That’s the question I’ve been asking myself: who killed the FBI investigation of Hillary’s e-mail server and the Clinton Foundation?

Former attorney general Michael Mukasey has an answer to the question in the Wall Street Journal.

First a quick review of the facts:

Nonetheless, in July [FBI director Comey] announced that “no reasonable prosecutor” would seek to charge [Hillary Clinton] with a crime, although Mrs. Clinton had classified information on a private nonsecure server—at least a misdemeanor under one statute; and although she was “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information such that it was exposed to hacking by hostile foreign nations—a felony under another statute; and apparently had caused the destruction of emails—a felony under two other statutes. He then told Congress repeatedly that the investigation into her handling of emails was closed.

Those decisions were not his to make, nor were the reasons he offered for making them at all tenable: that prosecutions for anything but mishandling large amounts of classified information, accompanied by false statements to investigators, were unprecedented; and that criminal prosecutions for gross negligence were constitutionally suspect.

Members of the military have been imprisoned and dishonorably discharged for mishandling far less information, and prosecutions for criminal negligence are commonplace and entirely permissible. Yet the attorney general [Loretta Lynch], whose decisions they were, and who had available to her enough legal voltage to vaporize Mr. Comey’s flimsy reasons for inaction, told Congress she would simply defer to the director.

That July announcement of Mr. Comey, and that testimony by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, also had a history.

When the FBI learned that two of the secretary’s staff members had classified information on their computers, rather than being handed grand-jury subpoenas demanding the surrender of those computers, the staff members received immunity in return for giving them up. In addition, they successfully insisted that the computers not be searched for any data following the date when Congress subpoenaed information relating to its own investigation, and that the computers be physically destroyed after relevant data within the stipulated period was extracted.

The technician who destroyed 30,000 of Mrs. Clinton’s emails after Congress directed that they be preserved lied to investigators even after receiving immunity. He then testified that Clinton aides requested before service of the subpoena that he destroy them, and that he destroyed them afterward on his own initiative.

Why would an FBI director, who at one time was an able and aggressive prosecutor, agree to such terms or accept such a fantastic story?

 

Yes, why did Comey stop the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton given all of these facts?

Mukasey explains who called off the investigation and why:

The search for clues brings us to an email to then-Secretary Clinton from President Obama, writing under a pseudonym, that the FBI showed to Ms. Abedin. That email, along with 21 others that passed between the president and Secretary Clinton, has been withheld by the administration from release on confidentiality grounds not specified but that could only be executive privilege.

After disclosure of those emails, the president said during an interview that he thought Mrs. Clinton should not be criminally charged because there was no evidence that she had intended to harm the nation’s security—a showing required under none of the relevant statutes. As indefensible as his legal reasoning may have been, his practical reasoning is apparent: If Mrs. Clinton was at criminal risk for communicating on her nonsecure system, so was he.

That presented the FBI director with a dilemma that was difficult, but not complex. It offered two choices. He could have tried to proceed along the course marked by the relevant laws. The FBI is powerless to present evidence to a grand jury, or to issue grand-jury subpoenas. That authority lies with the Justice Department, headed by an attorney general who serves, as her certificate of appointment recites, “during the pleasure of the President of the United States for the time being.”

[…]Instead, Mr. Comey acceded to the apparent wish of President Obama that no charges be brought. 

Obama would have wanted the FBI investigation stopped because if the Department of Justice decided that Clinton “was at criminal risk” for communicating on Clinton’s nonsecure system, then so was he. Fortunately for Obama, he appointed Loretta Lynch as attorney general, and we know she won’t prosecute Democrats, because she refused to go after the IRS for persecuting conservative organizations ahead of the 2012 election, so that Obama would win.

So, did Obama know that he was communicating to Secretary Clinton on an unsecure private e-mail server?

His own staff sent e-mails confirming that he knew.

The far-left New York Times reports:

In a March 2015 interview, President Obama said that he had learned about Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state “the same time everybody else learned it, through news reports.”

But that assertion concerned aides of Mrs. Clinton, who knew that the president himself had received emails from the private address, according to a hacked email made public on Tuesday by WikiLeaks.

“We need to clean this up — he has emails from her — they do not say state.gov,” Cheryl D. Mills, a top aide, wrote to John D. Podesta, another senior adviser, on March 7, 2015.

Two days later, Mr. Obama’s spokesman, Josh Earnest, tried to clarify the president’s remarks, saying that he had, in fact, exchanged emails with Mrs. Clinton through her private account.

And far left CNN confirms:

A top Hillary Clinton adviser said President Barack Obama’s answer on Clinton’s private email use as secretary of state needed “clean up,” according to hacked emails from her campaign chairman released Tuesday.

In a March 2015 email chain, Cheryl Mills, a top legal adviser and longtime member of Clinton’s inner circle, told campaign Chairman John Podesta of an interview in which Obama said he learned about Clinton’s private email setup from news reports.

“We need to clean this up — he has emails from her — they do not say state.gov,” Mills wrote to Podesta.

So, who ordered the FBI to stop investigating Hillary’s private e-mail server? Who ordered the Department of Justice not to proceed with the criminal investigation? Obama was the one with the authority to call it off, and Obama had a reason for calling it off: he was at risk of criminal charges himself.