GOP lawmaker: FBI gave immunity to top Hillary Clinton aide
Hillary Clinton‘s former chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, and two other staff members were granted immunity deals in exchange for their cooperation in the now-closed FBI investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state, says a Republican congressman. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told The Associated Press on Friday that Mills gave federal investigators access to her laptop on the condition that what they found couldn’t be used against her. Democrats on the committee said Friday the immunity agreements were limited in scope and did not cover statements made to investigators or to potential testimony before Congress. Still, Chaffetz said he was “absolutely stunned” that the FBI would cut a deal with someone as close to the investigation as Mills. 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. “No wonder they couldn’t prosecute a case,” said Chaffetz, R-Utah. “They were handing out immunity deals like candy.” Copies of the immunity agreements were provided to the House oversight committee by the Justice Department this week under seal. Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon accused House Republicans of “trying to make something out of nothing by rummaging through the files of a Justice Department investigation that was closed months ago without any charges whatsoever, and leaking selective details three days before the first presidential debate.” “Congressman Chaffetz continues to abuse his office by wasting taxpayer dollars to try to second-guess the FBI in what amounts to a desperate attempt to boost Donald Trump’s chances against Hillary Clinton,” Fallon said. A yearlong investigation by the FBI focused on whether the Democratic presidential nominee sent or received classified information using the private server located in the basement of her New York home, which was not authorized for such messages. FBI Director James Comey said in July that his agents hadn’t found evidence to support any criminal charge or direct evidence that Clinton’s private server had been hacked. He suggested that hackers working for a foreign government may have been so sophisticated they wouldn’t have left behind any evidence of a break-in. Chaffetz said in addition to Mills, others granted immunity include John Bentel, then-director of the State Department’s Office of Information Resources Management, and Heather Samuelson, Clinton’s executive assistant. Beth Wilkinson, the lawyer representing Mills and Samuelson, said the immunity agreements show investigators considered her clients “to be witnesses and nothing more.” “The Justice Department assured us that they believed my clients did nothing wrong,” Wilkinson said. “At all points my clients cooperated with the government’s investigation, including voluntarily participating in interviews with the FBI and DOJ.” The latest revelation brings the total number of people who were granted immunity as part of the FBI’s investigation to at least five. It had previously been reported immunity had been granted to Bryan Pagliano, a tech expert who set up Clinton’s email server, as well as Paul Combetta, a computer specialist for a private firm that later maintained Clinton’s email setup. Chaffetz said he is looking forward to asking Comey questions about the immunity deals when Comey testifies Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee. Chaffetz is also a member of that panel. Mills, who was among Clinton’s closest confidants, voluntarily appeared last year for a lengthy interview as part of the House GOP’s investigation into the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that left three Americans dead. Pagliano and Combetta, however, have refused to testify before Congress by invoking their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. On Thursday, the GOP-led House oversight committee voted along party lines to hold Pagliano in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with its subpoena. Disappointed the FBI didn’t recommend criminal charges, congressional Republicans are seeking to keep the issue of Clinton’s email use alive through the November election. Clinton has called her use of the private server a mistake. Congressional Democrats accused Republicans of playing politics. “The facts are that Ms. Mills cooperated fully with the Justice Department and Congress, the FBI concluded that there was no basis for any criminal prosecution,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the oversight committee. In a statement, the campaign of the Republican presidential nominee criticized both Clinton and the Justice Department. “No one with judgment this bad should be allowed to serve as president of the United States or hold any public office,” Trump spokesman Jason Miller. “What has become abundantly clear is that the Obama Administration is protecting Hillary Clinton from accountability at all costs because she will keep the rigged system in Washington in place.” Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Veteran Clinton aide Cheryl Mills cites email server talks in testimony
A veteran aide to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said she discussed Clinton’s private email server with a technical aide who helped set up and run the system, according to a court deposition released Tuesday by a conservative legal group. Longtime Clinton aide Cheryl Mills acknowledged in five hours of testimony last week that her conversations with the technical aide, Bryan Pagliano, took place after Clinton stepped down as secretary of state in 2013. Mills, who was Clinton’s chief of staff at the State Department and later her private attorney, told lawyers for the legal group Judicial Watch that she spoke to Pagliano several times about the setup of Clinton’s email system. But Mills’ lawyers declined to allow Mills to speak in detail about Pagliano’s work or whether he was working at the time for either Clinton or her husband, former President Bill Clinton. Judicial Watch has sued the State Department for access to public records about Clinton’s use of private emails in her public job. Pagliano has reportedly cooperated with the FBI in its separate probe of Clinton’s emails but last year refused to testify to a congressional committee about his work on the email server, which was installed in the basement of the Clinton’s home in Chappaqua, N.Y. Clinton has said publicly that she is willing to talk with the FBI in its investigation, but said Tuesday in an interview with MSNBC that the agency has not yet scheduled a session with her. Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said Tuesday that the extended session with Mills and her attorneys provided more information “about her email system, about its impact on FOIA (public records searches) and the fact that Ms. Mills was talking with Mr. Pagliano about this system after she left the State Department.” Much of the session, however, devolved into legal objections and sparring between lawyers for Mills and the legal group over how much she could relate without veering away from careful legal limits imposed by both sides. Mills did say she recalled speaking with Pagliano, who worked both as a private technical consultant to Clinton and as a special State Department aide during Clinton’s tenure, as far back as 2008 – a period when Pagliano was still working as an aide for Clinton’s unsuccessful 2008 presidential try. Mills did not characterize the discussions and said she could not recall in detail any discussions at the time about the set-up of Clinton’s email server. Mills also said she had expected that all the emails that she received from and sent to Clinton’s private email addresses would have been preserved and archived by State officials because her messages originated from the State Department’s email system. “It was my impression that when she emailed, because it was her practice to email people on their State accounts when she was doing State business, that any of those communications would be captured and maintained by the State Department system,” Mills said. On Tuesday Clinton said she never instructed any of her aides to “hide the fact that I was using a personal email … it was obvious to many people,” she told MSNBC. A report from the State Department inspector general last week said that on at least one occasion, a State Department supervisor warned two other agency officials not to raise questions about Clinton’s use of private emails. Republished with permission of The Associated Press
