Hawkeye Reporter

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) have asked FBI Director Kash Patel to review material related to Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as Secretary of State. The material in question, stored on thumb drives at an FBI office in Northern Virginia since 2018, has not been evaluated by the agency.

The request follows Grassley’s ongoing efforts to obtain the declassification of an appendix from the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General’s June 2018 report into how the DOJ and FBI handled the Clinton investigation. This appendix is referred to as the “Clinton annex.”

In their letter, Grassley and Crawford wrote: “The revelations contained in the declassified OIG appendix are at the heart of why the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) became distrusted by so many under your agency’s prior directors: a failure to impartially conduct its law enforcement and intelligence mission. Concerning the issue at hand, Comey’s FBI shockingly failed to review and exploit evidence in its own possession, even though they admitted in written memos the information was necessary to conduct a ‘thorough and complete investigation.’ The FBI also failed to review and exploit other foreign intelligence information.”

They continued: “Therefore, we now write to stress the importance that this material be immediately dug out from hiding and properly assessed. How evidence which purportedly includes information related to ‘former President Barack Obama’s emails’ and ‘network infrastructure diagrams for U.S. government classified networks,’ remained unreviewed by the preeminent law enforcement agency in the world is mind-numbing. We know you will not similarly ignore evidence in your agency’s possession, no matter where its exploitation or conclusions might lead.”

According to details made public with this request, Russian-language reports obtained by the FBI described discussions between then-Democratic National Committee head Debbie Wasserman Schultz and George Soros’ Open Society Foundations about deleting evidence from Clinton's email servers. These reports also mentioned references to an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation and alleged contact between then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Hillary Clinton's staff.

Additionally, it was noted that during its review, DOJ OIG relied on an Intelligence Community Assessment regarding Russia collusion that has since been discredited.