- Florida Republican Matt Gaetz and former GOP congressman Jason Chaffetz are calling for criminal investigations into the Clintons to be reopened
- Three of the probes were launched in early 2016 by FBI field offices in Arkansas, New York, and DC into ‘possible criminal activity’ by the Clinton Foundation
- An investigation was also opened in late 2014 into claims that foreign governments were trying to make illegal donations to buy influence with Hillary
- Read the Durham report in FULL – and the investigation timeline that led him to conclude the FBI should NEVER have investigated Trump-Russia collusion
The FBI had at least four criminal investigations into Hillary and Bill Clinton that were ultimately shut down months before the presidential election in 2016, a new Justice Department report reveals – and Republicans want to reopen those probes.
A long-awaited report by Special Counsel John Durham released on Monday shows the FBI began investigating claims in late 2014 from a ‘well-placed’ confidential source that two foreign governments were trying to make illegal donations to buy influence with Hillary during her presidential campaign.
Investigators were even offered documents of one alleged $2,700 illegal contribution that led to a ‘substantial’ further donation.
The bombshell report also reveals three different FBI field offices, in Washington, D.C., Little Rock, Arkansas, and New York, launched investigations into the Clinton Foundation in early 2016 for ‘possible criminal activity.’
One of the investigations was partly based on statements made in journalist Peter Schweizer’s 2015 book, Clinton Cash, claiming the Clintons’ charity was taking millions in donations from foreign governments trying to change US foreign policy while Hillary was Secretary of State.
But despite making progress, all four criminal investigations were shut down by senior officials, Durham found.
The new revelations are prompting calls from current and former Republicans for a renewed investigation into the alleged criminal activity involving the Clintons.
One is Florida Republican representative Matt Gaetz, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee’s ‘Weaponization of the Federal Government’ subcommittee which has been probing claims of political bias in the FBI.
‘The Clintons had a team of people at the FBI running interference for them to avoid criminal culpability,’ Gaetz claimed in a statement to DailyMail.com.
‘These matters absolutely warrant additional exposure and review.’
Former Republican congressman and ex House Oversight Committee chair Jason Chaffetz expressed similar sentiments saying the FBI ‘didn’t complete the job’ and probes into the Clintons should be reopened.
‘They had the scent, they were on the trail, and they were shut down by the higher ups who had an obvious political desire to see Donald Trump lose and Hillary Clinton win,’ he said.
‘It’s disgusting really. Absolutely these investigations should be revisited,’ he added.
‘There’s no reason why Congress can’t have a series of hearings with the field agents who were pursuing the Clinton Foundation, and public interviews with them as well.’
Bombshell new information about the FBI’s Clinton probes was disclosed in the special counsel’s 316-page report delivered to Attorney General Merrick Garland on May 12.
The report compared the FBI and Justice Department’s voracious investigation of Trump’s connections with Russia, to its allegedly lackluster approach to its Clinton probes ‘tippy-toeing’ around the former Secretary of State.
Durham reviewed a January 2016 report on the Clinton Foundation by the Little Rock Field Office which found possible evidence that ‘large monetary contributions were made to a non-profit, under both direct and indirect control of [a] federal public official, in exchange for favorable government action and/or influence.’
Durham wrote that the New York and Little Rock Field Offices had ‘source reporting that identified foreign governments that had made, or offered to make, contributions to the Foundation in exchange for favorable or preferential treatment from Clinton.’
And an agent in the Washington Field Office also opened a preliminary probe into the Clintons ‘because the Case Agent wanted to determine if he could develop additional information to corroborate the allegations in a recently-published book, Clinton Cash by Peter Schweizer’.
Among the Clintons’ murky foreign entanglements scrutinized in Schweizer’s book was a 2010 deal that gave the Russian government control over huge swathes of US uranium production including 38,000 acres in four Western states.
A Russian state-controlled company built up a 51% controlling stake in previously Canadian firm Uranium One between 2009 and 2013, in a deal approved by a powerful US government committee on which Hillary sat as Secretary of State.
Over the same period, Uranium One’s chairman Ian Telfer used his family foundation to make $2.35million in donations to the Clinton Foundation, according to Canadian tax records reported by the New York Times in 2015.
The gifts were not disclosed despite an agreement Hillary signed before joining the Obama administration to identify all donors.
In June 2010, the same month Russian energy firm Rosatom struck its deal to buy 51% of Uranium One, Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 to speak at an event in Moscow, the Times reported, after an investigation based on a preview copy of Schweizer’s book.
The deal was one of several cases highlighted in Schweizer’s book involving rich Clinton Foundation mega-donors and foreign governments with interests in Hillary’s decisions as Secretary of State.
A Wall Street Journal report from February 2015 identified the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Australia, Germany, and a Canadian government agency promoting the Keystone XL pipeline as donors to the foundation’s $250million endowment campaign – though noted that Hillary stopped raising money from foreign governments after she became secretary.
At the time the Clintons issued strong denials of any impropriety.
‘[No one] has ever produced a shred of evidence supporting the theory that Hillary Clinton ever took action as secretary of state to support the interests of donors to the Clinton Foundation,’ their spokesman Brian Fallon told the Times in April 2015.
‘To suggest the State Department, under then-Secretary Clinton, exerted undue influence in the U.S. government’s review of the sale of Uranium One is utterly baseless.’
And on Thursday, a spokesperson for the Clinton Foundation pushed back against the claims of alleged wrongdoing requiring FBI investigation.
The spokesman said the Durham report ’emphasized what’s been clear for many years – there’s never been any wrongdoing by the Clinton Foundation’, adding that Durham referred to Schweizer’s book as ‘unvetted hearsay’ in his report.
‘Secretary Clinton was not involved in the State Department’s review of the Uranium One deal,’ the spokesman said.
‘The largest Clinton Foundation donor cited in these claims sold his stake in Uranium One several years before the deal.
‘None of the Clintons have ever taken any money from the Clinton Foundation — in fact, the Clintons themselves are major donors to the Clinton Foundation.’
The spokesman said Schweizer’s claims were ‘baseless’ and pointed to previous investigations by the Trump administration’s Justice Department and House Republicans in 2018 which ‘concluded with no evidence of wrongdoing.’