[DOJ gave immunnity to] Dispose of Evidence and Refuse to Comply with Federal Law’

[Truncated headline above. ACLJ Obtains DOJs Immunity Agreements with Hillary Lawyers to Dispose of Evidence and Refuse to Comply with Federal Law]

The American Center for Law and Justice obtained the Justice Department’s immunity agreements with Hillary Clinton’s lawyers and it showed they were allowed to ‘dispose of evidence and refuse to comply with federal law.

The immunity agreements were drawn up for Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson. While the existence of these immunity agreements was already public knowledge, the ACLJ obtained the actual documents for the first time.

There were two separate agreements. First, Mills and Samuelson were granted immunity from prosecution under multiple felony statutes for anything found on their laptops.

The second agreement, which was originally withheld, showed the DOJ/FBI agreed to evade FOIA and to dispose of the “culling laptops.”

The ACLJ, which is run by one of Trump’s personal lawyers Jay Sekulow, stated that Hillary Clinton’s aids-turned-lawyers violated multiple felony criminal statutes.

The ACLJ has just obtained previously unreleased documents related to the Clinton investigation and immunity agreements given to top Clinton aids.

These agreements reveal that James Comey’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Loretta Lynch’s Department of Justice (DOJ) granted immunity to Hillary Clinton’s aids and lawyers, Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, from prosecution for anything found on their laptops violating multiple felony criminal statutes governing the mishandling of classified information and/or the removal or destruction of records, including Espionage Act provisions. Further, the DOJ and FBI also agreed to evade the statutory requirements of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by purporting to deem the contents of the laptops as not under DOJ or FBI “custody or control.”

CIRCA 2016--Why Did Obama's DOJ Grant Cheryl Mills (and Heather Samuelson) Immunity?
By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY, September 24, 2016

ANOTHER FRIDAY NEWS DUMP.....with the public distracted, the FBI released another 189 pages of interview reports. And this remarkable news: The Obama Justice Department reportedly gave top Clinton aide and confidant Cheryl Mills immunity from prosecution for any incriminating information located on her personal computer. According to House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (Rep-Utah), the limited immunity was granted in order to persuade Ms. Mills to surrender her laptop computer so the FBI could check whether classified information was stored on it.

This is very strange.

There was no need to grant concessions to Mills. The Justice Department could have required the production of the computer by simply issuing a grand jury subpoena. And had there been any concern that Mills would not cooperate, would destroy the computer, or would “misplace” it (as Team Clinton claims to have misplaced so many Hillary devices), investigators could have applied for a search warrant and seized the computer.

In normal cases, the Justice Department does not grant immunity in exchange for evidence when it has lawful power to compel production of that evidence. Mills is not alone. Apparently her subordinate, longtime Clinton aide Heather Samuelson, was given the same deal. Unbelievably, Mills and Samuelson, who are lawyers, were also permitted to represent Hillary Clinton in the very same investigation in which, we now learn, they were personally granted immunity from prosecution. That’s apart from the fact that both of them were involved as government officials at the time they engaged in some of the conduct under investigation – a circumstance that, by itself, should have disqualified them from later serving as lawyers for other subjects in the same the investigation.

As readers may recall, I have been trying to draw attention to questions about immunity in the Clinton emails investigation since last spring (see here and here). That was when we first learned that some form of immunity had been given to Brian Pagliano. He is the Clinton family employee who serviced then-Secretary Clinton’s unauthorized private server and, astonishingly, later drew a large State Department salary while continuing to be paid on the side by the Clintons.

As I explained at the time, it seemed highly likely that Ms. Mills, too, had been granted some form of immunity before agreeing to speak with the FBI. After all, she was a key player in events regarding which the FBI was conducting a criminal investigation, and she had previously declined to be interviewed by the State Department’s inspector general. In addition, we now know that, on advice of counsel, she refused to answer many questions when deposed by Judicial Watch regarding the email scandal. We can thus surmise that Mills had concerns about criminal jeopardy. We also know that her lawyer, Beth Wilkinson, aggressively – and successfully – lobbied the Justice Department to prevent the FBI from questioning Mills about topics of great significance to the investigation. Based on all this, it would be very surprising to me if Mills had not been given a “proffer agreement” form of immunity before agreeing to an FBI interview. (As I’ve outlined in columns linked above, in a proffer agreement, known in prosecutor jargon as the “queen for a day” arrangement, the Justice Department agrees – with some caveats – not to use against the person any statements made during the interview).

