Department of Justice officials allowed Beth Wilkinson, the lawyer for two of Hillary Clinton's aides, to shape the FBI's investigation into her handling of email during her tenure as secretary of state, including allowing the aides to destroy official documents and laptops, according to House and Senate oversight committee leaders.
According to The Daily Caller, committee leaders sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch wanting to know why Clinton attorneys Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson had gotten protection against possible prosecution.
The leaders pointed out communications that show the FBI agreed to only search email archives dated from June 1, 2014 and Feb. 1, 2015 and maintained by the Colorado firm Platte River Networks. The letters also "memorialized" the FBI's agreement to let Clinton aides destroy documents and laptops.
"The Wilkinson letters raise serious questions about why DOJ would consent to such substantial limitations on the scope of its investigation, and how Director (James) Comey's statements on the scope of the investigation comport with the reality of what the FBI was permitted to investigate," the letter said.
"This is simply astonishing given the likelihood that evidence on the laptops would be of interest to congressional investigators."
The letter was sent by four Republican lawmakers: Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs chairman Chuck Grassley, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chairman Jason Chaffetz, House Committee on the Judiciary chairman Bob Goodlatte, and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence chairman Devin Nunes.
Wilkinson represents Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson. The Department of Justice has granted immunity to Mills, Samuelson, Clinton's IT tech Paul Combetta, and other aides.
The leaders said that the Department of Justice agreed to Wilkinson's terms after it learned that Combetta used a program called Bleachbit to delete emails and that agreement was "further casting doubt on why the FBI would enter into such a limited evidentiary scope of review with respect to the laptops."
Those limitations would exclude any emails sent from Mills to Combetta from late 2014 or early 2015, or any emails sent by then-secretary of state Clinton unless it was sent from or to one of four listed email addresses, the congressmen said.
In the letter, they said the limitations interfere with them doing their job, saying, "These extraordinary restrictions interfere with our constitutional obligation to conduct oversight of this matter. Thus far, the department has not explained its rationale for imposing these restrictions."
More links between The Clinton Foundation and Clinton's aides at the State Department were made apparent when State Department released 200 pages of emails exchanges.
Those emails showed Clinton's aides working with the Foundation to perform donor maintenance, craft messaging on policies, and create guest lists for diplomatic and philanthropic events, according to the Washington Examiner.
State Department staff members were asked to provide help to Clinton's husband, former president Bill Clinton, on how to handle political issues at speaking engagements or events hosted by the foundation, such as an effort to bring the Libyan president to a Clinton Global Initiative meeting less than two weeks after the Benghazi attack, according to the Examiner.
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