Congress Orders DOJ To Hand Over All New Clinton Emails

Congress has ordered the Department of Justice (DOJ) to hand over all files pertaining to the FBI’s Hillary Clinton investigation.

In an letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Jason Chaffetz demanded that all files related to the investigation be preserved.

Judiciary.house.gov reports:

November 3, 2016

The Honorable Loretta Lynch
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530

Dear Madam Attorney General:

We write to supplement our previous request that you preserve all documents referring or relating to Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal email server.

On October 28, 2016, Director Comey notified Congress that the FBI was investigating a new source of emails related to the Clinton email server investigation.

Subsequent reports indicate that these new sources of emails are previously-unexamined devices from Huma Abedin, Secretary Clinton’s advisor, and her husband, Anthony Weiner. Reports also suggest that these emails number 650,000 and are from multiple devices related to the FBI’s criminal investigation of Mr. Weiner.

As the respective Chairmen of the committee of jurisdiction over the Department of Justice and the FBI, and the principal oversight committee for the House of Representatives, we hereby request that you preserve all documents, communications, and other records or data obtained in the course of that investigation.

Specifically, preserve any information found on Ms. Abedin’s and Mr. Weiner’s devices, in email accounts referring or relating to those devices and/or their owners, and on any other source that the Department or the FBI reviews that is related to this case.

This request includes, but is not limited to, all emails, documents, files, and metadata, regardless of relevancy or claims of privilege, and should be construed in the broadest possible form, understanding that Congressional oversight powers are broader and more far-reaching than those permitted by Department policy, and the limits of subpoenas in the oversight versus the investigatory context are substantially different.

Moreover, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2704, we expect that you have sought backup preservation of email contents from Yahoo and any other service over which Ms. Abedin and Mr. Weiner communicated. This request necessarily includes, but is not limited to, any and all documents reviewed or sorted by FBI and DOJ pre-reviewers (i.e., the “taint team” or “filter team”), before they are handed over to the investigative team.