To this point, we still do not have a clear picture of whether Mills was given any kind of immunity in exchange for agreeing to an FBI interview. We have now learned, however, that she did not surrender her private laptop computer until she received assurance – in the form of immunity – that she would not be prosecuted if the FBI found any incriminating information on it. (Ms. Wilkinson, told the Associated Press that Mills got immunity only for the computer, not for the FBI interview … but Wilkinson refused to show the immunity agreement to the AP.)

Mills’ subordinate, Heather Samuelson, who is also represented by Wilkinson, reportedly got the same immunity deal as Mills.

The FBI had abundant reason to suspect that there was classified information improperly stored – i.e., potentially illegally stored – on Mills and Samuelson’s computers. These devices had been used in 2014 (i.e., about two years after Mills and Clinton had left the State Department) in the process of reviewing the 62,000 emails stored on Clinton’s homebrew server. It was by this process that Clinton determined which emails related to government business and would be surrendered to the State Department, and which were (purportedly) private and would be retained by Clinton. (We now know that thousands of what Clinton claimed were “private” emails were actually government-related, that some even contained classified information, and that Clinton and her minions attempted to destroy all of them – notwithstanding that destroying even one government file is a felony.)

Because thousands of emails containing classified information were included among the 62,000 reviewed on the Mills and Samuelsoncomputers, and because data usually remain stored in the memory of a computer even if a deletion attempt has been made, it was a good bet that the Mills and Samuelson computers contained classified information. It can be a felony to mishandle classified information by transmitting it to, or storing it on, an unclassified system. Moreover, it constitutes a threat to national security (and to informants who risk their lives to acquire intelligence for the United States) to leave classified information on a non-secure private computer that can easily be hacked or otherwise infiltrated. Consequently, the Justice Department had the power and the duty to take custody of the Mills and Samuelson computers.

It does not matter whether Mills and Samuelson were concerned that their computers might contain incriminating information. The Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination only protects a person from being forced to provide the government with self-incriminating information of a testimonial nature; it does not cover physical evidence.

Thus, when law-enforcement has reason to believe physical evidence could be relevant to a criminal or national-security investigation, it demands the production of that evidence. There is no need to bargain with the person in possession of such evidence by offering immunity from prosecution. Instead, the Justice Department simply issues a grand jury subpoena compelling the possessor to surrender the evidence, on pain of being jailed for contempt if she fails to comply. Further, if investigators fear that the possessor might destroy or tamper with the evidence rather than honor a subpoena, the prosecutor simply obtains a judicial search warrant, enabling the FBI to seize the evidence forcibly.

In a normal case, immunity-from-prosecution never enters into this equation. Immunity is a valuable concession that the Justice Department is only supposed to grant if there is no other way to get the evidence in question. Investigators are not supposed to “pay” for evidence the law empowers them to obtain cost-free. If, for example, a prosecutor surmised that a suspect’s hair might match hair recovered at the scene of a robbery, the prosecutor would not offer the suspect immunity from prosecution for the robbery in exchange for the suspect’s provision of a hair sample. The prosecutor would issue a subpoena requiring the suspect to provide the grand jury with a hair sample; if there was a match, the grand jury would then indict the suspect for the robbery.

COMMENTS As the Associated Press puts it: “By including the emails recovered from the laptops in the immunity agreements, the Justice Department exempted key physical evidence from any potential criminal case against [Hillary Clinton’s] aides.” It makes no sense to have done this … unless the Justice Department had already decided it would not prosecute Mills and Samuelson, no matter what the proof showed. Add this to an already long list of startling concessions made to Mrs. Clinton and her confederates. The latest revelations raise other new questions that I will deal with in subsequent posts. For now, suffice it to say, yet again: It appears the Obama Justice Department’s goal was not to make a prosecutable case, but to make it appear that Hillary Clinton was “exonerated” after a thorough FBI investigation.

