Hillary Clinton is likely to be questioned by FBI officials about her private email server within the next few days, according to multiple reports. The pressure is on the FBI to make it a fruitful interview because, as one government source told Fox News, “in a case like this you get one shot at the queen.”
Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FBI Director James Comey are meeting frequently to discuss the progress and handling of the highly sensitive case, a source told Fox News.
Among the issues discussed in the meetings, which have been taking place several times per week, are who will be interviewed and in what order, according to an intelligence source close to the ongoing case. Emails released by the State Department have already shown Clinton and several key aides used the personal, unsecured network to send more than 1,000 messages which have been deemed classified.
“In a case like this you get one shot at the queen,” the source, who was not authorized to speak on the record, said referring to Clinton, the former secretary of state and current front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. “The pressures are enormous on the agents, as the case has to be airtight and perfect.”
Comey and Lynch are likely involved in daily briefings on the status of the explosive investigation, said Ron Hosko, former assistant director of the FBI’s criminal investigative division.
“This in an incredibly high stakes, high-wire act,” Hosko said. “Timing is of the essence, but being right is absolutely critical. Comey must be the one to make the case that the law has been broken and a prosecution is recommended.”
In addition to “the queen,” nearly a dozen State Department employees, plus others who are linked to the Clinton Foundation are expected to receive formal interview requests from the bureau, according to the Fox News source.
One State Department staffer has reportedly refused to answer Senate investigators’ questions about Clinton’s use of the server. John Bentel, who managed IT security issues for the secretary’s office, may end up being subpoenaed to compel his testimony, according to the Washington Times.
Meanwhile, former Hillary Clinton IT specialist Bryan Pagliano, who struck an immunity deal with the Justice Department, has apparently been singing like a bird.
An intelligence source told Fox News that he has told the FBI a range of details about how her personal email system was set up and maintained. The source described him as a “devastating witness.”
Mr. Pagliano is a pivotal — perhaps the pivotal — key to Mrs. Clinton’s server and what was being done on and through it — and by whom.
Monica Crowley has been speculating at the Washington Times that President Obama and Mrs. Clinton — both armed with damaging information about the other — have been engaged in “a very bloody but unspoken negotiation” for many months.
Now she’s wondering if the deal they may have struck to protect Clinton’s presidential ambitions somehow broke down.
Is whatever negotiation they may have been conducting over her email server problem and any inside information she may have on him now imploding? Or have the Clintons “won” the negotiation with Mr. Obama, freeing them to hit him publicly to get her elected?
Something has happened, which has led Mr. Clinton to openly slam Mr. Obama: “If you believe we’ve finally come to the point where we can put the awful legacy of the last eight years behind us,” he said recently. A few days later, Chelsea Clinton launched a broadside on Obamacare’s costs. A classic Clintonian one-two punch, coming just days before a report that the FBI is seeking interviews with Mrs. Clinton’s top aides, and likely Mrs. Clinton herself. Most investigations interview the target last.
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