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Hillary Clinton's private email server contained information that was classified at a higher level than "top secret," the inspector general of the intelligence community told members of Congress in a letter obtained by CBS News.

The server Clinton used as secretary of state contained "several dozen emails containing classified information determined by the [intelligence community] element to be at the CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, and TOP SECRET/SAP levels," the inspector general, Charles McCullough, wrote in the letter, which was first reported by Fox News. "SAP" stands for special access programs, which carry a classification level higher than top secret.

Former CIA Director David Petraeus was sentenced to two years' probation and fined $100,000 for sharing similarly classified information with Paula Broadwell, his biographer and mistress.

The FBI is currently investigating whether State Department officials improperly included classified material in email correspondence with Clinton. The State Department and the intelligence community have at times clashed over how the material on her server should be classified, with the State Department arguing it is less sensitive than the intelligence community insists.

Her campaign press secretary, Brian Fallon, reiterated what Clinton has said for months: no classified information was sent or received through her private email server.

"This is the same interagency dispute that has been playing out for months, and it does not change the fact that these emails were not classified at the time they were sent or received," he said. "It is alarming that the intelligence community [inspector general], working with Republicans in Congress, continues to selectively leak materials in order to resurface the same allegations and try to hurt Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. The Justice Department's inquiry should be allowed to proceed without any further interference."

The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, had a similar response, calling the story "nothing new."

"None of the emails that are alleged to contain classified information were written by Secretary Clinton. The question of whether she received emails with classified information has nothing to do with any action taken by Secretary Clinton," she said. "Additionally, none of the emails that were sent to Secretary Clinton were marked as including classified information, a requirement when such information is transmitted."

Feinstein said the inspector general was being used for "baldly partisan attacks."

An earlier version of this story referred to the inspector general of the Intelligence Committee. It has been updated to reflect that the inspector general is for the intelligence community.

Nancy Cordes is CBS News' chief White House correspondent.

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Hillary Clinton had emails on server more classified than top secret ...

In a panel with Sherman, Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, shared how Albright had been her role model throughout her career. When she took on Albrights former position at the U.N., she emulated the secretarys efforts to create an informal group of women on the Security Council, which Albright had called the G-7. I know Madeleine was very proud of that, she said.

She was an icon to so many. She paved a path forward for all of us, said Thomas-Greenfield, who led Albright Stonebridge Groups Africa practice and worked with Georgetowns Institute for the Study of International Diplomacy prior to her appointment as ambassador to the U.N. But of all the many job titles MKA held, she was most proud of being called Professor Albright. She has left a huge legacy for all of us, and I know she is counting on you to carry her work forward.

Among her accomplishments as a diplomat, womens rights trailblazer and dedicated teacher, Albright will be remembered for her famed undergraduate course, American National Security Tool Box.

On todays second day of the symposium, students recreated the courses signature diplomacy simulation involving a foreign policy crisis. In Albrights class, students would spend the semester preparing, and the assignment made up a significant portion of their grades.

Todays competition was led by some of Albrights former teaching assistants and judged by real-life diplomats including former undersecretary of state Ambassador David Hale (SFS84), assistant secretary for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Ambassador Todd Robinson (SFS85) and former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary Colleen Bell.

Albright even encouraged one of her former TAs David Trichler (MSFS11), now associate director of the Global Research Institute at William & Mary, to bring the simulation to his classroom in Williamsburg.

It was typical MKA: generous, empowering and forward-leaning, expanding her ideas and perspective to a broader audience, said Trichler. Teaching the class, both at William & Mary and at W&Ms DC center, has been a joy. And MKA was a consistent guest lecturer, both in person and via Zoom.

Joel Hellman, dean of SFS, recalled how Albright called him a few days before the 2022 spring semester began to tell him she wouldnt be able to teach her course. She apologized for telling him right before the semester began, but the one thing I tried hardest not to give up was my classroom.

As much as she changed the world during her lifetime, she left us a generation of leaders and leaders-to-be committed to helping and keeping the fight for democracy, human rights and dignity for all, said Hellman. And at this perilous moment in world affairs, I am convinced that this will prove to be her most enduring legacy.

After attending the symposium, Vanesa Coello (MSFS24) said she was struck by Albrights dedication to empowering women, a legacy she hopes to carry forward in her goal to work in the State Department.

Prior to the symposium, I already had this passion for foreign policy in me, said Coello. But hearing about her, it sparked something in me. She focused so much of her impact on women, and it gives me a responsibility to carry out that legacy. I want to ensure that legacy lives on through me. It just feels like Im walking on a path Im supposed to be walking.

