ACLJ Forces FBI to Release Comey's Draft Memo Made Months Before Public Exoneration of Clinton

The ACLJ is pleased to announce another significant victory in our ongoing effort to provide government accountability, mitigate the damage done by deep state Obama holdovers, and ensure the truth about the Clinton investigation comes to light. We just received a letter from the FBI notifying us that, in response to our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request it has begun publicly releasing records on its website. These records are making headlines.

The bombshell document – entitled on the FBI’s records Vault as “Drafts of Director Comeys July 5, 2016 Statement Regarding Email Server Investigation” – is a completely redacted draft copy of fired FBI Director James Comey’s statement exonerating Hillary Clinton from criminal liability.

The first email is from Comey to his Chief of Staff Jim Rybicki, his deputy Andrew McCabe, and FBI General Counsel James Baker, dated May 2, 2016, and contains the completely redacted draft statement. The second email is a follow-up to that email on May 16, 2016 from Comey’s Chief of Staff Rybicki to FBI officials Peter Strzok, Jonathan Moffa, FBI General Counsel James Baker, Trisha Anderson, E.W. Priestap, Andrew McCabe, and David Bowdich stating, “Please send me any comments on this statement so we may roll into a master doc for discussion with the Director at a future date.”

The FBI’s document dump also indicates that there are at least two other documents, one that has 18 pages “deleted” and another with 47 pages “deleted” due to claimed redactions.

These documents confirm what we knew all along – that Comey had been discussing his draft statement purportedly exonerating Hillary Clinton with senior FBI officials months before finally interviewing key witnesses and eventually delivering his statement to the public last July.

The FBI informed us that it expects to make subsequent productions in the same manner on a rolling basis on the first Friday of each month.

As we previously informed you, on September 5, 2017, we sent a series of FOIA requests seeking “records pertaining to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) investigation and decision not to pursue criminal charges against Hillary Rodham Clinton, as announced by former FBI Director, James Comey on July 5, 2016.”  You can see our FOIA request letter here.

By letter dated October 10, 2017, the FBI informed us that they had granted our request for expedited processing, finding that we had successfully demonstrated that our FOIA requests covered:

a matter of widespread and exceptional media attention in which there exists possible questions about the government’s integrity which affect public confidence.

We just received another letter from the FBI, dated October 16, 2017, informing us that they have begun posting records responsive to our requests on a publicly accessible website referred to as the “Vault.” 

Anyone will now be able to access these records. To do so, according to the FBI’s letter to the ACLJ, visit http://vault.fbi.gov, then:

On the right-hand side of the home page, under the heading vault Links' you can search for your subject alphabetically (click on "A·Z Index"), by category (click on 'Categories"), or by entering text into our search engine (click on 'Search Vault'). For records responsive to this request, please enter 'Drafts of Director Comeys July 5, 2016 Statement regarding Email Server Investigation' as the search term.

In a separate letter responsive to the same series of FOIA requests, dated October 12, 2017, regarding documents concerning the Hillary Clinton investigation, the FBI stated:

The available documents represent an interim release of information responsive to your FOIA request. Your request will remain open while monthly releases are placed on the Vault on or about the first Friday of each month. Please continue to monitor the Vault for material responsive to your request.

The FBI also indicated in this letter to the ACLJ that it will notify the ACLJ “when the final release on this subject [Clinton investigation] is posted and your request is closed.”

As more documents become available, we will let you know. We will determine whether we believe the FBI has complied with the law in what is publicizes as a result of the ACLJ’s FOIA requests – including spurious redactions. 

We can, and must, keep our government and the out of control deep state accountable. We will keep you posted on all these developments in our continual search for the truth. Follow our work, join our cause, and make your voice heard.