Hillary Clinton

Surprise, Surprise: The DOJ’s Hillary Clinton Investigation Has Been a Bust

After more than two years, an inquiry into the Clinton Foundation and Clinton’s tenure at State is nearly done—and there’s reportedly absolutely nothing to show for it.

By Alison Durkee

January 9, 2020

Hillary Clinton smiles while sitting at a table.

Back in 2017, buoyed by President Donald Trump’s calls for investigations into “Crooked Hillary & the Dems,” the Justice Department launched an inquiry into Hillary Clinton and Republicans' pet conspiracy theories about her and her career. Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions asked U.S. Attorney John Huber to look into concerns that the FBI hadn't fully pursued cases related to the Clinton Foundation, as well as Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, including the baseless “Uranium One” conspiracy theory championed by conservatives. Now, Huber is finally almost finished with his much-vaunted Clinton investigation—and, unsurprisingly, there isn't really anything to show for it.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that after continuing on for more than two years, Huber's investigation “has effectively ended with no tangible results.” After combing through documents and conferring with federal law enforcement officials looking into the Clinton Foundation in Little Rock, Arkansas, the Post reports that Huber has “found nothing worth pursuing,” let alone any criminal charges. The U.S. attorney has not yet officially reported any results to the Justice Department, however, and the inquiry is technically still ongoing. But officials cited by the Post say that Huber's years-long investigation has by this point “largely finished”—and with nothing to show for it.

Despite Republicans' long insistence on Clinton's wrongdoing—and Trump's favorite “lock her up” rallying cry—the fact that the Huber investigation has reportedly been a bust doesn't seem to come as much surprise to those inside the Justice Department itself. Senior Justice officials cited by the Post said that the investigation had largely been viewed as little more than a way to appease Trump and his Republican allies, and officials expected the inquiry was “unlikely to lead to anything of significance.” “We didn’t expect much of it, and neither did [Huber],” one source told the Post. “And as time went on, a lot of people just forgot about it.”

The news of the DOJ's fruitless investigation comes just a few months after the State Department completed its own investigation into Clinton's emails and use of a private server, which found that while 38 individuals did commit 91 security violations in emails sent to or from the private server, ultimately the server largely wasn't used for transmitting classified information. “While there were some instances of classified information being inappropriately introduced into an unclassified system in furtherance of expedience, by and large, the individuals interviewed were aware of security policies and did their best to implement them in their operations,” a report on the investigation said. “There was no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information.” Of course, Clinton being cleared of wrongdoing by Trump's own executive branch isn't about to stop the president from bashing Hillary nonetheless. (Never mind the fact that six of Trump's own associates have been convicted of crimes, or that private email use has reportedly been rampant throughout the Trump administration.) Less than an hour after the Post report came out, Trump was back on the campaign trail attacking Hillary, repeating his favorite 2016 talking points to a crowd of supporters—Clinton's innocence be damned. “Crooked Hillary—you should lock her up, I'll tell you,” Trump told supporters.