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Bill and Hillary Clinton, U.S. and Foreign Policymakers Remember Madeleine Albright at Georgetown Symposium - Georgetown University

Hillary and Chelsea Clinton are two of creative leaders honored for Varietys 2022 Power of Women presented by Lifetime. For more, click here.

Hillary Clinton is in an ebullient mood, and for good reason.

Clinton, though she remains an avid observer of political trends, is out of the crucible of hunting for votes. And at this latest stop on a tour that has included visits to the Venice and Toronto film festivals, she and her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, are seeking something new: your eyeballs.

Ramona Rosalesfor Variety

HiddenLight Prods., which the pair launched with Sam Branson (son of Richard Branson, of the Virgin brand), has launched its first series, Gutsy. The Apple TV+ documentary series is based on the Clintons 2019 Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience, and in it, the former secretary of state and the Oxford Ph.D. kibitz with Kim Kardashian and Megan Thee Stallion, as well as feminist icon Gloria Steinem and labor activist Dolores Huerta.

Its an intriguing merger of the stoic, scholarly nature of the famous mother-daughter pair and the high-level glitz of the world of entertainment they enter as newbies; despite being one of the most accomplished figures in American politics, Secretary Clinton is a neophyte producer and on-camera personality. (Both Clintons initially hoped not to be on-camera at all. Perhaps thats why, in the first episode, they attend clown school in order to loosen up.)

In this conversation, which takes place in New York City, Hillary Clinton addresses the aftermath of the 2016 election, the threats against women in politics, and whether she believes a woman could ever become president. Chelsea Clinton speaks out about what it felt like to be the subject of relentless scrutiny on the campaign trail and to see her family covered on Fox News. Together, they share their vision for what they hope to accomplish with Gutsy in this new and unexpected pivot into entertainment.

Gutsy deals with figures from outside the world of politics you profile artists and entertainers as well as activists. Has there been a learning curve as you engage with the world of entertainment?

Hillary Clinton: There certainly was a learning curve doing the series, because weve never done anything like that. Wed been interviewed a lot of times, as you might guess, but to be the one leading the conversation and asking follow-up questions that was all new to us.

Chelsea Clinton: Having women from entertainment was important to us, because we think there are a lot of gutsy women in entertainment. But we also hoped that people might come to learn more about women they already feel drawn to and know something about, and that would enable them to learn about women whose stories we think we all should know.

What youre describing is a kind of Trojan-horse phenomenon.

Hillary: Thats absolutely fair. When we interviewed the really well-known women, like Kim Kardashian, we didnt want to focus on just her amazing success in business and everything else that goes with it, but on her efforts to help people caught up in the criminal justice system. Thats what was meaningful to us.

The name HiddenLight recalls the saying of light being hidden under a bushel.

Hillary: You nailed it. When I was in sixth grade, my teacher, Mrs. Elizabeth King, had many aphorisms that she shared with her students. One was Dont hide your light under a bushel basket, which was a biblical phrase. When we were forming the production company, I just kept thinking about Mrs. King.

Chelsea: Its certainly an admonition that I grew up with, and sometimes I really needed to hear it. Sometimes I really wanted to fade into the background because I didnt want as many people looking at me, or as many bright lights glaring at me.

Chelsea, in Gutsy, you describe the experience of being the child of a president and mocked in the media. Is there fear when you step in front of a camera now?

Chelsea: I thankfully dont feel that residual fear. I didnt feel fear as a child, because otherwise I would have just been afraid all the time. As I think about raising brave, resilient kids, I try to think more about what I want to learn from my experience as a child instead of being reactionary to it.

Hillary: One thing that Chelsea has done repeatedly is to tell people to back off from kids. Shes been so consistent, and I really respect that.

Chelsea: I feel such a palpable sense of responsibility because I wish more people had been standing up publicly for me.

Hillary: And they really werent back then.

Chelsea, your children are out of public view. Does that take effort?

Hillary: Its being conscious all the time.

Chelsea: And having them be conscious and not paranoid.

How does working together creatively change a parent-child relationship?

Chelsea: I think because we wrote the book together, thats where we got out all the kinks. Or at least many of the kinks. Some of it was generational my mom still writes longhand, and I am in the 21st century and use a computer. She has a very old iPhone, so sometimes her iPhone wasnt compatible with the apps I wanted to use. It was having work conversations and then, OK, now its time to talk about the grandkids.