ANDREW C. MCCARTHY is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and a contributing editor of National Review.

Oct 05, 2016
Chairmen Question DOJ on Agreement to Limit Investigation of Secretary Clinton’s Private Server
Newly uncovered letters raise concerns that DOJ agreed to substantial and inappropriate limitations on the scope of its investigation

WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA), House Judiciary Committee Chair Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) requesting information on the unusual restrictions placed on the FBI in its criminal investigation of Secretary Clinton’s private email server.

The restrictions were discovered in the course of the Committees’ review of the immunity agreements for former Clinton staffers Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson. Key excerpts from the letter:

"We write to express our concerns about the process by which Congress was allowed to view the Wilkinson letters, that the letters inappropriately restrict the scope of the FBI’s investigation, and that the FBI inexplicably agreed to destroy the laptops knowing that the contents were the subject of Congressional subpoenas and preservation letters. “These limitations would necessarily have excluded, for example, any emails from Cheryl Mills to Paul Combetta in late 2014 or early 2015 directing the destruction or concealment of federal records. Similarly, these limitations would have excluded any email sent or received by Secretary Clinton if it was not sent or received by one of the four email addresses listed, or the email address was altered.

“Further, the Wilkinson letters memorialized the FBI’s agreement to destroy the laptops. This is simply astonishing given the likelihood that evidence on the laptops would be of interest to congressional investigators. “The Wilkinson letters raise serious questions about why DOJ would consent to such substantial limitations on the scope of its investigation, and how Director Comey’s statements on the scope of the investigation comport with the reality of what the FBI was permitted to investigate.”

Full text of the letter below.

October 5, 2016

The Honorable Loretta E. Lynch
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530

Dear Madam Attorney General:
Last week your staff made available, for an in camera review by our committees, two letters to the Department of Justice (DOJ) from attorney Beth Wilkinson, on behalf of her clients Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson (the Wilkinson letters).

The Wilkinson letters—both dated June 10, 2016—were incorporated by reference into the immunity agreements for Ms. Mills and Ms. Samuelson related to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) criminal investigation into former Secretary Hillary Clinton’s email server. The letters set out the precise manner in which the Department and the FBI would access and use federal records and other information stored on .PST and .OST email archives from Ms. Mills’ and Ms. Samuelson’s laptops. We understand Ms. Wilkinson and lawyers from the Justice Department drafted the Wilkinson letters jointly before Ms. Wilkinson sent them to DOJ.
We write to express our concerns about the process by which Congress was allowed to view the Wilkinson letters, that the letters inappropriately restrict the scope of the FBI’s investigation, and that the FBI inexplicably agreed to destroy the laptops knowing that the contents were the subject of Congressional subpoenas and preservation letters.
With respect to the viewing restrictions imposed on the Committees, as a condition of cooperating voluntarily, the Department limited access to the letters to only Members of certain committees and one or two staff, prohibited Members and staff from “tak[ing] notes or photos, or otherwise seek[ing] to record the information contained in the memos,” and redacted the names of all DOJ and FBI personnel on the documents.

These onerous restrictions are not consistent with the high degree of transparency you and Director Comey promised to Congress. Further, in previous in camera reviews these restrictions were not imposed, which calls into question why the Wilkinson letters were given special treatment. 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.

In his statements before Congress, Director Comey repeatedly assured us that the FBI investigated whether charges of obstruction of justice and intentional destruction of records were merited. The facts of this investigation call those assertions into question. For example, the Wilkinson letters only permitted the FBI to review email archives from Platte River Networks created after June 1, 2014, and before February 1, 2015, that included emails sent or received from Secretary Clinton’s four email addresses during her tenure as Secretary of State. These limitations would necessarily have excluded, for example, any emails from Cheryl Mills to Paul Combetta in late 2014 or early 2015 directing the destruction or concealment of federal records.

Similarly, these limitations would have excluded any email sent or received by Secretary Clinton if it was not sent or received by one of the four email addresses listed, or the email address was altered. Notably, in December 2014, Mr. Combetta deleted all Clinton emails older than 60 days, which was in effect all of Secretary Clinton’s emails from January 2009 to October 2014. He admitted this “change in retention policy” during his second FBI interview in February 2016.

