Judicial Watch announced today it received 218 pages of disgraced former FBI officials Peter Strzok-Lisa Page emails which show then-FBI General Counsel James Baker instructing FBI officials to expedite the release of FBI investigative material to Hillary Clinton’s lawyer, David Kendall in August 2016. Kendall and the FBI’s top lawyer discussed specifically quickly obtaining the “302” report of the FBI/DOJ interview of Mrs. Clinton.
The emails also show the FBI failed to document at least four interviews of witnesses in the Clinton email investigation.
The documents were obtained in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the Justice Department failed to respond to a December 4, 2017, FOIA request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-00154)) for:
- All records of communications, including but not limited to, emails, text messages and instant chats, between FBI official Peter Strozk and FBI attorney Lisa Page;
- All travel requests, travel authorizations, travel vouchers and expense reports of Peter Strozk;
- All travel requests, travel authorizations, travel vouchers and expense reports of Lisa Page.
On August 16, 2016, at 10:02 p.m. Baker emails then-Associate Deputy Director David Bowdich; Michael Steinbach, former executive assistant director for national security; former Acting Assistant Director Jason V. Herring; former FBI lawyer Lisa Page; former Principal Deputy General Counsel Trisha Anderson; Michael Kortan, FBI assistant director for public affairs, now retired; James Rybicki, former chief of staff to Comey; and others to inform them that he “just spoke” with Clinton’s lawyer Kendall, who requested documents from the FBI. Baker says he told Kendall he would “need to submit a request.” Baker tells them, “I said we would process it expeditiously.”
I just spoke with David Kendall … I conveyed our view that in order to obtain the documents [FBI investigative material] they are seeking they need to submit a request pursuant to the Privacy Act and FOIA. I said they could submit a letter to me covering both statutes. They will send it in the morning. I said that we would process it expeditiously. David asked us to focus first on the Secretary’s 302 [FBI interview report]. I said OK. [Redacted] We will have to focus on this issue tomorrow and get the 302 out the door as soon as possible and then focus on the rest of the stuff.
The following day, August 17, 2016, Kendall sent a FOIA/Privacy Act request on “behalf of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton” to the FBI’s top lawyer with a request for “expeditious processing.” Baker passes this request to Bowdich, Steinbach, Herring, Page, Anderson:
In my view, we need to move as quickly as possible on this, but pursuant to David’s oral request last night, we should focus first on Secretary Clinton’s 302…. Is the end of this week out of the question for her 302?
In a follow-up email exchange, the same day, Anderson arranged for Herring, Page, former FBI Assistant Director and head of the Office of Congressional Affairs Gregory Brower, Strzok and others to “coordinate a plan for processing and releasing” Clinton’s 302, though one official reminds others that they should process the request “consistent” with other requests.
Then, in an August 21, 2016, email exchange Baker tells his people that he would “alert” Kendall shortly before Clinton’s 302 was to be posted on the FBI’s FOIA Vault webpage. On September 2, 2016, the FBI announced the release of Clinton’s interview documents.
Finally, on August 24, 2016, the acting FBI FOIA unit chief said he sees “no problem” with giving Hillary’s attorney a heads up before her records were posted to the Vault.
Other documents show that on August 5, 2016, Page, Strzok and FBI intelligence analyst Jonathan Moffa are notified by a FBI assistant general counsel from the national security law branch that additional 302’s were in need of processing:
Today [Redacted] brought over additional 302s from the WFO [Washington Field Office]. Are those supposed to go through the redaction process for production to DOJ on Monday? We’re trying to figure out what needs to be completed this weekend.
Page responds by writing to Strzok, Moffa and others that four FBI 302 report of interviews related to the Clinton “Midyear Exam” investigation had never even been written:
[Redacted] to the best of my knowledge, yes they will when Pete identified for [redacted] the DOJ edits that needed to be made to the 302s [redacted] discovered that there were four (I think) 302s that had never been written. What I don’t know is whose 302s they are but unless Pete or Jon are able to respond in short order, I would throw them on the pile for redactions. Thanks so much.
On August 24, 2016, Daily Beast reporter Shane Harris sent an inquiry to the FBI asking if Comey’s admission to Congress was accurate that Hillary’s lawyers at William & Connolly did not possess the security clearances needed to see and possess highly classified Hillary emails being stored at their law offices.
One thing I noticed is that when the Clinton’s beckon, the FBI hopped to it to provide the documents they demanded (well, those that were actually completed) while those requests made by Judicial Watch take considerably longer, usually requiring a court to force the matter.
There was really no need to fill out the 302’s; the conclusion to be drawn was determined the moment it came to the FBI’s attention that Hillary had placed all of State Department’s classified information on display for any of our foreign adversaries.