Issa revealed at a committee hearing Wednesday that the immunity granted to Clinton aides during the FBI investigation of her mishandling of classified documents in her private e-mail server went far beyond the scope that was previously reported.
Former Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills and another senior staffer had “some” classified material on laptops they turned over to the bureau for its investigation, but the aides still received broad immunity. At least five Clinton aides received similar immunity.
“Isn’t there a double standard that when you granted immunity to these 5 individuals you took them out of the reach of prosecution for crimes committed related to destruction of documents or withholding or other crimes pursuant to Congressional subpoenas?,” Issa asked FBI Director James Comey at the committee hearing Wednesday.
“I don’t think anybody was given ‘transactional immunity,’” Comey responded.
Comey at that point admitted that he could be wrong, but later said he was “pretty sure” what was granted was “use immunity” and that “transactional immunity” was not granted.
“The FBI director seemed to act like it didn’t happen until we re-read and called him on it. And that’s because those documents were never in our possession. We were just allowed to see them, so when there was some dispute we called the Justice Department so we could review them again and we reviewed them again and they are already a quid pro quo—a trade,” Issa told TheDC.
Issa noted that the immunity given to the Clinton aides will protect them long after the Obama administration has packed up and left Washington.
“Either [the FBI] gave too much for too little, which they got nothing, or they were corrupted essentially by the Obama-Clinton machine. That, quite frankly, has now given people a pass. There were criminal acts committed and no one was punished. That’s what we learned today,” the congressman said.