What About the Clinton Foundation Investigation?

The investigation into the Clinton Foundation didn’t come up at all during FBI Director James Comey’s press conference Tuesday, prompting pundits like Fox News national security analyst K.T. McFarland to ask why.

Isn’t there a second FBI investigation? A criminal FBI investigation into the Clinton foundation? What is status of that?

— KT McFarland (@ktmcfarland) July 5, 2016

Fox News reported Tuesday evening that despite the FBI’s ruling on her emails, “Hillary Clinton may not be completely in the clear. ”

“The Clinton Foundation  may still be the subject of its own investigation,”  Megyn Kelly reported Tuesday evening on The Kelly File. “Director Comey made no mention of the foundation today or whether the FBI is investigating it, at all.”

According to Chief Intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge, Republican Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Jason Chaffetz pressed Comey after his statement at FBI headquarters about whether there would be charges against Clinton’s aides, and whether the entire investigation was closed.

“I specifically asked him what about the other people — what about the IT guy, what about the inner circle, what about the other things. And he quickly said, ‘I can’t tell you about that yet.'” Chaffetz explained on Special Report.

As Fox News reported back in January, the FBI expanded its investigation into Clinton’s emails to include the possible intersection of State Department business and the Clinton Foundation and whether public corruption laws were violated (as chronicled in Peter Schweizer’s book “Clinton Cash”).

Herridge noted that it wasn’t typical for Comey to not take questions after making a statement. “He seemed to anticipate the backlash,” she said.

Back in May, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the former chairman of the Oversight Committee, said that he believed that the FBI wouldn’t finish the public corruption track of the investigation until after the election.

“I believe they are going to have to make a summary finding as to her violation of the national records act, her taking of the documents, and of course a classified portion,” said Issa who wielded subpoena power and oversaw an investigative staff while he chaired the Oversight Committee.

“They’re going to have to leave the … coordinating her activities and President Clinton’s activities and Chelsea’s activities in the Clinton Foundation, they’re probably going to have to leave that until after the election,” Issa said.

Meanwhile, Department of Justice officials filed a motion in federal court last week “seeking a 27-month delay in producing correspondence between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s four top aides and officials with the Clinton Foundation and Teneo Holdings, a closely allied public relations firm that Bill Clinton helped launch.”

If the court permits the delay, the public won’t be able to read the communications until October 2018, about 22 months into her prospective first term as President. The four senior Clinton aides involved were Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Michael Fuchs, Ambassador-At-Large Melanne Verveer, Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, and Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin.

The State Department originally estimated that 6,000 emails and other documents were exchanged by the aides with the Clinton Foundation. But a series of “errors” the department told the court about Wednesday evening now mean the total has grown to “34,116 potentially responsive documents.”

During Clinton’s four years as America’s chief foreign diplomat, her aides communicated with officials at the Clinton Foundation and Teneo Holdings where Bill Clinton was formerly both a client and paid consultant, on the average of 700 times each month, according to the Justice Department filing.

David N. Bossie, president of Citizens United, which requested the documents under the Freedom of Information Act, called the delay “totally unacceptable” and charged that “the State Department is using taxpayer dollars to protect their candidate, Hillary Clinton.”

If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, of course this all goes away. Unless, of course, Vladimir Putin decides to post all of the emails the Russians have onto WikiLeaks. Then we’re back to popcorn-popping time.