by Kyle Becker, Becker News:
Newly revealed documents and interviews with former Justice Department officials indicate that the investigation into the Clinton Foundation, focused on its interactions with foreign donors during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, remained open for the majority of President Donald Trump’s administration.
The case was eventually closed just days before Trump left office, as detailed in closing documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the New York Times reported on Monday.
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The investigation, which had been a subject of intense scrutiny and campaign promises by Trump to “lock her up,” continued despite FBI agents and prosecutors leading it to a dead end. The prolonged investigation became a rallying cry for Republicans who anticipated finding evidence of corruption that would harm Clinton’s political prospects.
The scrutiny of the Clinton Foundation began in 2015 after the publication of “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich” by conservative author Peter Schweizer. The book examined donations made by foreign entities to the foundation. Republicans accused Clinton of engaging in a quid pro quo by supporting the sale of Uranium One, a Canadian company connected to mining interests in the United States, to a Russian nuclear agency in exchange for substantial donations to the foundation.
The FBI initiated a preliminary investigation based on the book’s claims in 2016, but it relied on unverified hearsay information. Additional investigations were launched by the FBI in New York and Little Rock, Arkansas, based on confidential source reporting. However, the Justice Department expressed doubts about the validity of the investigations, causing frustration among FBI agents. Some prosecutors even believed that Schweizer’s book had been discredited.
The tension between the FBI and the Justice Department over the handling of the Clinton Foundation investigation had significant consequences. It led to public disputes and contributed to the dismissal of Andrew G. McCabe, the FBI’s deputy director, who was accused of leaking information about the case and subsequently lying about it. Efforts by the Justice Department to prosecute McCabe were unsuccessful.
The case was eventually consolidated under the supervision of agents in New York in August 2016, but prosecutors declined to issue subpoenas. The investigation appeared to be dormant until it was moved to Little Rock. In 2018, prosecutors obtained a subpoena for the foundation and interviewed its former chief financial officer. The case was eventually closed in January 2021 by career prosecutors in Little Rock, and the FBI received a declination memo in August 2021, signifying the end of the matter.
