secretary of state from 2009 - 2013. The probe uncovered 'top secret' files stored on Clinton's personal server, indicating she may have mishandled classified documents.
The investigation, which also examined if foreign adversaries had access to the files, determined that though Clinton was 'extremely careless' in her handling of sensitive materials, it did not surmount to a violation of the law.
The original investigation examined numerous devices and tens of thousands of emails related to Clinton and her aides. But there was also a realization that some devices had been destroyed or were inaccessible, hindering the breadth of the inquiry.
The Clinton emails have been scrutinized extensively since 2016, with multiple reviews by the Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General (OIG) and congressional committees. The OIG has criticized aspects of FBI leadership and found mistakes were made, but concluded the investigation was not driven by political bias and that 'no prosecutable evidence' was uncovered against Clinton
Comey noted in July 2016 that 'no reasonable prosecutor' would push a case based on the FBI's findings, but the scrutiny of Clinton's emails still cost her politically as she went on to lose the election to Donald Trump.
The 92-year-old Grassley thanked FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi for helping the Judiciary Committee unseal the previously classified 2018 OIG report.
The newly unclassified document is an appendix to the OIG's publicly disclosed June 2018 report into the Clinton email investigation.
Dubbed the 'Clinton annex' by Grassley's office, the addendum came just a month after the initial report was filed, in July 2018. However, the file claiming the report was incomplete was never publicly reported, remaining classified until this week.
Grassley, whose committee oversees the two agencies, has been conducting oversight of the Clinton probe for nearly a decade since 2016. He first petitioned the FBI to release the OIG's 'Clinton annex' in 2020.
The annex says the overlooked thumb drive contained very sensitive information taken from the State Department, including some emails from President Barack Obama at the time.
Though a drafted FBI memorandum recommended that the agency investigate the thumb drives, they were never reviewed as a part of the Clinton investigation, the annex states.
The drafted memorandum stated that the thumb drives were critical to a 'thorough and complete investigation,' but that the FBI never submitted this request
In addition to not investigating the thumb drive, the FBI also obtained intelligence that 'the Obama administration took efforts to scuttle the investigation into Clinton and protect her candidacy,' Grassley's office claims.
The newly unveiled 'Clinton annex' shows Comey and others at the FBI did not make efforts to fully investigate those intelligence reports, the Republican alleges.
The FBI's unwillingness to release the bombshell document stands in opposition to its eagerness to investigate Trump for alleged ties to Russia during the same timespan, the Iowa Republican says.
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