Several issues surround this nonprofit charity organization. And the mysterious connection between Hillary Clinton’s meetings with high-ranking officials, who in a number of cases donated to the Clinton Foundation, is just one of them.
More than half of the people who met Hillary Clinton while she was sitting as a secretary of state, donated to the Clinton foundation.
Reports revealed that out of the 154 people who met with or had conference calls with Hillary Clinton, at least 85 of them gave donations to the Clinton Foundation.
The combined amount of donations from these 85 donors totaled to over $257 Million.
These issues were connected to the story on how the Clinton family allegedly uses the money brought to the Clinton Foundation to enrich themselves in exchange for giving donor exclusive access to the State Department when Hillary Clinton was still the secretary of state.
FBI’s Investigation In Clinton’s Foundation’s Dealing With Donors
Before the 2016 election, FBI agents from four different field offices did preliminary inquiries to learn whether there was any impropriety that’s happening in the Clinton Foundation’s dealing with its donors.
In relation to this, the FBI sought permission from Justice officials to formally conduct investigations with the Foundation’s alleged political corruption. However, this move caused tension between the Bureau and the Justice Department. In the end, Justice officials declined to provide the authorization asked, citing a lack of sufficient evidence and concerns about the proximity to the election.
The decision of the Justice Department frustrated some FBI agents who believed that they presented enough evidence to sought a formal investigation with regard to this alleged corruption. Included in the evidence presente4d was a discussion that involved the Foundation, which was captured on a wiretap. At the time, FBI officials believed that the wiretapped conversation is relevant to the Clinton Foundation case.
In 2018, the FBI and the federal prosecutors started to investigate the Clinton Foundation and its dealings actively. They sought to find proof as to whether the donors of the Foundation are improperly promised political favors or exclusive access to Hillary Clinton, who was then a secretary of state. The FBI further looked whether Tax Exempt funds given to the Foundation were improperly used.
The Clinton Foundation probe produced a report about a suspicious bank transfer. This transaction between the donor and the Clinton Foundation donor was tagged as to what is identified as a suspicious activity report.
The U.S. Attorney’s Move to Investigate the Alleged Political Corruption
John Durham, the U.S. attorney who was assigned to lead this investigation, has sought documents, interviews, and other pieces of evidence on how the law enforcement officials handled the investigation about the allegations of political corruption within the Clinton Foundation.
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Lindsey Graham, stated that there was a clear double standard set by the FBI and the Department of Justice concerning the issues about Trump and the Clintons.
The Senator further stated that the FBI asked that Hillary Clinton be defensively briefed about the issue to prepare her to engage in corrective action. Meanwhile, when it came to the Trump campaign matters, the FBI never defensively informed the President about the FBI’s concerns. Instead, the FBI set four counterintelligence investigations against Trump’s campaign associates.
In relation to this, the Clinton Foundation issued a statement stating that all of these accusations have no basis. They further asserted that the Clinton Foundation has been regularly subjected to politically motivated and baseless allegations and that they have continuously proven that these allegations are false.
In a report conducted by The New York Times last Thursday, they said that Durham pursued documents related to the case to investigate how the authorities handled a probe into political corruption allegations.
It is unclear as to when or why did these probes begin, but one thing is certain, it has been ongoing for several years now, and the prosecutors and FBI agents are taking the lead.
Although the Clinton Foundation investigation started around five years ago, it was delayed in for various reasons. These reasons include how former law enforcement officials looked at the matter as a very weak case or that the evidence presented was insufficient to prosecute the Clintons. Thus, to date, the case has not ended in criminal charges.