Hillary: The book was initially an idea that came out of a conversation that weve had ever since she was a little kid about women that inspired us. When I was a little girl, there really werent a lot of women role models. Maybe Joan of Arc, Queen Elizabeth, but not very many. I had to seek that out. But when Chelsea was a little girl, her pediatrician was a woman, the mayor of Little Rock was a woman, a lot of my friends were active in their careers.

Ramona Rosalesfor Variety

Did you anticipate, in working on the book, that itd end up as a TV vehicle featuring you?

Hillary: When people approached us in the fall of 2019 to ask to option it, we thought, this is so personal to us because of the experience we went through writing it together, we dont want to just turn it over to someone else. Of course, everybody we were pitching to wanted us to be involved in some way.

Chelsea: When we initially pitched it, we had this idea of a travelogue with us at the beginning and the end, not really in the middle. I also had ideas that we were going to have all of this wonderful archival footage, we would talk to historians a more admittedly earnest paradigm.

Figuring out how to make something as earnest as you want but that people really can connect with is an interesting challenge.

Chelsea: I think its entertaining and earnest together. With the series, we really wanted to spark conversations. And for that to happen, people have to watch it.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said recently in an interview with GQ that part of her believes there could never be a woman president. Do you agree?

Hillary: No, I dont agree with that. I do agree its really hard. I agree that the double standard is alive and well. And so therefore any woman in politics or any walk of life faces challenges that men who are equivalent in experience dont face. I believe that I came so close, I got more votes, unprecedented things happened to me we all learned a lot from that campaign. I do think its possible. I do think its hard. Theres a line from one of my favorite movies, A League of Their Own: If it wasnt hard, anybody could do it.

I would also add that there is a feeling of increasing pushback to womens ambitions and roles. We see it obviously with the Supreme Court, but social media has enhanced misogyny and sexism. Its hurtful, because it becomes part of the ecosystem. There are a lot of good points that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez made in the article that I do agree with, but I think we will get there. But everybody needs to go after that goal with clear eyes and understanding how hard it is.

When a number of women ran for president in 2020, did you caution them?

Hillary: I was delighted that so many women ran, because we need to break the myth of the token woman. The more women who actually run, who are mixing it up at the highest levels of politics, the better it is. I met with and talked to every woman with the exception of one or two. The ones I knew well, I talked to them and gave them advice, but they had to experience it to understand it. Its such a high-wire act with no net; until youre on it, you cannot know how youre going to be responding.

In a world where Facebook had never been invented, would you have won the 2016 election?

Hillary: I cant do that hypothetical. We know that they were unfortunately instrumental in permitting Cambridge Analytica and the Trump campaign to engage in a massive campaign of mis- and disinformation. I think that wouldve been harder, but I cant hypothesize about what would have been different.

Chelsea, did serving as a campaign surrogate for your mother twice give you a different perspective on politics?

Chelsea: I wasnt surprised by the intensity of reaction on both the incredibly supportive, affirmative and positive side or the cruel, vitriolic, meanness side. I wasnt surprised by the lies or the efforts to obfuscate and gaslight. But what I found not necessarily surprising, but a wow moment, was the relentlessness of it. No one individual experience felt like This is what it is like to campaign for a woman to be our next president. But the relentlessness was exhausting in a way that I had not anticipated.

Your family was the first great target of Fox News approach.

Chelsea: We were the reason that Fox News was created. Because Rupert Murdoch recognized a great market opportunity.

As a media enterprise on a much smaller scale than Fox, do you see yourselves as fighting back?

Chelsea: Climate change illuminated where Fox News was willing to go and its destructive impact. Its not singularly about Fox News; its also about conservative and right-wing enterprises that sprung up during the 1990s and early 2000s. Im 42, and when I was in junior high, two-thirds of Americans knew human activity is partly responsible for climate change. The right proved to themselves, We can hit people with relentless misinformation and every night pipe into their homes to disbelieve scientists what else could be possible? Today, with COVID, its the same playbook.

Hillary: Theres an element to this which is quite frustrating, because they get away with it. The so-called mainstream media, even the so-called progressive media, is just not as relentless in rebutting, refuting and making clear that this is nothing but a play for profits at the cost of truth. It might have mattered if one of the other networks for 10 days said, Do you know one of the very first people to get vaccinated in the U.K. in December of 2020 was Rupert Murdoch? Did you know that Fox News requires all of their employees to be vaccinated?

