Bill Clinton And Lynch: A Legal Quandary?

In 2016, former US Attorney General Loretta Lynch met privately with former President Bill Clinton on her plane at Phoenix Airport. The meeting occurred the night before the release of a report into the 2012 Benghazi attack and Hillary Clinton's role in it. At the time, Lynch's Department of Justice was also investigating Hillary Clinton's handling of classified information sent through emails.

The meeting sparked controversy, with Republicans suggesting that Mr Clinton was seeking to influence the FBI investigation into his wife's use of a private email server. Lynch and Clinton have maintained that their meeting was unplanned and purely social. However, reports and testimonies suggest otherwise, and Lynch herself has said she felt uncomfortable as the meeting dragged on and on.

Bill Clinton's private meeting with Loretta Lynch

In June 2016, former US Attorney General Loretta Lynch met privately with former President Bill Clinton on her plane at Phoenix Airport. The meeting occurred the night before the release of a report into the 2012 Benghazi attack and Hillary Clinton's role in it. The meeting sparked controversy, with Republicans suggesting that Mr Clinton was seeking to influence the FBI investigation into his wife's use of a private email server.

At the time, Lynch's Department of Justice was investigating Hillary Clinton over her handling of classified information sent through emails. The meeting would later cement then-FBI Director James Comey's decision that he, and not Lynch, would be the person to publicly announce that Clinton would not face criminal charges.

Both Clinton and Lynch said they did not discuss the investigation into Hillary Clinton during the 20-30 minutes that they met. Lynch said she felt uncomfortable as the meeting dragged on, and that she had no prior knowledge that the meeting would occur. Clinton, on the other hand, seemed to be in the mood to chat and said he was surprised at the controversy the conversation created.

The meeting was also notable because orders were made that no photos be taken, and because a mystery person was with Clinton as he approached Lynch's plane.

The Benghazi report

The report found that the Obama administration failed to recognise the possibility of an attack, and that the military response was slow. It also revealed new details about the night of the attack, including that the US was slow to send help to the Americans in Benghazi because of an "obsession with hurting the Libyans' feelings".

The report did not lay blame at the feet of then-Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and Gowdy denied that Clinton was ever the target of the inquiry. However, two Republican members of the committee, Jim Jordan and Mike Pompeo, issued a supplementary report that was more critical of Clinton, saying that she and the Obama administration had told a different story in private to the one they told the public.

The report was the result of a two-year, $7 million investigation, which included interviews with more than 80 witnesses. It was fiercely partisan, and the White House accused Republicans of pursuing "wild conspiracy theories".

Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch Meeting

In June 2016, around the same time as the release of the Benghazi report, former President Bill Clinton met with then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch on her private plane. The meeting was controversial because it occurred during an ongoing criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton over her email scandal.

Clinton and Lynch both maintained that the meeting was unplanned and purely social, but the Inspector General's report suggests otherwise. According to the report, Clinton's Secret Service detail had contacted Lynch's FBI security detail to let them know that Clinton wanted to meet with Lynch. Lynch's staff members said they had no knowledge of the request and were surprised by Clinton's visit.

The content of their discussion was also disputed. Lynch said they talked about the day's news, Brexit, grandkids, West Virginia coal and golf. Clinton said he couldn't recall whether Brexit or West Virginia coal had come up, but that he probably did discuss them.

Bill Clinton and the Benghazi Report

Bill Clinton is not mentioned in the Benghazi report. However, the Benghazi attack occurred during Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, and she was questioned as part of the investigation.

The FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails

The FBI investigation found that Clinton used several different servers and administrators of those servers during her four years at the State Department, and used numerous mobile devices to view and send emails on that personal domain.

Clinton used a private email server for official public communications rather than using official State Department email accounts maintained on federal servers. A years-long FBI investigation determined that Clinton's server did not contain any information or emails that were clearly marked classified. However, federal agencies did retrospectively determine that 100 emails contained information that should have been deemed classified at the time they were sent, including 65 emails deemed "Secret" and 22 deemed "Top Secret". An additional 2,093 emails were retroactively designated confidential by the State Department.

Clinton's use of a private email system and a private server was deemed by some experts, officials, and members of Congress to have violated federal law, specifically 18 U.S. Code § 1924, regarding the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or materials, as well as State Department protocols and procedures, and regulations governing record-keeping.