Government seeks to limit questions in Hillary Clinton email case
Lawyers for the State Department have asked a federal judge to limit the scope of testimony about Hillary Clinton‘s use of a private email account as secretary of state. The government filed its response late Tuesday in a public records lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal advocacy group. Federal District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan last month granted the group “limited discovery” into why the Democratic presidential front runner used an email server at her New York home while serving as the nation’s top diplomat. Judicial Watch wants to question eight current and former department staffers under oath, including top Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin. In its response, the government asked the judge to strictly limit the questions that can be asked to those involving the 2009 creation of Clinton’s private email system. Topics the government asked Sullivan to forbid include the “employment status of a single employee; the storage, handling, transmission, or protection of classified information, including cybersecurity issues; and questions about any pending investigations.” The FBI is investigating whether sensitive information that flowed through Clinton’s email server was mishandled. The inspectors general at the State Department and for U.S. intelligence agencies are separately investigating whether rules or laws were broken. There are also at least 38 civil lawsuits, including one filed by The Associated Press, seeking records related to Clinton’s time as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. Critics of Clinton’s decision to rely on the private server have suggested it potentially made her communications more vulnerable to being stolen by hackers, including those working for foreign intelligence agencies. In response to public records requests, the State Department has released more than 52,000 pages of her work-related emails, a small percentage of which have been withheld because they contain information considered sensitive to national security. Thousands of additional emails have been withheld by Clinton, whose lawyers say they contain personal messages unrelated to her government service. Clinton has admitted on the campaign trail that her home-based email setup was a mistake, but insists she never sent or received any documents that were marked classified at the time. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Hillary Clinton slams Benghazi committee in TV interview, ad
Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday lashed out at the special House committee investigating the deadly attacks in Benghazi, Libya, calling it a partisan political exercise designed to “exploit” the deaths of four Americans. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy‘s recent comments that the Benghazi panel can take credit for her diminished public standing prove Republicans are going after her for political reasons, Clinton said in a televised interview. The Democratic presidential front-runner told NBC’s “Today” show that if she were president, she would have “done everything” in her power to shut down such a partisan investigation. “Look at the situation they chose to exploit, to go after me for political reasons: the death of four Americans in Benghazi,” Clinton said in an interview before a town hall appearance in New Hampshire. “This committee was set up, as they have admitted, for the purpose of making a partisan, political issue out of the deaths of four Americans.” Clinton was secretary of state during the 2012 attacks. She stopped short of calling for the Benghazi panel to be disbanded, as some Democrats have urged. “That’s up to the Congress,” she said, adding that she was looking forward to testifying before the Benghazi panel on Oct. 22 “to explain everything we’ve done, everything that I asked to happen.” Laying the groundwork for the testimony, Clinton’s campaign released a new 30-second ad that says the Republicans “finally admit it” and points to McCarthy’s remarks. “The Republicans have spent millions attacking Hillary because she’s fighting for everything they oppose,” the ad says. Emily Schillinger, a spokeswoman for House Speaker John Boehner, called the ad “a classic Clinton attempt to distract from her record of putting classified information at risk and jeopardizing our national security.” Clinton’s comments came as Democrats on the Benghazi panel released a partial transcript of a closed-door interview with Clinton’s former chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, in response to what they called selective and inaccurate Republican leaks. Release of the transcript is “the only way to adequately correct the public record,” the Democrats said in a letter to the panel’s chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C. They said they would release the full transcript in five days, in order to give Gowdy time to identify any specific information in the transcript he believes should be withheld from the American people. A spokesman for Gowdy said the committee has not released transcripts from witness interviews in order to “gather all facts” and avoid tainting the recollections of future witnesses. “By selectively leaking” parts of the transcript from Mills’ daylong interview last month, “Democrats have shown their nakedly political motivation, willingness to violate the letter and spirit of House rules and their desire to defend Secretary Clinton without regard for the integrity of the investigation,” Gowdy’s spokesman, Jamal Ware, said. House Democrats said Mills refuted several GOP allegations about the Benghazi attacks, which killed U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Democrats released comments by Mills in which she rejected a claim that Clinton issued a “stand-down” order blocking U.S. troops from rescuing those trapped at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. The supposed stand-down order has been widely debunked. Clinton “said we need to be taking whatever steps we can, to do whatever we can to secure our people,” Mills said, according to a partial transcript released by Democrats. Clinton was “very concerned” on the night of the attacks and “worried about our team on the ground in Benghazi” and State Department personnel throughout Libya, Mills said. McCarthy, R-Calif., who is considered likely to become House speaker following Boehner’s surprise resignation, said last week: “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.” McCarthy called Clinton “untrustable” and said, “No one would have known any of that had happened had we not fought and made that happen.” McCarthy later retracted the comment and said he regrets it. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the Benghazi panel, called it “shameful” that Republicans have “used the tragedy … for political gain.” Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