Tech companies, the rest of journalism, ordinary people with platforms, we havent done enough to point out the dangers, point out the falsehoods, point out the hypocrisy. There is a path to limit the damage theyve done, but it requires leaders on the side of facts and evidence. We now have that with Biden, and hes making slow progress in trying to open peoples minds and eyes to what reality actually is.

Hearing you describe political combat as relentless makes clear to me, Chelsea, why youve never run for office.

Chelsea: Its important to say that even though it is relentless and exhausting, we continue to get up every day and fake it till we make it, because we do believe the future of our country and our very world is at stake. The fact that Fox News broadcasts some version of the great replacement theory on a regular basis and it doesnt get a robust response from the rest of our media is really disturbing to me. The fact that you frequently see the cabal of George Soros, my mom and President Obama, who seem to be their three favorite villains, and there isnt a continued outcry about anti-Semitism is really problematic to me.

I have had a unique experience with the right. It has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Anything I can do to push back and create space for the stories I think we should be focused on is what I want to do. I dont think the only way to do that is to run for office. The answer now is Not now. But I dont want to say, Not ever, because I do think its an important question for any of us who care about our country.

In the time we have left

Chelsea: Can I make one more point? As a daughter, because I cant turn off that part of my reality, the relentless, gruesome imagery of my mom being hung or burned at the stake the fact that that was not answered and shifted aside opened the aperture for even more violent imagery and more violent language around every woman in politics today. I dont know how we put that genie back in the bottle, but we have to do a better job.

Hillary: I was in England a few months ago and met with a group of women parliamentarians. The main thing they wanted to talk about was the increase in violent threats against them. They think about the woman who, during Brexit, was murdered because she was against Brexit a fanatic, hopped up on violent rhetoric, killed her. [Jo Cox, a Labour Party member of Parliament, was murdered in June 2016 in England.] Its something that was in the Ocasio-Cortez article: How do you tell young women to go into politics when there is so much pushback and threats of violence? Its a big issue, and people are not taking it seriously enough.

Many people saw the Dobbs ruling, which overturned Roe v. Wade, as a wake-up call. Did you?

Chelsea: We have known this was coming for a long time.

Hillary: I warned about it in the 2016 election I was sounding an alarm they didnt hear.

Chelsea: I always spoke about the Supreme Court, and the right accused me of dancing on Justice Scalias death. I got called histrionic, I was fearmongering. No! Im living in the world of taking them seriously and literally from then-candidate Donald Trump to the elected Republicans at every level of our government who say they want to take away my fundamental human rights. I continue to be lambasted, and I continue to make the point.

The reaction to Dobbs reminded me of the Womens March in 2017. Did you, Secretary Clinton, feel frustrated that all this energy was catalyzed after you lost the election campaigning on a feminist message?

Hillary: Its hard for people to imagine something that is not actually happening yet. I, frankly, was shocked at the inauguration, where he painted this dark, dystopian picture of America. There was no outreach thats not the person he is. People who supported him, who enabled him, they are engaged in a culture war. The culture war is dark and negative and fearful. The Womens March was an incredible response to what happened in the election. It was important. But if you dont stay organized to vote for people who have a more hopeful, positive, inclusive vision of our country, you can march from now until doomsday it doesnt make a difference. You have to show up and actually vote.

If theres a culture war going on, you two are in an interesting position: Youre creators of culture now. Do you see Gutsy as a salvo in this ongoing battle?

Chelsea: We have polio now again here in New York. We have thousands of Americans dying every week of COVID. We have gun violence every minute of every day. We have the planet warming at faster rates than were initially anticipated. We have so much work to do. And so either we can live in the dark carnage of what the right wants us to believe is the inevitable story of our past, present and future, or we can build a more hopeful, inclusive, sustainable future, where theres more joy and laughter.

Speaking of joy and laughter, I loved that you included Symone as one of your gutsy women. Had you seen drag before working on this show?

Chelsea: Yes, both shows here in New York City. And I was so excited when someone from Arkansas won Drag Race.

Favorite venue for drag shows? Or do you not want it to be flooded with people?

Chelsea: Exactly. Not for public consumption!

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Hillary and Chelsea Clinton on Their Gutsy Star Turn, Fox News and Whether a Woman Can Be President - Variety

During Varietys Power of Women dinner, presented by Lifetime, on Wednesday, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton spoke, and the former secretary of state took the Iranian government to task.

