PULL QUOTE:
Within
the FBI, some felt they had moved well beyond the allegations made in
the anti-Clinton book. At least two confidential informants from other
public-corruption investigations had provided details about the Clinton
Foundation to the FBI, these people said.
The
FBI had secretly recorded conversations of a suspect in a
public-corruption case talking about alleged deals the Clintons made,
these people said. The agents listening to the recordings couldn’t tell
from the conversations if what the suspect was describing was accurate,
but it was, they thought, worth checking out.
Prosecutors
thought the talk was hearsay and a weak basis to warrant aggressive
tactics, like presenting evidence to a grand jury, because the person
who was secretly recorded wasn’t inside the Clinton Foundation.
FBI
investigators grew increasingly frustrated with resistance from the
corruption prosecutors, and some executives at the bureau itself, to
keep pursuing the case.
==============================
Secret Recordings Fueled FBI Feud in Clinton Probe
Agents thought they had enough material to merit aggressively pursuing investigation into Clinton Foundation
Secret
recordings of a suspect talking about the Clinton Foundation fueled an
internal battle between FBI agents who wanted to pursue the case and
corruption prosecutors who viewed the statements as worthless hearsay,
people familiar with the matter said.
Agents,
using informants and recordings from unrelated corruption
investigations, thought they had found enough material to merit
aggressively pursuing the investigation into the foundation that started
in summer 2015 based on claims made in a book by a conservative author
called “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign
Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” these
people said.
The account of the case and resulting dispute comes from interviews with officials at multiple agencies.
Starting
in February and continuing today, investigators from the Federal Bureau
of Investigation and public-corruption prosecutors became increasingly
frustrated with each other, as often happens within and between
departments. At the center of the tension stood the U.S. attorney for
Brooklyn, Robert Capers, who some at the FBI came to view as
exacerbating the problems by telling each side what it wanted to hear,
these people said. Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Capers declined to
comment.
The
roots of the dispute lie in a disagreement over the strength of the
case, these people said, which broadly centered on whether Clinton
Foundation contributors received favorable treatment from the State
Department under Hillary Clinton.
Senior
officials in the Justice Department and the FBI didn’t think much of
the evidence, while investigators believed they had promising leads
their bosses wouldn’t let them pursue, they said.
These details on the probe are emerging amid the continuing furor surrounding FBI Director James Comey’s disclosure to Congress that new emails had emerged that
could be relevant to a separate, previously closed FBI investigation of
Mrs. Clinton’s email arrangement while she was secretary of state.
On Wednesday, President Barack Obama took the unusual step of criticizing the FBI when asked about Mr. Comey’s disclosure of the emails.
Amid
the internal finger-pointing on the Clinton Foundation matter, some
have blamed the FBI’s No. 2 official, deputy director Andrew
McCabe, claiming he sought to stop agents from pursuing the case this
summer. His defenders deny that, and say it was the Justice Department
that kept pushing back on the investigation.
At
times, people on both sides of the dispute thought Mr. Capers agreed
with them. Defenders of Mr. Capers said he was straightforward and
always told people he thought the case wasn’t strong.
Much
of the skepticism toward the case came from how it started—with the
publication of a book suggesting possible financial misconduct and
self-dealing surrounding the Clinton charity. The author of that book,
Peter Schweizer—a former speechwriting consultant for President George
W. Bush—was interviewed multiple times by FBI agents, people familiar
with the matter said.
The
Clinton campaign has long derided the book as a poorly researched
collection of false claims and unsubstantiated assertions. The Clinton
Foundation has denied any wrongdoing, saying it does immense good
throughout the world.
Mr.
Schweizer said in an interview that the book was never meant to be a
legal document, but set out to describe “patterns of financial
transactions that circled around decisions Hillary Clinton was making as
secretary of state.”
As
2015 came to a close, the FBI and Justice Department had a general
understanding that neither side would take major action on Clinton
Foundation matters without meeting and discussing it first. In February,
a meeting was held in Washington among FBI officials, public-integrity
prosecutors and Leslie Caldwell, the head of the Justice Department’s
criminal division. Prosecutors from the Eastern District of New York—Mr.
Capers’ office—didn’t attend, these people said.
The
public-integrity prosecutors weren’t impressed with the FBI
presentation, people familiar with the discussion said. “The message
was, ‘We’re done here,’ ” a person familiar with the matter said.
Justice
Department officials became increasingly frustrated that the agents
seemed to be disregarding or disobeying their instructions.
Following
the February meeting, officials at Justice Department headquarters sent
a message to all the offices involved to “stand down,’’ a person
familiar with the matter said.
Within
the FBI, some felt they had moved well beyond the allegations made in
the anti-Clinton book. At least two confidential informants from other
public-corruption investigations had provided details about the Clinton
Foundation to the FBI, these people said.
The
FBI had secretly recorded conversations of a suspect in a
public-corruption case talking about alleged deals the Clintons made,
these people said. The agents listening to the recordings couldn’t tell
from the conversations if what the suspect was describing was accurate,
but it was, they thought, worth checking out.
Prosecutors
thought the talk was hearsay and a weak basis to warrant aggressive
tactics, like presenting evidence to a grand jury, because the person
who was secretly recorded wasn’t inside the Clinton Foundation.
FBI
investigators grew increasingly frustrated with resistance from the
corruption prosecutors, and some executives at the bureau itself, to
keep pursuing the case.
As
prosecutors rebuffed their requests to proceed more overtly, those
Justice Department officials became more annoyed that the investigators
didn’t seem to understand or care about the instructions issued by their
own bosses and prosecutors to act discreetly.
In
subsequent conversations with the Justice Department, Mr. Capers told
officials in Washington that the FBI agents on the case “won’t let it
go,” these people said.
As
a result of those complaints, these people said, a senior Justice
Department official called the FBI deputy director, Mr. McCabe, on Aug. 12
to say the agents in New York seemed to be disregarding or disobeying
their instructions, these people said. The conversation was a tense one,
they said, and at one point Mr. McCabe asked, “Are you telling me that I
need to shut down a validly predicated investigation?’’ The senior
Justice Department official replied: ”Of course not.”
Write to Devlin Barrett at devlin.barrett@wsj.com and Christopher M. Matthews at christopher.matthews@wsj.
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