House Republicans are furious and demanding answers after learning that the FBI agreed to secret side deals with two of Hillary Clinton’s top advisors to destroy their laptops after being reviewed. The two aides, former Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills and ex-campaign staffer Heather Samuelson, are among five on the Clinton team who have received immunity in the email server investigation. The side arrangement also forbid investigators from being able to search any data beyond January 31, 2015 which is the day the server became public knowledge. Such a restriction would impede the FBI from retrieving any communications or finding any indication of the Clinton team attempting to destroy and tamper with evidence.
Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Republican Congressman from Virginia Bob Goodlatte, issued a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch with a myriad of questions pertaining to the investigation upon learning of the backdoor deals. “Like many things about this case, these new materials raise more questions than answers,” Goodlatte wrote to Lynch.
Among the questions asked was one pertaining specifically to the problems that come with FBI being forbidden to investigation past January of 2015.
Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, top Clinton aides granted immunity in the email server investigation.
“Have these laptops, or the contents of the laptops, in fact been destroyed, thereby making follow up investigations by the FBI, or Congressional oversight, impossible?” Goodlatte asked.
The Justice Department has until October 10th to respond.
Mills and Samuelson were a part of the Clinton team that oversaw the sorting and deletion of emails and documents that they deemed “personal” after Clinton was forced to turn over email documents for the FBI investigation. The pair were also permitted to sit in with Hillary Clinton during her FBI interrogation in which there was no video or audio recording, and only “notes” were taken of the 3 hour questioning, raising concerns. The FBI argued that since the interrogation was “voluntary” the agency could not control who Mrs. Clinton brought with her.
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