I could not stand up here tonight without also recognizing the brave women in Iran who are standing up for their rights, their freedom against a horrific regime who stays in power in large measure because they oppress women, Clinton said. And I could not stand here without thinking about the women in Afghanistan who are being deprived of education, or the women on the front lines in Ukraine who are trying to defend their country against the barbarity of Putins invasion.

So we have a lot of work to do, she continued. Its work in our own country to keep our progress going and not let the clock be turned back, and its also caring about the rest of the world.

The Clintons are in the midst of promoting Gutsy, the Apple TV+ series adapted from their 2019 Book of Gutsy Women. On the show, in which the mother-daughter pair appear and which they produced with their new HiddenLight shingle, luminaries from rap star Megan Thee Stallion to labor activist Dolores Huerta share their wisdom.

The series merges the former secretary of state and the health advocates cerebral energy with a dose of star power from outside politics. In an interview with Variety for the Power of Women issue, Clinton said, When we interviewed the really well-known women, like Kim Kardashian, we didnt want to focus on just her amazing success in business and everything else that goes with it, but on her efforts to help people caught up in the criminal justice system. Thats what was meaningful to us.

She expanded on that idea Wednesday night, saying, We showcase a lot of different kinds of women who have done all sorts of things. Some of their own choosing, some because they were challenged, but each of them having to dig down deep to find the resilience and the determination to find their own gutsiness and not just about themselves, but trying to right injustice. Trying to solve problems for others as well. Because were at this moment of reckoning, not only in our country, but around the world, about human rights and womens rights. Its critically important that we tell these stories.

Chelsea spoke directly to the experience of raising children in America in the era of Roe v. Wades reversal.

I am full of palpitating rage as I look at my daughter and realize that she could have fewer rights than I had growing up in this country, she said. And I look at my sons and realize that they could, too, because while weve talked a lot about abortion tonight, its also the right to contraception. Its the right to equal marriage. Its the right to privacy. Truly, everything that has enabled all of us to lead our lives is under threat. And while that is acutely and urgently true for women, it is not exclusively true for women.

This is an existential moment. We certainly need all of us to be gutsy, because I dont want to go further back. I think a lot about the admonition of the great Coretta Scott King, and others who reminded us that progress has to be defended and protected in every generation. Sometimes we also have to win it back.

Closing her speech, she added, We certainly hope that you will take up the call to tell more stories of choice, of privacy, of equal marriage and equal rights because we need you to help defend them, to protect them, to win them back. Because I know Im not the only parent here. And I know Im not the only one whos enraged. And I also know Im not the only one whos optimistic.

Secretary Clinton also remarked on the idea of optimism: Its a choice to be optimistic. I have to end with one of the best answers that I ever heard from anybody, from my wonderful late friend and predecessor as Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright. When asked if she were an optimist, she paused and she said, Yes. Im an optimist who worries a lot. So lets be optimistic. But lets also make sure that we take our worry into action in order to beat back the dark forces that want to turn us back. Lets be gutsy together.

The Clintons, along with Elizabeth Olsen, Oprah Winfrey and Ava DuVernay, and Malala Yousafzai, are honorees at this years Power of Women event in Los Angeles.

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Hillary Clinton Slams Horrific Iran Regime: Theyre Only in Power Because They Oppress Women - Variety

Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch obtained evidence that a computer contractor working under the direction of Hillary Clintons legal team destroyed subpoenaed records that the former secretary of state stored on a private email server she originally kept at her New York home, and then lied to investigators about it. Yet no charges were brought against Clinton, her lawyers, or her paid consultant.

The leniency accorded to Clinton contrasts with recent moves by Attorney General Merrick Garland to aggressively investigate former President Trump and his lawyers for allegedly obstructing investigators efforts to locate subpoenaed records at his Florida home. Legal experts say the apparent double standard may provide a useful defense for Trump and his legal team.

The treatment of Clinton included a deal with her defense team that required the FBI to, in effect, obstruct its own investigation. During its 2016 probe, the bureau agreed with her lawyers' demands to destroy two laptop hard drives containing subpoenaed evidence immediately after searching for files on them. They did so while the information was still being sought by congressional investigators and even though the lawyers had served under Clinton at the State Department and were subjects of the FBIs investigation. In fact, the laptops were theirs.

Long before it bowed to the request, the FBI suspected Clinton's lawyers played hide-and-seek with evidence, making the concession that much more baffling.

