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FBI report reveals she forwarded classified data to her private email

By Bill Gertz

Documents made public from the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private server provide clues about the current review of more than half a million emails linked to Clinton presidential campaign vice chair Huma Abedin.

Abedin was questioned by FBI agents and Justice Department officials, including those involved with counterintelligence matters, on April 5.

During those discussions, Abedin revealed that she used four different email accounts while she was deputy chief of staff for operations in Clinton’s seventh floor office at the State Department.

The email accounts included her official State Department account, abedinh@state.gov, the private server account, huma@clintonemail.com, and her private email, humamabedin@yahoo.com. Abedin’s fourth email account was associated with the campaign activities of her estranged husband, former Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner.

The FBI reopened its Clinton email investigation after agents recovered a laptop computer from Wiener that reportedly contains some 650,000 emails now being reviewed by FBI agents.  Weiner’s laptop was obtained during an investigation into allegations the former congressman exchanged illicit messages with a 15-year-old girl.

The FBI began reviewing the emails after receiving a search warrant on Monday.

FBI Director James Comey revealed to Congress last week that he ordered the email investigation to be reopened after “pertinent” information was uncovered in the separate investigation of Weiner.

The Wall Street Journal, quoting people close to the FBI and Justice Department, reported last weekend that FBI and Justice Department officials disagreed with the decision to renew the email probe.

Word of the FBI’s renewed email investigation was a political bombshell for Clinton, coming 11 days before Election Day and again raising questions about her character.

Clinton and her campaign spokespeople have called for the FBI to release further details about the new email cache.

On Monday, Assistant Attorney General Peter J. Kadzik wrote to congressional Democrats who sought additional details of the new probe. “We assure you that the Department will continue to work closely with the FBI and together, dedicate all necessary resources and take appropriate steps as expeditiously as possible,” Kadzik stated in a three-paragraph letter.

Abedin’s lawyer, Karen Dunn, said in a statement on Monday that Abedin was unaware that her emails were on Weiner’s laptop. “Ms. Abedin will continue to be, as she always has been, forthcoming and cooperative,” she said.

The original FBI investigation was prompted by the discovery of secret intelligence information in Clinton’s emails. The probe, thought to have been finished in July, seeks to find out how classified information was placed on the unsecure server and whether foreign intelligence services or other hackers were able to steal it through cyber intrusions.

The classified information included some of the most sensitive secrets kept in what are called Special Access Programs, including information on how drone strikes are conducted.

Abedin told agents she was not aware of any attempts to hack her email accounts, according to the FBI report of her interview.

“Abedin recalled that some people at DoS had issues with their Gmail accounts but she never had a Gmail account,” the report said.

While working for Clinton, Abedin held a top-secret security clearance. She had a classified computer system, along with a separate unclassified computer, at her desk in Clinton’s office.

“Abedin could access her clintonemail.com account and her Yahoo account via the internet on the unclassified [Department of State] computer system,” the FBI report states.

Abedin told the FBI that printing difficulties on the State Department network led her to routinely forward emails to her non-State Department accounts for printing.

During questioning by the FBI, Abedin was shown several emails that revealed lines of inquiry being pursued by investigators.

For example, one email with the subject line “Fwd: U.S. interest in Pak Paper 10-04” appeared to contain a classified document that was forwarded by Abedin to her personal Yahoo account in October 2009. The document had come from an aide to Richard Holbrooke, who was special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the time.

“Abedin was unaware of the classification of the document and stated that she did not make judgments on the classification of material that she received,” the report states, adding that she relied on senders to properly mark and transmit sensitive material.

Another email chain dated August 16, 2010 shown to Abedin contained the subject line, “Re: your yahoo acct.” It appeared to warn Abedin that her Yahoo account had been hacked.

“Abedin did not recall the email and provided that despite the content of the email she was not sure that her email account had ever been compromised,” the report said.

Another email from October 2009 shown to Abedin involved communications security procedures for use during travel in Moscow. Abedin told investigators the email contained instructions to be followed by Clinton and “all the traveling team.”

“Abedin stated that they used computers that were set up and controlled by the Mobile Communications Team to access their DoS and personal email accounts when they were in Russia,” the report said.

The questioning indicates investigators were trying to determine if Russian intelligence may have compromised the emails and cell phones of Clinton and her team of aides during a visit to Russia.