In addition, in March 2015, Mr. Combetta had two conference calls with David Kendall, attorney for Secretary Clinton, and Ms. Mills. Mr. Combetta admitted to the FBI in his third interview in May 2016 that after the second conference call on March 31, 2015, he used BleachBit to destroy any remaining copies of Clinton’s emails and .PST files that he was able to locate. Per the agreement with Ms. Wilkinson, emails from around the time of the conference calls (and subsequent deletion of records) would not have been covered by the FBI’s review of Ms. Mills’ and Ms. Samuelson’s laptops. Importantly, before the FBI agreed to the Wilkinson letters in June 2016, it already knew of the conference calls between Secretary Clinton’s attorneys and Mr. Combetta, his use of BleachBit, and the resulting deletions, further casting doubt on why the FBI would enter into such a limited evidentiary scope of review with respect to the laptops.

The Wilkinson letters went on to provide that the FBI would destroy any records which it retrieved that were not turned over to the investigatory team, meaning the FBI might proceed to delete such an email, after determining it should not be sent to the investigatory team. Further, the Wilkinson letters memorialized the FBI’s agreement to destroy the laptops. This is simply astonishing given the likelihood that evidence on the laptops would be of interest to congressional investigators.

The Wilkinson letters raise serious questions about why DOJ would consent to such substantial limitations on the scope of its investigation, and how Director Comey’s statements on the scope of the investigation comport with the reality of what the FBI was permitted to investigate. So we can better understand the Department’s basis for agreeing to these restrictions, please respond to the following questions as soon as possible, but no later than October 19, 2016:

1. What is the basis for the FBI’s legal authority—in any circumstance—to destroy records which are subject to a congressional investigation or subpoena?
2. Why did the FBI agree to terms that allowed it to destroy both laptops?
3. Has the FBI, in fact, destroyed any evidence acquired from the laptops or the laptops themselves?
4. Is there any circumstance in which an email from Ms. Mills to Mr. Combetta (and only Mr. Combetta) in December of 2014 or March of 2015 discovered on Ms. Mills’ laptop or Ms. Samuelson’s laptop would have been turned over to the investigative team under the terms of the Wilkinson letters? If so, please explain.
5. Given that the range of emails the FBI could view under the terms of the Wilkinson letters were only those sent or received while Secretary Clinton was Secretary of State, how did the FBI intend to investigate the laptop files for evidence of possible intentional destruction of records or obstruction of evidence given the fact many of those emails were out of the allowed date range?
6. Did the filter team identify any emails that were otherwise responsive but were not turned over to the investigative team because they were privileged? Did anyone create a privilege log for such emails?
7. How many total documents were reviewed by the filter team from both laptops? Of those, how many were deemed privileged? Of the total, how many were sent to the investigative team?
8. How many total documents were withheld from the investigative team because they fell out of the date range imposed by the June 10, 2016 agreements?
9. How many of the documents acquired by the FBI from both laptops were classified? Please list each document, the classification level, and the classifying agency.
10. The Wilkinson letters apparently provided for different treatment of email fragments from Secretary Clinton’s email addresses on the “clintonemail.com” domain versus her email addresses on the “blackberry.net” domain. Specifically, email fragments without a date sent to or received by either of the clintonemail.com addresses were included, while email fragments without a date that were sent to or received by either of the blackberry.net addresses were excluded. Please explain the difference in treatment of these email addresses.
11. The Wilkinson letters included a caveat that the FBI was not assuming custody, control, or ownership of the laptops for the purpose of any request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
a. How does that statement square with the reality that the FBI had both laptops in its possession?
b. Has DOJ ever used that statement or a similar statement to avoid compliance with FOIA?

Please provide the Committees with unredacted copies of: the Wilkinson letters; the two immunity agreements for Mr. Bryan Pagliano; the immunity agreement for Mr. Paul Combetta; the immunity agreement for Mr. John Bentel; the immunity agreement for Ms. Cheryl Mills; and the immunity agreement for Ms. Heather Samuelson.