The scandal first erupted on March 2, 2015, when news broke that Clinton had secretly set up a non-government email server in the basement of her Chappaqua, N.Y., mansion in the weeks before she started her job at Foggy Bottom in early 2009. She used the unauthorized and unsecured device to conduct official State Department business including transmitting and storing classified information which allowed her to bypass legally mandated archiving of her government records.

The next day, the House Select Committee on Benghazi sent her attorney David Kendall a letter advising his client to preserve all electronicrecordscreated since January 2009 and specifically not to delete any emails on her private server. The panel then issued a subpoena for recordsrelated to the deadlyterroristattack on the U.S. consulate in Libya.

Three weeks later, on March 25, Kendall and former Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills, who also acted as her personal attorney, asked a computer contractor with Platte River Networks, which hosted Clintons secret email server, to join a conference call with them, according to FBI documents. Over the next week, the contractor, Paul Combetta, deleted the entire email archive from Clinton's server using a software program called BleachBit, which digitally shreds" files to prevent their recovery.

All told, the paid Clinton agent scrubbed 31,830 emails from her server and backup files. In addition, he permanently removed duplicates of the emails from the laptops of Mills and another Clinton lawyer and aide, Heather Samuelson, where they also had been stored. According to FBI records, Combetta knew the documents he destroyed were under subpoena.

In July 2015, the FBI counterintelligence division opened a criminal investigation, codenamed Midyear Exam, in response to a referral from the intelligence community inspector general concerning Clintons unsecure server. The FBI predicated the opening of the probe on the possible compromise of highly classified Sensitive Compartmented Information. Emails classified at the SCI level were later found on Clintons server.

Some career FBI agents working on the case, which was tightly controlled within headquarters and deemed a SIM, or sensitive investigative matter, thought they had a slam-dunk case of obstruction, a key aggravating factor for prosecuting cases involving the mishandling of classified information or government records. All they had to do was get Combetta in a chair and pressure him to implicate the high-level Clinton surrogates who told him what they wanted done.

Several investigators believed "that Combettas truthful testimony was essential for assessing criminal intent for Clinton and other individuals, because he would be able to tell them whether Clintons attorneys Mills, Samuelson or Kendall had instructed him to delete emails, according to a 2018 report by the DOJ's inspector general.

But during voluntary interviews with FBI agents, Combetta falsely denied he haddeleted or purgedClintons emails from the server or back-ups, and insisted Clintonslegal team never requested that he do so.

Combetta refused to talk to investigators about the critical March 2015 conference call with Clinton's lawyers that precededhis purge ofevidence, the only topic he refused to speak about. So investigators and prosecutors agreed to givehim immunity and interview him again.Still,they never got his account of the conference call. A written FBIsummary of the interview, known as an FD-302 report, does not reference thecall, indicating that agents failed tofollow up on a key line of questioning in the investigation.

Investigators declined to pursue other aspects of the case as well. They obtained an email in which Combetta told a colleague he was part of aHilary[sic] coverupoperation and said he would elaborate later at a "party." Asked about it, Combetta claimed he was just joking; the FBIaccepted his explanation and did not appear to follow up with the colleague to learn what they discussed at theparty.

The FBI also accepted another explanation for why Combetta, using the screen name stonetear," sought technical assistance on theReddit forum on how to "strip out" the email addresses of a VERY VIP" client from a a bunch of archived email, in an apparent reference toClinton. (AfterInternet sleuths revealed stonetear was a name Combetta used in other forums,he began scrubbing his postsfrom the web.)

An FBI case supervisor told the inspector general that he believed Combetta should have been charged with false statements for lying multiple times, according to the IG report, but prosecutors refused to indict him. The FBI also obtained forensic evidence from the server that could establish that Combetta made the deletions, but prosecutors balked at charging him with obstruction.

Then-FBI Director James Comey personally agreed with the DOJ decision to give Combetta immunity ratherthan sweating him in a grandjury box, which typically is done with subjects who are lying, to get them to tell thetruth.

Comey was forced to defend the deal in an October2016 conference with FBI supervisors, who werehearingcomplaintsfrom rank-and-file agents that headquarters handed out immunity dealslike candy toClinton witnesses.Comeyexplained the bureau wasn't interested in prosecuting a small fish like Combetta, and sought only tomassage him for information to make a caseon Hillary Clinton, even though internal FBI emails reveal Comey already had decided to let Clinton off the hook. He did not explain why the contractor hadnt been pressured more with threats to bring charges against him for lying to agents, the traditional investigativemethod for getting such an uncooperativewitness to turn.