Another email involved Clinton requesting that Abedin schedule a conference call with Jacob Sullivan, a senior State Department official. The message discussed whether the call should be conducted on secure lines or unclassified telephone.

The email contained classified information that was redacted from public release involving Sullivan’s meeting with Hamid bin Jassim, the former prime minister of Qatar.

Abedin said she could not recall the email exchange or the context but noted that generally she would be told by Clinton whether conference calls should be held on secure lines or not. Abedin said it would be unusual for her to read the content and decide whether the call should be secure or unclassified.

Another email shown to Abedin appeared to indicate that the private email server had been hacked.

According to the FBI report, Abedin told investigators she “lost most of her old emails” when the clintonemail.com server was transitioned to a post-State Department server with the address hrcoffice.com.

“Abdein did not know if the system administrator had archived the mailboxes before the system was taken down,” the report said.

Abedin’s claim that she lost most of her emails during the server transition will likely be checked in the FBI review of the new emails found on the Weiner laptop.

The renewed FBI investigation also may be able to resolve questions about missing boxes of emails that disappeared between the time Clinton turned them over to lawyers for review and the time they were ultimately delivered to the State Department.

An identified State Department witness told the FBI that 14 boxes of emails were supplied to Clinton’s lawyers at Williams & Connelly for review prior to being turned over to the State Department. Only 12 boxes were retrieved in December 2015.

Continue reading at the Washington Free Beacon.

Hillary & Huma Email perjury

Influence peddling, acting for Putin’s ally, hiding classified secrets and sexting – how FIVE separate FBI cases are probing virtually every one of Clinton’s inner circle and their families

By: DailMail.com reporters

The extent to which Hillary Clinton’s key advisers are now the focus of major FBI investigations is becoming clear.

The Clintons’ long-term inner-circle – some of whom stretch back in service to the very first days of Bill’s White House – are being examined in at least five separate investigations. 

The scale of the FBI’s interest in some of America’s most powerful political fixers – one of them a sitting governor – underlines just how difficult it will be for Clinton to shake off the taint of scandal if she enters the White House.

There are, in fact, not one but five separate FBI investigations which involve members of Clinton’s inner circle or their closest relatives. 

The five known investigations are into: Anthony Weiner, Huma Abedin’s estranged husband sexting a 15-year-old; the handling of classified material by Clinton and her staff on her private email server; questions over whether the Clinton Foundation was used as a front for influence-peddling; whether the Virginia governor broke laws about foreign donations; and whether Hillary’s campaign chairman’s brother did the same.

The progress of the Clinton Foundation investigation and that into McAuliffe was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. 

The FBI does not generally comment on investigations, so it is entirely possible there are more under way. 

Here are the advisers and consiglieri – and how the FBI is looking at them

Continue Reading Here

The FBI doesn’t yet know if the new material is ‘significant,’ Comey writes.

By Madeline Conway

The FBI on Friday dropped a bombshell on Hillary Clinton’s campaign less than two weeks before Election Day, announcing that it is reviewing new evidence in its investigation into her use of a private email server as secretary of state.

In a letter to several congressional committee chairmen, FBI Director James Comey wrote that, “In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to this investigation.”

Comey said he was briefed on those emails on Thursday and that he “agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.”

He did not specify where the additional emails came from.

Comey wrote that the FBI does not yet know if the new material is “significant” and did not provide a timeframe for investigating.

In July, Comey said the FBI was not recommending charges against Clinton, saying “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring such a case. But he did chastise her for being “extremely careless” in her handling of sensitive information. The controversy over Clinton’s use of the server, reported for the first time by The New York Times in March 2015, has dogged her presidential run since its beginning.

While Clinton said her decision to use a private email server was a “mistake,” she has steadfastly said that she violated no laws.

The news broke as Clinton was en route to a campaign event. As she got off the plane, she smiled and waved — and ignored all questions by the press around her.

But her campaign appeared blindsided by the development. When asked by NBC News to respond to the revelation, a top Clinton campaign spokesperson said, “No idea.”

Donald Trump immediately celebrated the FBI’s move.

“I need to open with a very critical, breaking news announcement,” Trump said at the start of a rally in New Hampshire. “Hillary Clinton’s corruption is on a scale that we have never seen before. We must not let her take her are criminal scheme into the Oval Office. I have great respect for the fact that the FBI and the department of justice are now willing to have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made.”

