Senate Judiciary Chairman Grassley condemns Clinton email coverup, 'conspiracies to get Trump'

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley is condemning the FBI's investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's classified email scandal as a "complete coverup" and suggested it was part of a larger pattern of "conspiracies to get Trump."

Grassley released a newly declassified appendix to a years-old Justice Department watchdog report earlier Monday, which showed then-FBI Director James Comey was swayed to preemptively announce the end of the bureau’s investigation into Clinton based on mysterious classified intelligence reports.

The evidence that was ignored by Comey's FBI included thumb drives with sensitive information allegedly extricated from State Department computers on Clinton's watch and intelligence suggesting that President Barack Obama quashed the investigation into her mishandling of a private email server where classified secrets were improperly transmitted, the memos show.

Comey announced in July 2016 that an investigation into Clinton was complete and that charges would not be brought against the former secretary. AND at the same time, the FBI launched its Crossfire Hurricane investigation into allegations of Russia collusion against Trump.

"We're talking about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, also at the same time, candidate for President of the United States, and a person that ought to know better than to keep emails and official correspondence on a server that's not protected in their own home," Grassley said on the "Just The News, No Noise" TV show. "What we're making public today is this fact that the FBI knew about it. They got some thumb drives that dealt with all these issues. They didn't even bother to go through it. 

"It was a complete coverup, completely ignoring their responsibilities, another way of saving the politicalization and weaponization of the FBI and the Department of Justice turning a blind eye to key evidence while investigating Hillary Clinton's mishandling of classified information on this private email server," he continued. "These findings prove that the Clinton investigation wasn't thorough and complete. In fact, you could say they didn't even start to look at it."

The new index also found evidence that in 2016 the FBI had “obtained intelligence reports discussing purported communications between” Democratic Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was the chairwoman of the Democratic National Convention at the time, and “two different individuals who worked for the Soros Open Society Foundations."

Grassley claimed the new evidence in the Clinton case was part of a larger conspiracy that sought to either keep President Donald Trump from office, or remove him from office if elected, and that discussions about Trump were happening at the highest level of the Senate as far back as 2017.

"I think we can see it all, whether it's Jack Smith, what he was doing to put the president in prison, or what the prosecutor in New York was doing to break him financially, or what was done through the Russia hoax, and what we call Crossfire Hurricane, all those things lumped together are all conspiracies to get Trump either in jail or out of office or keeping from being reelected," Grassley said. 

The senator added that Americans should be "thankful" Trump was elected last year so the details of the Clinton investigation could finally come "to light." 

The declassification comes seven years after former Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz released his 2018 report criticizing the politicized conduct of the FBI’s Midyear Exam investigation into Clinton’s mishandling of classified information.

Grassley said it is now up to the FBI and the current Department of Justice to investigate whether any further actions need to be taken to hold people accountable, including Wasserman Schultz. 

"Transparency is a first step to accountability, and I would expect that now that this stuff's out and the public knows about it, DOJ is going to find some pressure to closely review what has been exposed," he said.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.