Hillary Clinton’s secrets of state went straight to China – but who cares? 145

The Daily Caller reports that top officials in the FBI were reliably informed that the Chinese received nearly all the emails of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton through their hackers in the US – and decided to do nothing about it: 

A Chinese-owned company operating in the Washington area hacked Hillary Clinton’s private server throughout her term as secretary of state and obtained nearly all her emails …  

The Chinese firm obtained Clinton’s emails in real time as she sent and received communications and documents through her personal server … 

The private server she insisted on using had been prepared by Chinese experts to send Chinese agents copies of whatever emails she received and sent.  

The Chinese wrote code that was embedded in the server, which was kept in Clinton’s residence in upstate New York. The code generated an instant “courtesy copy” for nearly all of her emails and forwarded them to the Chinese company … 

The Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) found that virtually all of Clinton’s emails were sent to a “foreign entity”,Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, said at a July 12 House Committee on the Judiciary hearing. …

And did the FBI not find out that this was happening?

They knew. They were told. Over and over again.

Two officials with the ICIG, investigator Frank Rucker and attorney Janette McMillan, met repeatedly with FBI officials to warn them of the Chinese intrusion, according to a former intelligence officer with expertise in cybersecurity issues, who was briefed on the matter. …

Which FBI agents in particular were told?

Among those FBI officials was Peter Strzok, who was then the bureau’s top counterintelligence official. Strzok was fired this month following the discovery he sent anti-Trump texts to his mistress and co-worker, Lisa Page. Strzok didn’t act on the information the ICIG provided to him, according to Gohmert.

Gohmert mentioned in the Judiciary Committee hearing that ICIG officials told Strzok and three other top FBI officials that they found an “anomaly” on Clinton’s server.

The former intelligence officer who spoke with TheDCNF said the ICIG “discovered the anomaly pretty early in 2015″.

“When [the ICIG] did a very deep dive, they found in the actual metadata—the data which is at the header and footer of all the emails—that a copy, a ‘courtesy copy,’ was being sent to a third party and that third party was a known Chinese public company that was involved in collecting intelligence for China,” the former intelligence officer told TheDCNF. …

What of the State Department? Did no one there know what was happening?

Department of State Inspector General Steven A. Linick and then-ICIG I. Charles McCullough III scrutinized Clinton’s server in 2015.

McCullough told Congress in July 2015 that her emails contained classified material. … The two IGs asked the Department of Justice to investigate whether the classified information was compromised

So the State Department IGs asked the DOJ to investigate.

So did the FBI, it transpires:

The FBI issued a referral to the Justice Department in July 2015. The bureau warned that classified information may have been disclosed to a foreign power or to one of its agents.

“FBIHQ, Counterespionage Section, is opening a full investigation based on specific articulated facts provided by an 811 referral from the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, dated July 6, 2015 regarding the potential compromise of classified information,” a July 10, 2015, FBI memo stated.

An 811 referral informs the FBI of classified information that was potentially released to a foreign power or agent of a foreign power. 

“This investigation is also designated a Sensitive Investigative Matter (SIM) due to a connection to a current public official, political appointee or candidate,” the memo stated. 

And what did the DOJ do about it?

Then-FBI Deputy Director Mark F. Giuliano sent a follow-up memo on July 21, 2015, to President Barack Obama’s deputy attorney general, Sally Yates, about two conversations he had with her about the criminal referral. 

“On 13 July 2015 and 20 July 2015, I verbally advised you of a Section 811(c) referral from the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community received by the FBI on 06 July 2015. The referral addressed the mishandling of classified information on the personal e-mail account and electronic media of a former high-level us Government official,” according to the FBI memo, which was hand delivered to Yates.

And, the implication is, Sally Yates decided to do nothing about it. 

Nothing has been done about it. Nothing.

 

 

(Hat-tip for the report to our reader and commenter Jeanne)