“This was a grave miscarriage of justice that the American people fully understood,” he continued. “And it is everybody’s hope that it is about to be corrected.”

Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, also cheered the news. “A great day in our campaign just got even better. FBI reviewing new emails in Clinton probe,” Conway tweeted.

A spokesman from the Senate Judiciary panel said they only learned of the new evidence on Friday from Comey’s letter. They were unsure what emails the FBI had discovered and did not know what the “unrelated case” pertained to. However, the aide said the panels will likely seek to find out more in the coming days.

The revelation comes less than two weeks before Election Day and has the potential to change the dynamic of the race, in which Clinton had pulled away from Trump in recent weeks.

Republicans, many of whom had become increasingly resigned to the idea that Clinton was running away with the election, appeared buoyed by the FBI’s decision to take another look at Clinton’s handling of classified materials.

House Speaker Paul Ryan called the FBI’s move “long overdue.” “Yes again, Hillary Clinton has nobody but herself to blame,” he said in a statement. “She was entrusted with some of our nation’s most important secrets, and she betrayed that trust by carelessly mishandling highly classified information.”

Continue reading at Politico.

 

Wikileaks email: Clinton lawyer warned campaign chairman John Podesta that President Obama had emails sent from Hillary’s private account

By David Martosko

Donald Trump said Tuesday that new revelations from WikiLeaks establish that President Barack Obama is ‘caught up in the big lie’ surrounding the secret server that held all of Hillary Clinton’s emails while she was secretary of state.

The president ‘claimed to have no knowledge whatsoever of Clinton’s – Hillary Clinton’s – email server,’ Trump recalled as he spoke to nearly 10,000 people assembled on a central Florida airfield.

‘”I have no knowledge of it! I don’t know!” Trump mugged, doing an Obama impression.

‘This guy! He’s as bad as she is!’

Wikileaks email chain published online hours earlier showed Clinton’s senior aides knew Obama had received emails from the private address she used to conduct government business. The president, however, claimed he learned about its existence in news reports.

The email, one of thousands hacked from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s account, memorializes campaign insiders’ surprise when the president played dumb during a CBS News interview.

Continue reading at Daily Mail.

‘Discreet conversations’ also started with Facebook, Apple in 2014

By Joe Schoffstall

Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is working directly with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, according to a memo contained within an email released by WikiLeaks.

“Discreet conversations” of forming “working relationships” with companies such as Facebook and Apple were also facilitated as early as October 2014, the memo stated. This is at least six months prior to when Clinton announced her candidacy for president.

The document was attached to an Oct. 26, 2014 email sent from Robby Mook, now Clinton’s campaign manager, to Cheryl Mills, a longtime Clinton aide; David Plouffe, Barack Obama’s previous campaign manager; and John Podesta, Clinton’s current campaign chairman whose email account was compromised.

The email was posted to Wikileaks after hackers believed to be working with the Russian government breached Podesta’s email account.

Teddy Goff, now a digital strategist for the Clinton campaign who is the former digital director for Obama’s reelection campaign, wrote the memo, which was addressed to Clinton. It touched base on “Technology and digital priorities.”

Goff began by listing “priorities” for the Clinton digital team to undertake. In his estimation—in order of importance—these included: “Raising lots of money,” “Creating and distributing excellent content, for both supportive and persuadable audiences, on social and paid media and in videos,” and “Recruiting, engaging, and organizing volunteers and prospective volunteers.”

Goff then provided an update on these developments. Within this section, he repeatedly referenced the work “Eric Schmidt’s group” and “team” is performing. The Washington Free Beacon reported last week that John Podesta emailed Schmidt in April 2014 to set up meetings with Cheryl Mills and Robby Mook.

“I have been kept apprised of the work being done by Eric Schmidt’s group and others working directly and indirectly with your team. On the whole, I am comfortable with where we stand and confident in our roadmap to launch day and beyond,” Goff wrote.

Goff wrote that they have selected a team of developers unaffiliated with Schmidt to build the front end of Clinton’s website.

“They are apprised of what Eric is building but not dependent on it, having identified commercially available products for all mission-critical functions in the event Eric’s group is delayed or otherwise derailed,” he wrote.

