The Great Smoky Mountain Journal

Source: 

Tuesday, January 01, 2019 02:36 PM

Republican Senator Pressing For Answers On Why FBI Waited Weeks To Act After 2016 Discovery Of Weiner Emails

EXCLUSIVE –  A Republican senator is pressing for answers on why the FBI waited weeks to act after the 2016 discovery of thousands of emails on ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner's laptop that potentially were relevant to the Hillary Clinton email investigation. 

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., fired off a letter Thursday to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein asking about the timeline, citing texts between two key FBI investigators. 

The messages, first reported by The Wall Street Journal in late January, indicate that top bureau officials were aware of the discovery of thousands of emails from Weiner well before the FBI sought a search warrant in late October, and effectively revived the Clinton probe right before the election. 

"The cryptic and disjointed nature of the text messages, in addition to heavy redactions applied to other FBI documents, make it difficult to understand fully the sequence of events,” Johnson wrote to Rosenstein, giving him a deadline of March 15 to provide information to the committee.  

The text messages were between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who once served on Robert Mueller's Russia probe, and since have come under fire for their anti-Trump messages. 

The texts in the Johnson letter suggest that as of Sept. 28, 2016, they and former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe were aware of new emails found on Weiner’s laptop during the criminal investigation into his relationship with a minor.

“Got called up to Andy’s earlier … hundreds of thousands of emails turned over by Weiner’s atty to sdny, includes a ton of material from spouse. Sending team up tomorrow to review … this will never end…” Strzok wrote in a text message to Page.

The “spouse” Strzok was referring to was Huma Abedin — a longtime top aide and confidante of Clinton’s.

“Turned over to them why?” Page replied.

“Apparently one of his recent texting partners may not have been 18 … don’t have the details yet,” Strzok wrote. Page responded noting that news reports said the young woman “was 15.”

But it wasn’t until Oct. 27, 2016 that former FBI Director James Comey was briefed on the newly discovered emails.

The Washington Post first reported in January that the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, is specifically investigating McCabe, and whether he wanted to avoid taking action on the laptop findings until after the presidential election.