Docs Reveal FBI Questioned Obama DOJ in Hillary Email Probe

Original article here.

A presidential candidate faces an FBI probe surrounding alleged mishandling of classified information, amid questions about the independence of the Justice Department. Meanwhile, the candidate’s supporters allege political interference and demand that the chief investigator be investigated.

Such was the case in the closing days of the 2016 presidential election.

Democrats and other supporters of Hillary Clinton complained that then-FBI Director James Comey violated the law in notifying Congress that he had restarted an investigation of Clinton’s use of a private, unsecure email server while she was secretary of state.

Meanwhile, FBI officials questioned the independence of then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and considered asking for a special counsel to investigate Clinton’s private email server, according to a heavily redacted transcript of an interview with a top FBI career official.

Trisha Anderson, then a deputy assistant FBI director, told Office of Special Counsel investigators that “public perception would be that the attorney general herself was not maintaining an appropriate degree of independence.”

Anderson expressed her concern after Lynch, the top Justice Department official during the Obama administration, met with former President Bill Clinton while the investigation of his wife, the Democrats’ nominee for president, was ongoing.

Anderson also told investigators that FBI officials discussed at various points “whether the [FBI] director should or should not make a recommendation to the attorney general” to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate the Clinton email case.

These are among facts gleaned from a heavily redacted 2017 transcript of an interview conducted by the Office of Special Counsel. That independent agency was investigating whether Comey had violated the Hatch Act, the law that prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activity on government time or with government resources.

The 74-page transcript was obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project through the Freedom of Information Act. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)