“We have instructed Eric’s team to build the most important products in their portfolio—specifically, the back-end of the website, the ability to accept donations (along with associated features, most importantly the ability to store credit card information), and the ability to acquire email addresses—first,” Goff says. “Given how much time remains between now and launch—and, again, the availability of alternative solutions—I believe there is effectively no chance that these core functionalities will not be in place in time for launch.”

Goff continued by saying that he is confident that the digital infrastructure they are building will be far more advanced than those of any challengers in either political party:

Eric’s team is also developing products that are not, strictly speaking, critical for launch, but would be extremely useful to have as early in the cycle as possible. Chief among these is the system that consolidates data from disparate sources to allow you to develop more complete user profiles and therefore more effective programs. I shared the concern, voiced by many, that the initial scope for these products was overly ambitious and unrealistic; they have since been cut down to a much more manageable size, without sacrificing core functionalities. (Of note, many of the problems that stifled us in 2012 have since been tackled by private companies with whom we have relationships and whose tools we can license rather than attempt to replicate.) I am cautiously optimistic that the most important of these will be completed in time for launch; if they are delayed, I have no reason to believe they will not be ready shortly thereafter, long before potential challengers in either party will have been able to build anything similar.

Goff concluded by speaking of the importance of the campaign forming “working relationships” with the likes of Google, Apple, Facebook, and other technology companies.

“We have begun having discreet conversations with some of these companies to get a sense of their priorities for the coming cycle, but would encourage you, as soon as your technology leadership is in place, to initiate more formal discussions,” he wrote.

While the exact Schmidt-backed group is not named within the memo, Schmidt has provided funding to a tech startup called The Groundwork, which is paid by Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Michael Slaby, the former chief integration and innovation officer for the Obama campaign, developed The Groundwork through a company he co-founded called Timshel. Slaby has been tight-lipped about details of its partnership with the Clinton campaign. The group has been paid nearly $600,000 from Hillary for America since its inception.

Continue reading, Free Beacon.

By Cody Derespina

Hillary Clinton’s top aides privately debated whether to joke about her emerging email scandal, if they should shift some blame to former secretaries of state and how to frame, explain and defend her use of a homebrewed server in a series of purported March 2015 emails revealed by WikiLeaks this week.

The emails, which originated on the Gmail account of Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta, paint a portrait of a political team alternately worried and defiant in the face of their boss’ mushrooming email disclosure. Through the early days of the email revelations, and even throughout the summer as further discoveries turned up the heat, Clinton’s group sweated the minutiae of her carefully crafted responses in an attempt to keep the campaign’s preferred narrative on track.

As the scandal evolved during the summer of 2015, aides suddenly had to combat reports that classified information may have been emailed, leading Clinton to eventually modify her original denials to say she had never “sent nor received any email that was marked classified.” On Aug. 21, her team was debating a new statement addressing the issue. Press secretary Brian Fallon emailed communications director Jennifer Palmieri to flag a potential issue.

“This line – ‘‎This process of looking backwards to see if something should have been classified at the time is fine’ – is problematic,” Fallon wrote. “We should not think it is fine to find something that ‘should have been classified at the time.’ Our position is that no such material exists, else it could be said she mishandled classified info.”

It’s unclear if anyone responded to Fallon’s concerns.

Worries such as Fallon’s, however, were not as commonplace during the early days of the scandal. Emails reveal that Clinton’s staff’s first instinct was to use humor to blunt the force of the March 2 New York Times article on the personal account.

Palmieri floated the “idea of HRC making a joke about the email situation” during an event for Emily’s List, a pro-choice PAC. A few staffers chimed in that this approach could work, but adviser Mandy Grunwald disagreed.

“We don’t know what’s in the emails, so we are nervous about this,” Grunwald wrote after a conversation with consultant Jim Margolis. “Might get a big laugh tonight and regret it when content of emails is disclosed.”

Nick Merrill, another press aide, pitched a comedy segment on March 7, noting that Clinton could appear with her husband and daughter at an already-scheduled event being hosted by comedian Larry Wilmore. Merrill mused that Wilmore could cue Clinton to join him on stage with the line, “I should tell you, I just emailed HRC (I hear she’s a big emailer), and asked if she’d join as well.”

“Goal would be to cauterize this just enough so it plays out over the weekend and dies in the short term,” Merrill writes, adding: “It might be crazy, but it might also be the one-two punch we need right now.”

The comedy route was ultimately scrapped.

