Disgraced FBI Official Defends Hillary Clinton’s Handling Of Classified Info: ‘It Was Simply Conversations’

Former Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Andrew McCabe claimed Monday that Hillary Clinton lacked “intentionality” when it came to her handling of classified material.

“Neither the IG or FBI was able to cover any evidence of intentionality, intention to remove material, intention to withhold material, intention to essentially converse in classified ways,” McCabe said on “CNN News Central.” “It was simply conversations — mostly it was information that was sent to Secretary Clinton while she was secretary and that she either responded to or received.”

An email server set up in Hillary Clinton’s Chappaqua home during her tenure as Secretary of State became the subject of a FBI investigation during the 2016 presidential campaign. Then-FBI Director James Comey announced Clinton would not face prosecution in a July 2016 press conference.

“What we had in the Clinton case was essentially 113 email conversations. This is of tens of thousands of emails reviewed, the 30,000 she handed over plus many thousands more we were able to recover. 113 emails over the course of 55 conversations, eight top secret documents, 37 secret – not documents, content that was judged to be at that level and 10 at the confidential level,” McCabe said.

“Important to note that none of that was actual documents bearing headers and footers and classified stamps and portion markings and all the sorts of things you expect to see,” McCabe continued. “It was simply content of conversations that implicated information that should have been classified at that level.”

McCabe was fired as deputy director of the FBI in 2018 following an inspector general’s report that accused him of lying about leaks to the media, but the firing was reversed in 2021 following a legal settlement.

Former President Donald Trump announced June 8 on Truth Social that his attorneys had been told he was being indicted as the result of an investigation into classified documents that were the subject of an Aug. 8 raid on Mar-a-Lago, the Florida estate he owns. The Justice Department unsealed the indictment June 9, which charged Trump on 37 counts in relation to retaining records, including making false statements and “conspiracy to obstruct justice.”

Republican presidential candidates, including Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, have criticized the indictment. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Republican Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana blasted the indictment on Twitter.

Over two-thirds of Republicans said the investigations into the former president are politically motivated, according to an NBC News poll.

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