Clinton claimed that her use complied with federal laws and State Department regulations, and that former secretaries of state had also maintained personal email accounts. However, Clinton was the only secretary of state to use a private server.

In July 2016, FBI Director James Comey announced that the FBI investigation had concluded that Clinton had been extremely careless but recommended that no charges be filed because Clinton did not act with criminal intent, the historical standard for pursuing prosecution.

In October 2016, FBI criminal investigators working on a case involving former Congressman Anthony Weiner discovered emails from Weiner's estranged wife, Huma Abedin, vice chair of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, that they considered potentially relevant to the Clinton server investigation. On October 28, Comey informed Congress that the FBI had learned of the existence of these emails and would take "appropriate investigative steps" to review them.

On July 5, 2016, Comey announced that the FBI had completed its investigation and was referring it to the Justice Department with the recommendation that no charges be brought against Clinton. He added that although there was evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, their judgement was that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.

On July 6, 2016, Attorney General Loretta Lynch confirmed that the investigation into Clinton's use of private email servers while Secretary of State would be closed without criminal charges.

Loretta Lynch's testimony

In 2018, Loretta Lynch testified behind closed doors for nearly seven hours before the House Judiciary and Oversight committees. The interview was part of a Republican-led investigation into the FBI's actions during 2016 in the Clinton and Russia FBI probes.

Lynch's testimony was scheduled the same week that former FBI Director James Comey concluded his testimony before the committees. Lynch and Comey were likely the last two witnesses that Republicans called in their investigation.

During her testimony, Lynch denied that her 2016 meeting with Bill Clinton involved the Hillary Clinton email controversy or any matters pertaining to it, saying the discussion instead involved personal social topics such as travel, golf, and grandchildren.

However, there were discrepancies in Lynch and Clinton's accounts of the meeting. While Lynch said they talked about Brexit and West Virginia, Clinton said he did not recall mentioning these topics.

Lynch's staff members also maintained that they had no knowledge of the request for Clinton to meet with Lynch and were surprised by the former President's visit. However, the Office of the Inspector General report stated that Clinton's Secret Service detail had contacted Lynch's FBI security detail to let them know that the former President wanted to meet with her.

Lynch's interview was less contentious than Comey's, and she did not raise objections to questions. However, Republicans pointed to her differences with Comey in the Clinton investigation and said there were still questions about her meeting with the former President.

Democrats, on the other hand, criticized Republicans for focusing on the meeting, which had already been examined by the Justice Department inspector general, and said there was nothing new to learn from Lynch's testimony.

The role of the media

The media played a significant role in the fallout from the meeting between Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch. The first media request about the Clinton-Lynch meeting was made by Mike Levine of ABC News, who contacted Melanie Newman, the Director of the Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs, on the same day as the meeting. Newman then forwarded the email to other members of the Department of Justice, including Carolyn Pokorny, the Deputy Chief of Staff and Counselor to Lynch, and Kevin Lewis, the Press Secretary for the Department of Justice to Lynch.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) then held a series of internal discussions, including conference calls, to prepare a response to the media. They also prepared talking points for Lynch to use in an upcoming press conference. Notably, Paige Herwig, who was at the time a Counselor to Lynch and is now the Deputy General Counsel to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, was involved in editing these talking points.

The DOJ's response to the media included providing transcripts of Lynch's press conferences and statements from these press conferences. They also repeatedly denied any wrongdoing or coordination between Clinton and Lynch, stating that the meeting was purely social and that no Justice Department business was discussed.

Despite the DOJ's efforts, the media continued to pursue the story, with various news outlets such as CBS News, Fox News, The Washington Post, USA Today, and The New Yorker contacting the DOJ for further comments and clarifications. The media also reported on the reactions of politicians and the public to the meeting, with outlets like CNN and The Independent covering the criticism from Republicans and Donald Trump.

The media attention and scrutiny surrounding the Clinton-Lynch meeting ultimately contributed to the decision by James Comey, the FBI Director at the time, to publicly announce that Hillary Clinton would not face criminal charges in the email investigation. Comey's decision was influenced by concerns about the appearance of impropriety and the potential for the investigation to be perceived as politically motivated.

In conclusion, the media played a crucial role in bringing attention to the Clinton-Lynch meeting, prompting responses from the DOJ and contributing to the decision-making process regarding the public announcement of the outcome of the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

Frequently asked questions