Hillary Clinton thinks the public has largely forgotten about her private email scandal, and maybe they have. But the Federal Bureau of Investigation has stepped up its inquiries into her homebrew server from a preliminary fact-finding stage to a “full-blown investigation”:
“This sounds to me like it’s more than a preliminary inquiry; it sounds like a full-blown investigation,” said Tom Fuentes, former assistant director of the FBI. “When you have this amount of resources going into it …. I think it’s at the investigative level.”
The FBI declined to respond to questions about the scope of its ongoing work.
But POLITICO learned that the FBI around early October requested documents from a company involved in the server arrangement after Clinton left State. It also interviewed a former high-ranking policy official at State about the contents of top Clinton aides’ emails.
The official, who spoke to POLITICO on the condition of anonymity, said the questions explored whether anyone at State was concerned about classified information being put at risk by communicating over email. The source did not know of any such concerns.
However, just because no one at State was concerned that classified information was being put at risk certainly doesn’t mean that classified wasn’t being put at risk. And whether or not it was being put at risk is exactly what the FBI is looking into:
Former FBI and Justice officials familiar with the investigative procedures on such matters said the agency must determine two main things: whether the use of an outside email system posed any risks to national security secrets and if so, if anyone was responsible for exposing classified information.
FBI director James Comey acknowledged in October that his agency was probing the server matter generally and believed it had the resources to look into the issues, though he didn’t give specifics.
It’s unclear who exactly the FBI is talking to at Clinton’s staff level, given the confidentiality of the work. Clinton’s campaign and lawyers and the two tech companies involved — Platte River Networks and Datto — are “cooperating” in turning over information.
Others, however, are not cooperating:
Sources told POLITICO this week that as of a month ago, the Justice Department had not determined how to proceed with Bryan Pagliano, Clinton’s top IT expert who oversaw her server but took the Fifth and refused to answer questions when subpoenaed by Congress earlier this year.
Republican lawmakers have weighed an immunity agreement for Pagliano, which would bar him from prosecution and allow him to talk about what he knew of the server: who approved it, why and the security surrounding the system.
His lawyer, reached Thursday, would not confirm if he’s even been contacted by the FBI.
Any FBI investigation is top-secret; but given that this investigation involves the 2016 Democratic frontrunner, the work is even more confidential. Eventually, though, something is bound to leak:
Ron Hosko, former assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigation Division, said Justice is likely worried about issuing formal legal notices “because they know it will get out, and then you’re talking about a grand jury investigation.” But he said it’s “not uncommon” for companies to require subpoenas, court orders or other legal notices to cooperate to save their corporate reputation, which could otherwise be jeopardized for sharing personal information.
“I am sure there is hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth across the street at the Hoover Building because you’re going to have people saying ‘I don’t want to produce X documents. Give me a piece of paper that covers me.’ And that’s where push is going to come to shove,” Hosko said.
It’s only a matter of time before Clinton falls down the rabbit hole that is her homebrew server.