Emails reveal FBI focused on leak of Clinton-Lynch tarmac meeting

by WorldTribune Staff, December 3, 2017

The nation’s top law enforcement agencies were less concerned about the secret 2016 meeting in Phoenix between former President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch than the fact the American public learned it had happened.

Documents obtained by a government watchdog group show the FBI went to great lengths to ferret out a whistleblower who revealed the 2016 airport tarmac meeting between then-Attorney General Lynch and Clinton, whose wife was running for president and was also the subject of a federal investigation.

Bill Clinton met with Loretta Lynch on a parked plane at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on June 27, 2016.

One of the emails obtained by Judicial Watch, sent from an unidentified FBI account on July 3, 2016, said: “We need to find that guy” to bring before a supervisor. Another said the source of the leak should be banned from working security details.

The FBI had initially claimed it had no documents pertaining to the meeting, until uncovering the files later turned over to Judicial Watch.

“These new FBI documents show the FBI was more concerned about a whistleblower who told the truth about the infamous Clinton-Lynch tarmac meeting than the scandalous meeting itself,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said.

When news of the meeting was first leaked to New York’s Observer, it touched off a flurry of activity within the FBI to track down the source.

Officials speculated that the source of the leak was a Phoenix police officer. One official said they contacted the Phoenix office and would try to “stem any further damage.”

One official, in a July 2 email, said the leak represented a “breach in security protocol” and the Phoenix division would be pressured to “identify the source of the breach.”

Judicial Watch said all names on the emails were redacted and there is no documentation showing concern over the Lynch-Clinton meeting itself.

Then-FBI Director James Comey, in Senate testimony, described the tarmac meeting as problematic. The tarmac meeting came days before Comey held a news conference informing the media that Hillary Clinton would not be charged for her mishandling of classified information.

Lynch later said she regretted meeting with Bill Clinton while Hillary was under federal criminal investigation. Lynch said the encounter “cast a shadow” on the public’s perception of a case that was bound to influence the presidential campaign.


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