The FBI was handing out immunity deals like Halloween candy during the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails. No fewer than five top aides received a “Get out of Jail” free card.
Here’s some background on the Fab Five.
Cheryl Mills
Hillary Clinton’s State Department chief of staff who currently works as her personal attorney. Mills entered the Clinton orbit as a lawyer in the Bill Clinton White House.
According to Politico, Mills was granted immunity after her April 9 interview with the FBI. Beth Wilkinson, her attorney, said that the immunity arrangement covered only information recovered from the laptop computer she used in 2014 to conduct a review of Clinton’s emails before they were given to the State Department.
The FBI’s report of its Clinton email investigation shows that in July 2014, Mills asked computer technician Paul Combetta, who also received DOJ immunity, to transfer to her backups of Clinton’s emails.
[…]
Heather Samuelson
A longtime Clinton campaign staffer who worked for as White House liaison at Clinton’s State Department and, later, as her lawyer.
As a lawyer, Samuelson led up the 2014 review of Clinton’s emails to determine which ones were work-related and which were personal.
According to Politico’s report, Samuelson received DOJ immunity in exchange for turning over the laptop she used during the review of Clinton’s emails in 2014. Like Mills, her lawyer is Beth Wilkinson.
John Bentel
Former director of Information Resources Management for the State Department’s Executive Secretariat.
Politico reported that Bentel was granted immunity even before he was interviewed by the FBI.
That may be because he appears to have given false answers to Congress about what he knew about Clinton’s email server. In a deposition with the House Select Committee on Benghazi last year, Bentel, who retired in 2012, said that he did not know anything about Clinton’s server. But two of Bentel’s subordinates told the State Department’s inspector general that Bentel told them that Clinton’s server had been approved by the State Department’s lawyers. They also said Bentel warned them to stop discussing the server.
Emails released in response to various Freedom of Information Act requests show that Bentel was involved in several discussions in which Clinton’s server was mentioned.
Nevertheless, in his FBI interview, Bentel denied “that State employees raised concerns about Clinton’s emails to him, that he discouraged employees discussing it, or that he was aware during Clinton’s tenure that she was using a personal email account or server to conduct official State business.”
[…]
Bryan Pagliano
Former Hillary Clinton campaign staffer who later worked at the State Department where he managed Clinton’s private email server.
Pagliano was granted limited immunity ahead of his Dec. 22 interview with the FBI. He also reportedly provided logs of the activity on Clinton’s server.
He has refused to talk to other investigative bodies, including the House Select Committee on Benghazi, the House Oversight Committee, and the watchdog group Judicial Watch.
He invoked his Fifth Amendment rights during a Benghazi Committee interview held last September and during the Judicial Watch deposition. He refused to show up to an Oversight Committee hearing held last week despite having been subpoenaed. The Committee voted to hold Pagliano in contempt of Congress for ignoring the subpoena.
[…]
Paul Combetta
Computer technician for Platte River Networks, the tech firm that Clinton hired in 2013 to manage her email server.
Combetta received Justice Department immunity despite apparently misleading the FBI about his decision to delete backups of Clinton’s emails while they were under congressional subpoena.
Combetta used a software program called BleachBit to delete the backups between March 25-31, 2015. The deletion occurred just before Combetta took part in a conference call with Clinton’s lawyers, including Mills and Samuelson.
If the email controversy is much ado about nothing, as Clinton and the Democrats claim, why did so many Clinton aides demand and get immunity? If no one did anything wrong, what do you need immunity for?
The government bent over backwards to avoid indicting a very indictable public official. And since Clinton’s aides won’t have to take responsibility for this fiasco, the guilty will not be held accountable for crimes against our security.
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