We understand from your staff that neither the DOJ nor the FBI plans to destroy any information obtained in the course of this investigation. To ensure the integrity of the Committees’ investigations, we request that you continue to preserve all documents that can reasonably be anticipated to be subject to a request for production from the Committee(s) related to their investigations. For the purposes of this request, “preserve” means taking reasonable steps to prevent the partial or full destruction, alteration, testing, deletion, shredding, incineration, wiping, relocation, migration, theft, or mutation of electronic records, as well as negligent or intentional handling that would make such records incomplete or inaccessible.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter. Please contact our staff with any questions about this request.

Sincerely,

Jason Chaffetz
Chairman
House Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform

Bob Goodlatte
Chairman
House Committee on the Judiciary

Charles E. Grassley
Chairman
Senate Committee on the Judiciary

Devin Nunes
Chairman
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

cc:
The Honorable Elijah E. Cummings, Ranking Minority Member
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

Hillary maintained a private, unsecured e-mail server as Obama’s secretary of state and did not turn it over to the government for archiving after leaving office. Obama later lied about his knowledge of this server, the existence of which enabled Clinton to withhold documents related to the Benghazi debacle from congressional investigators.....among many Clinton underhanded activities.

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(AFTER SHE LOST OBAMA "SUDDENLY" REMEMBERED)
Obama Had a Deal With Hillary Allowing Removal Of State Dept Records.
By RYAN SAAVEDRA, dailywire.com, Dec 15, 2017

Newly-revealed documents obtained by conservative watchdog Judicial Watch reveal that the Obama State Department allowed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her top aide Huma Abedin to remove sensitive documents that were not to be made public records (including official “Muslim Engagement Documents”).

Judicial Watch received the records on Thursday in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that sought all DS-1904 forms completed by or on behalf of Former Secretary Hillary Clinton, Former Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, Former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin, and Former Deputy Chief of Staff Jacob Sullivan.

Clinton and Abedin were permitted to remove both electronic and physical records, claiming “they were ‘personal’ materials and ‘unclassified, non-record materials,’ including files of Clinton’s calls and schedules, which were not to be made public.”

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton noted the gravity of the latest revelations, stating they showed further corruption in the Obama administration and with Clinton.

“We already know the Obama State Department let Hillary Clinton steal and then delete her government emails, which included classified information,” Fitton said in a statement. “But these new records show that was only part of the scandal. These new documents show the Obama State Department had a deal with Hillary Clinton to hide her calls logs and schedules, which would be contrary to FOIA and other laws.”

Electronic records Clinton was allowed to remove:
Copy of “daily files.”
Non-record copy of a log of calls the Secretary made since 2004.
Official and personal copy of the Secretary’s “call grid” which is a running list of calls she wants to make.

Physical records Clinton was allowed to remove: 16 boxes of personal schedules from 1993-2008 (prior to her becoming Secretary of State).
29 boxes of miscellaneous public schedules ranging from her time as FLOTUS up to her State Dept tenure.
1 box of personal reimbursable receipts. 1 box of personal photos. 1 box personal schedule.
Personal correspondence.
Daily file binders. Gift binders. Gifts (actual). Topic binders.

Electronic records Abedin was allowed to remove
Outlook contacts.

Physical records Abedin was allowed to remove (5 boxes):
Travel Records
Muslim Engagement Documents
Newspaper Articles
Gift Archive Binder
FLOTUS “Courtesy Storage/Box Content List” Binder
CODEL Trips Binder
Menu Cards & Table Arrangement Binder
Personal Event Planner (2001 thru 2011)

“The originals of some Clinton documents were retained, such as the call logs and schedules,” Judicial Watch reports. “For other records, including material that predates Clinton’s tenure, there is no indication that a copy was made. The most significant of these are Hillary's personal correspondence and gift binders, which could reflect Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative ties.”

SOURCE https://www.dailywire.com/news/24711/obama-state-dept-made-deal-hillary-allowing-ryan-saavedra#exit-modal

=======================================

NOTE WELL--Hillary listed the removed items itemized above.....making it totally unverifiable.

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