With respect to Combetta, we found his actions in deleting Clintons emails in violation of a congressionalsubpoena and preservation orderand then lying about it to the FBI to be particularly serious, DOJ InspectorGeneral Michael Horowitz said in hisreport. We asked the prosecutors why they chose to grant him immunity instead of charging him with obstruction of justice.

One DOJ prosecutor told Horowitzs investigators they wanted to make Combetta feel comfortable enough that he would eventuallycooperate on his own. Another said they weren't interested in prosecuting a bit player for lying and that doing sowould just bog down the investigation, which they were rushing to wrap up well before the November 2016 presidential election.

"I was concerned that we would end up with obstruction cases againstsome poor schmuck on the down that had a crappy attorneywho[was]hiding theball,the unidentified prosecutor said.

"And soat the end of the day, I was like, look, lets immunize him. Weve gotto get from Point A to Point B. Point B is to make a prosecutiondecision aboutHillary Clinton and her senior staff well before the election if possible, the prosecutor added. "And this guy with his dumbattorney doing somehalf-assed obstruction did notinterest me.So I was totally in favor ofgiving him immunity."

The prosecutors reported directly to then-DOJ counterespionage official David Laufman, who would later play a key role in the discredited Russiagate probe, including opening investigations on several Trump advisers and signing off on wiretap warrants targeting at least one Trump aide, even though he knew they were based on a fabricated dossier financed by the Clinton campaign.

Prosecutors also gave Clinton aides Mills and Samuelson immunity deals, over the objections of some FBI investigatorswho wanted to bringthem before a grand jury to explain their actions.

A handful of agents also argued for issuing a searchwarrant to seize their personal laptops, which they used to upload all the emails fromthe Clinton server and cullaway supposedly personal messages that they claimed were out of the reach of investigators. Instead,prosecutors opted to review the laptops through an unusual consent agreement, which restricted searches tocertain files and specific dates and nothing before or after Clintons tenure as secretary, which put anyemail exchanges with Combetta out of reach and required theFBI to destroy the hard drives after conducting thelimited search, according todocumentsoutlining the agreement.

This is simply astonishing given the likelihood that evidence on the laptops would be of interest tocongressional investigators, formerSenate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley and three other GOP congressional leaderscomplained in aletterto DOJ at the time.

In his talk at the FBI conference, Comey explainedthat he had to agree with prosecutors and defense lawyers to limit the search because ofhuge concernsthat attorney-client privilege and attorney work product could be discovered on the laptops, a concern that apparently didnot register in the broad,sweeping search of Trumps records. Agents scooped up at least 520 pages of attorney-client privileged informationduring their raid of Mar-a-Lago,according to a federal judge who has ordered an independent inspector to review the seized records forprivileged material.

Mills and Samuelson, who agreed to answer only a narrow scope of questions to prevent investigators from solicitingprivileged information,were later allowed to sit in on Clintons own interview, which the FBI conducted after Comeyhad already drafted a statement exonerating herof mishandling classified information and obstructing justice. Thedirector famously delivered the statement in a July 5, 2016, pressconference, proclaiming the FBI found no evidencethat Clintons emails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them.

Grassley says the FBI pulled its punches investigating Clinton in comparison to Trump, who he says is being harshly investigated andprosecuted for the same offenses.

Trump has not been provided the same (gentle) treatment given to Secretary Clinton and her associates,Grassley asserted in a recentstatement.

To be sure, the agency has used more intrusive methods probing Trump for similar allegations ofmishandling classified information andconcealing documents under subpoena.

Unlike the Clinton probe, where investigators and prosecutors sought to obtain evidence by consent whenever possible, the department has used a federal grand jury to issue subpoenas to Trump for thousands of documents, as well as surveillance video footage, from his Palm Beach estate. They also obtained a search warrant to raid his private office and family bedrooms. In addition to seizing more than 11,000 documents, agents confiscated some 1,800 personal items, including gifts, photo albums, clothing, passports, and medical and tax records, according to court records.

Clinton and her representatives were spared such heavy-handed tactics andindignities, the senator pointed out.

Even though Secretary Clinton and her attorneys did not hand over classified records in their possession, they were not subject to a raid similar to what occurred at Mar-a-Lago, Grassley said.

In the end, computer-forensics investigators and intelligence analysts were able to determine that at least 81 classified email chains were transmitted and stored on Clintons unclassified personal server. Their levels ranged from CONFIDENTIAL to TOP SECRET/SPECIAL ACCESS PROGRAM, a highly sensitive designation which makes access to certain information restricted even to Secret and Top Secret clearance-holders without a need to know. By comparison, the FBI recovered 100 documents with classified markings from its raid of Trumps home. They range in level from CONFIDENTIAL to TOP SECRET.