Clinton’s advisers also discussed how much – if any – blame should be assigned to her predecessors at the State Department. Palmieri’s first response to being emailed The New York Times story on March 2 was: “Didn’t Condi [Rice] also use a non-government account?”

The following day, Merrill circulated a list of talking points to top campaign staffers. Among the notes, Colin Powell’s memoir was cited to show he worked in a similar fashion. On March 6, an initial draft of a Clinton email statement included an anecdote about Powell telling her during a dinner party about his email usage. The next day, however, campaign manager Robby Mook wanted that portion gone.

“The one thing in here I feel strongly about is that she NOT include the part about meeting with other former secretaries and that they told her she should do this,” Mook wrote. “I recognize that the boss will have to approve, but if she wants to include that, I’d say we should discuss with her. I worry it opens a major can of worms and deflects the heat in a potentially unhelpful way.”

Every sentence of Clinton’s eventual March 10 statement was carefully written, re-written and massaged by her core campaign group, and the statement went through nearly a week of edits before Clinton finally delivered it.

An early version included the sentence, “I knew that others in government used their personal email accounts,” but was then struck out. A March 6 draft also included the line, “I am amused (and bemused) to be caught up in a controversy about technology, since I have a well-earned reputation for not being especially tech-savvy.”

Palmieri forwarded a copy to Podesta and wrote “Not so sure myself,,,”

On March 7, Grunwald and Margolis suggested cutting the description of Clinton as a bumbling technophobe.

“Our big suggestion is to cut the ‘bemused’ paragraph about HRC’s relationship to technology,” Grunwald wrote. “This seems more appropriate for HRC to say in person than on paper. Additionally, we worry that the word ‘bemused’ will drive ‘this is no laughing matter’ reactions.”

Top Clinton aide Cheryl Mills also removed the word “deleted” from one draft to instead read that the emails were “discarded,” according to document track changes.

With the statement squared away, the team went on the offensive. Palmieri wrote on March 8 that “we are going to need Dems to come out in force to support her” both nationally and in New Hampshire and Iowa, the first two states participating in the upcoming Democratic primaries. To help, Palmieri released a press and surrogate plan, and longtime aide Philippe Reines suggested using Vermont Sen. Pat Leahy because he had advocated for Congress to be subjected to Freedom of Information Act requirements.

“He could jam Rand [Paul], [Marco] Rubio and [Ted] Cruz to release their WORK email, let alone personal,” wrote Reines, referencing several senators who were then among the Republican presidential contenders. “Could explain why Rand Paul in particular has been unusually quiet during this whole thing.”

Reines also proposed going on background to one or two “VERY friendly and malleable reporters” to say Clinton’s strong handling of the scandal was due in part to the new team surrounding her. He followed up by noting that he brought the plan up to Clinton. “It’s fair to say she appreciates the utility of doing this,” Reines wrote.

Center for American Progress CEO Neera Tanden, who frequently emailed thoughts and advice to Podesta, emailed on March 9 to express displeasure with a Wall Street Journal story that had some unflattering quotes from White House staffers.

“But the WH crapping on her is going to send this into orbit,” Tanden wrote.

Continue reading Fox News.

FBI agreed to destroy immunized Clinton aides’ laptops, sources say

By : Fox News

Immunity deals for two top Hillary Clinton aides included a side arrangement obliging the FBI to destroy their laptops after reviewing the devices, House Judiciary Committee sources told Fox News on Monday.

Sources said the arrangement with former Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills and ex-campaign staffer Heather Samuelson also limited the search to no later than Jan. 31, 2015. This meant investigators could not review documents for the period after the email server became public — in turn preventing the bureau from discovering if there was any evidence of obstruction of justice, sources said.

The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee fired off a letter Monday to Attorney General Loretta Lynch asking why the DOJ and FBI agreed to the restrictive terms, including that the FBI would destroy the laptops after finishing the search.

“Like many things about this case, these new materials raise more questions than answers,” Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., wrote, in the letter obtained by Fox News.

“Doesn’t the willingness of Ms. Mills and Ms. Samuelson to have their laptops destroyed by the FBI contradict their claim that the laptops could have been withheld because they contained non-relevant, privileged information? If so, doesn’t that undermine the claim that the side agreements were necessary?” Goodlatte asks.

