Des Moines Sun

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) have asked FBI Director Kash Patel to review material related to the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as Secretary of State.

According to Grassley and Crawford, thumb drives containing unevaluated information have been held at an FBI office in Northern Virginia since 2018. The request follows efforts by Grassley to have the appendix, known as the “Clinton annex,” from the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General’s June 2018 report declassified.

In their letter, Grassley and Crawford stated: “The revelations contained in the declassified OIG appendix are at the heart of why the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) became distrusted by so many under your agency’s prior directors: a failure to impartially conduct its law enforcement and intelligence mission. Concerning the issue at hand, Comey’s FBI shockingly failed to review and exploit evidence in its own possession, even though they admitted in written memos the information was necessary to conduct a ‘thorough and complete investigation.’ The FBI also failed to review and exploit other foreign intelligence information.”

They continued: “Therefore, we now write to stress the importance that this material be immediately dug out from hiding and properly assessed. How evidence which purportedly includes information related to ‘former President Barack Obama’s emails’ and ‘network infrastructure diagrams for U.S. government classified networks,’ remained unreviewed by the preeminent law enforcement agency in the world is mind-numbing. We know you will not similarly ignore evidence in your agency’s possession, no matter where its exploitation or conclusions might lead.”

The declassified Clinton Annex revealed that Russian-language reports obtained by the FBI included discussions between then-Democratic National Committee head Debbie Wasserman Schultz and George Soros’ Open Society Foundations about deleting evidence on Hillary Clinton’s email servers. These reports also mentioned an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation and suggested then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch had contact with Hillary Clinton’s staff.

Additionally, it was noted that during its review, DOJ OIG relied on an Intelligence Community Assessment concerning Russia collusion that has since been debunked.