In a court filing last month, DOJ said it developed evidence that presidential records held in a basement storage room at Mar-a-Lago may have been concealed or removed prior to a June visit by FBI agents to pick up classified documents, suggesting possible attempts to obstruct investigators.

Investigators issued a grand jury subpoena in May for the records and visited Mar-a-Lago on June 3 to pick them up. When they got there, the filing said, a Trump lawyer handed them a large envelope containing documents. Another lawyer acting as the official custodian of Trumps records certified in a sworn statement that they conducted a diligent search for classified papers in response to the subpoena. Over the next two months however, officials developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the storage room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the governments investigation, DOJ said in its filing, without specifying what it believes was removed from the room, or by whom. The affidavit explained that this suspicion is why it sent some 30 armed agents back to Mar-a-Lago early last month to conduct a massive search of the property.

Prosecutors say the additional documents they found with classified markings cast doubt on claims by Trumps lawyers that they were fullycooperative with the subpoena. They aresaid to be focusing their investigation on Trump lawyer Christina Bobb, in particular, who allegedly acted as the custodian who signed the certification.

Bobb, who has not been charged with a crime, did not respond to requests for comment. Trumps legal team has told the court that the DOJ significantly mischaracterized the June meeting with Bobb and another lawyer, but did not elaborate.

Laufman, the top prosecutor in the Clinton case and a caustic critic of Trump in the media, believes Trump should also be worried and has significant criminal exposure to an obstruction rap. Either [his lawyers] wittingly lied or they got that assurance from their client, in which case Trump has jeopardy, Laufman, an Obama appointee and donor, told Politico.

But at this point, investigators can only speculate that documents were intentionally moved or destroyed to avoid compliance with subpoenas, which would be a felony. Legal experts note that prosecutors were careful to say in their filing that documents were likely concealed and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the investigation, indicating they still lack solid evidence.

It is not clear from the filing if the FBI has evidence of intentional acts of concealment as opposed to negligence, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said.

By contrast, prosecutors had solid material evidence including emails, phone calls, work tickets and computer forensics that Clinton operatives conspired to not just conceal but actually destroy documents under subpoena in violation of Section 1519 of the federal criminal code, the same statute cited by the FBI in its warrant to search Mar-a-Lago. It bars the destruction or falsification of any documents or materials with the intent to impede, obstruct or influence an investigation.

"Did Hillary Clinton violate 18 USC 1519 when emails from her private email server were destroyed during government investigation?Possibly, yes,saidDonald Skupsky, a lawyer specializing in government records-retention procedures.

"In December 2014, she did instruct her team to destroy remaining emails after 60 days. And ultimately, she never halted nor protested again any records destruction, he added. "Under 18 USC 1519, Clinton may have concealed and covered up the destruction of records."

Both the Trump and Clinton cases also invoke Section 2071, a federal statute which prohibits the willful concealment, removal, or destruction of federal records. But in investigating Clintons homebrew server scheme, prosecutors declined to pursue a Section 2071 charge because they argued the statute had never been used to prosecute individuals for attempting to avoid Federal Records Act requirements by failing to ensure that government records are filed appropriately, according to the IG report. Some legal experts say the same standard should apply to Trump, whom the DOJ said tried to avoid Presidential Records Act requirements.

Trump lawyer Jim Trusty said Trumps retention of allegedly classified papers is akin to an overdue library book and complained that Bidenadministration prosecutors are holding him to a different standard than anyone else because he is a Republican.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon earlier this month issued an injunction temporarily barring the Justice Department from using the seized material in its espionage investigation until a Special Master can review it for privileged and other information outside the scope of the probe.

Despite the order, the obstruction part of DOJ's probe can move forward. Among other things, investigators can continue to interview witnesses about whether subpoenaed documents were moved or concealed.

DOJ is in the midst of an ongoing criminal investigation pertaining to potential violations of the Espionage Act, as well as obstruction of justice, 18 USC 1519, and unlawful concealment or removal of government records, 18 USC 2071, DOJ chief counterintelligence prosecutor Jay Bratt stated in a recent court filing.

Read more from the original source:
Unpacking the Apparent Trump-Hillary Double Standard: For Her, the FBI Helped Obstruct Its Own Investigation - Longview News-Journal