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Published October 31, 2019

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Clinton-Obama emails sought by Sen. Ron

Johnson amid Dems' impeachment inquiry

By Gregg Re | Fox News

 Continue Reading Below

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee

Chairman Ron Johnson on Thursday formally sought "all email
communications" between Hillary Clinton and former President Obama,
saying the Justice Department was blocking their release -- even though they
could shed light on whether the former secretary of state discussed sensitive
matters on her unsecured personal email system while she was overseas.
Johnson's letter came as House Democrats approved procedures for their
impeachment inquiry against President Trump, warning he may have
endangered U.S. national security by allegedly withholding aid to Ukraine for
political reasons. Earlier this month, a State Department report into Clinton's
use of a private email server for government business found dozens of
people at fault and hundreds of security violations.
In a letter to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Johnson,
R-Wis., said summer 2016 communications from FBI Special Agent Peter
Strzok to FBI Director James Comey’s Chief of Staff James Rybicki hinted at
the existence of the Clinton-Obama messages that were relevant to the
issues raised by her private server.
READ JOHNSON'S FULL LETTER
Johnson noted that on June 28, 2016, a week before Comey’s public
statement declaring that "no reasonable prosecutor" would charge Clinton,
Strzok wrote, "Jim – I have the POTUS – HRC emails [Director Comey]
requested at end of briefing yesterday. I hesitate to leave them, please let
me know a convenient time to drop them off."

Continue Reading Below

"I write to request email communications between former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton and President Obama," Johnson wrote, setting a deadline of
Nov. 14, 2019. "In January 2018, I requested the Department of Justice (DOJ)
produce emails Secretary Clinton sent to President Obama while she was
located in the 'territory of a sophisticated adversary.'"

He added: "Given that DOJ acknowledged that they 'are not in a position' to
produce emails to the committee that contain 'equities of other executive
branch entities,' I ask that, pursuant to the Presidential Records Act, you
please provide all email communications between Secretary Clinton and
President Obama."

ATTEMPT TO HACK CLINTON SERVER STUNNED AIDE IN MIDDLE OF

THE NIGHT: 'OMG'
A May 2016 email from Strzok, obtained by Fox News last year, said "we
know foreign actors obtained access" to some Clinton emails, including at
least one "secret" message "via compromises of the private email accounts"
of Clinton staffers. However, last year, the DOJ watchdog slammed
Comey for speculating publicly that Clinton's emails had been hacked by
foreign actors.
Interviews with intelligence community officials released this past
August indicated that senior FBI leaders "seemed indifferent to evidence of
a possible intrusion by a foreign adversary" into Clinton’s non-government
email server, and that State Department officials allegedly sought to
"downgrade classified material found on the server," according to Senate
investigators probing the matter.
GOP REVEALS NEW STRZOK TEXTS ON 'CRESCENDO OF LEAKS'
The information was contained in a letter and interview transcripts sent by
the majority staff on Johnson's Homeland Security Committee to senior
Senate Republicans including Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley,
R-Iowa. The letter also noted that "neither the committees nor the FBI were
able to confirm whether an intrusion into the server occurred."
FBI 'INDIFFERENT' TO POSSIBLE CHINESE HACK OF CLINTON EMAILS,
TRANSCRIPTS SHOW
Many Clinton emails already have been released. A batch of unearthed,
heavily redacted and classified emails from Clinton's personal email server,
published this past March, revealed that the former secretary of state
discussed establishing a "private, 100% off-the-record" back channel to
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and that one of her top
aides warned her she was in "danger" of being "savaged by Jewish
organizations, in the Jewish press and among the phalanx of neoconservative
media" as a result of political machinations by "Bibi and the Jewish
leadership."
The 756-page group of documents, revealed as part of a transparency
lawsuit by Judicial Watch, seemingly contradicted Clinton's insistence under
oath in 2015 that she had turned over all of her sensitive work-related emails
to the State Department, and included a slew of classified communications
on everything from foreign policy to State Department personnel matters.
The files came from a trove of 72,000 documents the FBI recovered and
turned over to the State Department in 2017.

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Additionally, according to the email dump, Clinton chatted with former U.K.
Prime Minister Tony Blair about classified foreign policy matters before she
was sworn in, aided the application of at least one State Department
applicant who was connected to her daughter, Chelsea, and apparently met
with Putin-aligned Georgian oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili before he became
prime minister on a staunchly pro-Russian platform -- and with reported help
from a Russian interference operation.
Ivanishvili notably did not criticize Putin during his campaign, despite Putin's
invasion of Georgia years earlier -- and in 2012, Ivanishvili made
headlines for refusing to meet with Clinton unless it was a one-on-one
sitdown.
Fox News' Jason Donner contributed to this report.
Gregg Re is a lawyer and editor based in Los Angeles. Follow him on
Twitter @gregg_re or email him at gregory.re@foxnews.com