Hillary’s Campaign Complains About FBI Release of Marc Rich Pardongate Files

Now Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is complaining about the FBI’s release of records of the 15-year-old investigation into President Bill Clinton’s pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich. Politico Reports the FBI posted the 129 pages of heavily redacted records in its online Freedom of Information Act reading room in apparent response to a FOIA request seeking information on FBI inquiries into the Clinton Foundation. An FBI Twitter account flagged the new posting Tuesday:

William J. Clinton Foundation: This initial release consists of material from the FBI’s files related to the Will… https://t.co/Y4nz3aRSmG

— FBI Records Vault (@FBIRecordsVault) November 1, 2016

The Clinton campaign, which is extremely annoyed with FBI Director James Comey over his disclosure of the newly revealed emails that FBI Director James Comey told Congress appear pertinent to the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server while serving as Secretary of State new evidence in the Clinton email probe, immediately asked why Clinton-related records were being released just a week before the election:

“Absent a FOIA litigation deadline, this is odd. Will FBI be posting docs on Trump’s housing discrimination in ’70s?” Clinton press secretary Brian Fallon asked on Twitter.

Fallon’s tweet suggesting that records shouldn’t be released absent a litigation deadline tells you all you need to know about how transparent a second Clinton presidency would not be — as if we didn’t already know too well.

The released records are so heavily redacted they don’t appear to shed any significant new light on the probe into what became known as PardonGate. Only 8 of the 129 pages are left with anything useful to read after the redactions.

President Bill Clinton was roundly criticized for of his pardon, on the last day in office, of international fugitive Marc Rich, who had traded illegally with America’s enemies including Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran. A New York Times editorial called it “a shocking abuse of presidential power.” What bothered so many was that Bill Clinton’s Pardon Rich reeked of what today we call pay to play. Before the pardon was granted, the Rich’s ex-wife donated $450,000 to the Clinton Library and “over $1 million to Democratic campaigns in the Clinton era.”

Federal prosecutor Mary Jo White, then U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, was appointed to investigate the pardon of Marc Rich. She was later replaced by then-Republican James Comey, who of course, elected not to seek any charges in the case.

The New York Post contends that the pardon is still paying off big.

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