A leading prosecutor working on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team recommended the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) close a 2016 probe of the Clinton Foundation due to insufficient evidence despite multiple Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) connected to hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of foreign transactions, Fox News Digital reported Thursday.
Working at the time as the Public Integrity Section Chief for the Department of Justice, Ray Hulser — who today works on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team currently prosecuting former President Donald Trump — “declined prosecution” of the Clinton Foundation in 2016. Despite all the SARs, Hulser shut the investigation down, categorizing the evidence as “de minimis.”
The public already knew since May last year about the FBI’s failure to act in the face of mounting evidence that the Clinton Foundation had come under the influence of foreign money ahead of the 2016 presidential election — in which former First Lady and Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) ran as the Democratic nominee — but Fox News disclosed Hulser’s role Thursday.
A prosecutor of Jack Smith's team discouraged FBI from investigating the Clinton Foundation during the Obama year, 2016. Ray Hulser was identified as an official who declined prosecution of the Clinton Foundation and that information was burried. During the meeting at the Justic… pic.twitter.com/6rqi69psIf
— Real Mac Report (@RealMacReport) January 5, 2024
According to the May 2016 report by Special Counsel John Durham, “three different FBI field offices, the New York Field Office, the Washington Field Office, and the Little Rock Field Office, opened investigations into possible criminal activity involving the Clinton Foundation,” in Jan. 2016.
Durham further noted in his report that the FBI “failed to act on what should have been—when combined with other incontrovertible facts— a clear warning sign that the FBI might then be the target of an effort to manipulate or influence the law enforcement process for political purposes during the 2016 presidential election.”
🚨BREAKING: A top prosecutor on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team discouraged the FBI from pursuing an investigation into the Clinton Foundation in 2016 despite multiple SARs related to hundreds of thousands of dollars in foreign transactions
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 4, 2024
Hulser reportedly downplayed information in the reports, but Durham’s team reviewed the financial reporting and found “multiple funds transfers, some of which involved international bank accounts that were suspected of facilitating bribery or gratuity violations. The transactions involved occurred between 2012 and 2014, and totaled hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Now Husler is on the team prosecuting Trump with Special Counsel Jack Smith. Fox News contributor Andy McCarthy said, “The decision by the Biden Justice Department to appoint a special counsel was utterly political and done to create distance between the attorney general and the president from the decision to bring charges against Trump.”
“Smith has conducted it throughout with an eye on the election calendar,” McCarthy added.
