Fox News’ Catherine Herridge reported Monday on new questions being raised as to why Hillary Clinton aides received immunity deals from the Justice Department given what investigators were seeking from them was government property.
Herridge said that the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.), sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch asking about side agreements made between Clinton aides and the Justice Department, including a deal that the aides’ laptops being sought would be destroyed after the FBI’s review was completed. Goodlatte also asked why no grand jury was called to collect evidence in the case, including the computers.
"The immunity deals for Clinton attorneys Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson were granted by the Justice Department in June, one month before the FBI closed its criminal investigation in exchange for access to their laptops," Herridge said. "The two lawyers who decided which emails could be destroyed were shielded from prosecution for obstructing justice."
"In the letter," Herridge continued, "Chairman Goodlatte questions why the FBI agreed to destroy their laptop computers because of the impact on outstanding congressional investigations, and he questions why investigators agreed ‘to limit their search of the Mills and Samuelson laptops to a date no later than January 31, 2015, and therefore give up any opportunity to find evidence related to the destruction of evidence or obstruction of justice.’"
Herridge then noted there was never a need to grant immunity to gain access to the laptops, because Mills and Samuelson were already obligated to turn over the computers as they held classified information.
"And the leading national defense attorney just told Fox News that what’s also very odd about this situation is that once classified government records are found on a computer, that computer is considered government property, and that was the case with Mills and also Samuelson’s laptops," Herridge said. "So why the government needed to do an immunity deal to get devices that, in the end, were already government property is just another confusing element of this story."