The immunity deals for Mills and Samuelson, made as part of the FBI’s probe into Clinton’s use of a private email server when she served as secretary of state, apparently included a series of “side agreements” that were negotiated by Samuelson and Mills’ attorney Beth Wilkinson.

 

Continue Reading HERE

By: Fox News

Hillary Clinton’s former chief of staff Cheryl Mills and two other staffers were granted immunity as part of the now-closed FBI probe into the former secretary of state’s email practices, according to a top House Republican who questioned whether the numerous deals hindered the bureau’s ability to build a case.

“This is beyond explanation,” House oversight committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said in a statement Friday. “The FBI was handing out immunity agreements like candy. I’ve lost confidence in this investigation and I question the genuine effort in which it was carried out.”

The arrangements detailed by Chaffetz bring the total number of publicly known immunity deals in the Clinton case to five.

Chaffetz first revealed the additional deals in an interview with The Associated Press, saying “no wonder they couldn’t prosecute a case.” He said Mills gave federal investigators access to her laptop on the condition that findings couldn’t be used against her.

“Immunity deals should not be a requirement for cooperating with the FBI,” Chaffetz said in his statement.

 

Continue reading: Fox News

By Paul Thompson, with illustrative work by Katie Weddington

written by Paul Thompson, with illustrative work by Katie Weddington

Since April 2016, I’ve worked with a team of people to put together the most detailed timeline on the Clinton email controversy. With this in-depth knowledge of the issue, one recently revealed event stands out as the most important “smoking gun” so far that isn’t getting nearly the attention it deserves: the deletion and wiping of Clinton’s emails in March 2015. This essay draws on the timeline to put together what is publicly known, revealing aspects that have been completely overlooked. The evidence points to destruction of evidence by people working for Hillary Clinton.

To understand the 2015 deletions, we have to start further back in time, in June 2013. Clinton had ended her four-year tenure as secretary of state earlier in 2013, and she hired the Platte River Networks (PRN) computer company to manage her private email server. This was a puzzling hire, to say the least, because PRN was based in Denver, Colorado, far from Clinton’s homes in New York and Washington, DC, and the company was so small that their office was actually an apartment in an ordinary apartment building with no security alarm system. The company wasn’t cleared to handle classified information, nobody in it had a security clearance, and it hadn’t even handled an important out of state contract before.

PRN assigned two employees to handle the Clinton account: Paul Combetta and Bill Thornton. In late June 2013, these two employees moved Clinton’s server from her house in Chappaqua, New York, to an Equinix data center in Secaucus, New Jersey. They removed all the data from the server, moved it to a new server, and then wiped the old server  clean. Both the new and old server were kept running at the data center. At the same time, PRN subcontracted Datto, Inc., to back up the data on the new server. A Datto SIRIS S2000 was bought and connected to the server, functioning like an external hard drive to make periodic back-ups.


Clinton’s emails get sorted

Fast forward to the middle of 2014. The House Benghazi Committee was formed to investigate the US government’s actions surrounding the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, and soon a handful of emails were discovered relating to this attack involving Clinton’s hdr22@clintonemail.com email address. At this point, nobody outside of Clinton’s inner circle of associates knew she had exclusively used that private email account for all her email communications while she was secretary of state, or that she’d hosted it on her own private email server.

The Benghazi Committee began pressing the State Department for more relevant emails from Clinton. The State Department in turn began privately pressing Clinton to turn over all her work-related emails.

Continue reading, The Hidden Smoking Gun: the Combetta Cover-Up

By Richard Pollock, Daily Caller

Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly defended an embattled banker during an official visit to Bangladesh while Clinton Foundation officials tried to steer money from an Abu Dhabi oil company into the banker’s coffers.

A Daily Caller News Foundation investigation traced the convoluted payment by TAQA — formally known as the the Abu Dhabi National Energy Company — to Muhammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank. Yunus is a long-time friend and Clinton Foundation donor.

The oil company deal eventually put as much as $500,000 into President Bill Clinton’s pockets via a speaking fee he got in Scotland.

The complicated set of international transactions is contained in a cryptic May 7, 2012, email chain between Cheryl Mills, then Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff, and Amitabh Desai, the Clinton Foundation’s foreign policy director. The email chain was obtained by Citizens United, the conservative activist group that is the lead plaintiff in multiple federal Freedom of Information Act court cases.

Continue reading, DailyCaller.com