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FBI releases Bill Clinton closed case files days before vote

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Agence France-Presse

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="http://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/news-special1/world/11/2/110216_bil.jpg"/><figcaption><div class="embed-desc">Former U.S. president Bill Clinton campaigns on behalf of his wife, Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, at Montgomery County Community College in Pennsylvania.<em> Reuters</em></div></figcaption></figure></div><p>WASHINGTON - The FBI has unexpectedly released documents concerning ex-president Bill Clinton&#x27;s pardon of the husband of a wealthy Democratic donor, in a surprise move just days before the election in which his wife is seeking to become America&#x27;s first female president.</p><p>The release of the heavily redacted 129-page report over the pardon of trader Marc Rich -- an investigation that closed in 2005 without charges -- triggered questions from Democrats already angered by the FBI&#x27;s probe into hundreds of thousands of newly uncovered emails possibly linked to Hillary Clinton.</p><p>While the Rich documents were published online Monday, they received little notice until they were posted on Tuesday on a Twitter account for the Federal Bureau of Investigation&#x27;s division managing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests that had had no posts since a year ago, except for a small handful released simultaneously on Sunday.</p><p>&quot;Absent a FOIA litigation deadline, this is odd,&quot; asked Hillary Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon.</p><p>&quot;Will FBI be posting docs on Trump&#x27;s housing discrimination in &#x27;70s?&quot; he added, referring to Clinton&#x27;s Republican rival Donald Trump, a billionaire real estate magnate.</p><p>The FBI said the documents were posted shortly after they were processed, as with FOIA materials requested three or more times.</p><p>&quot;Per the standard procedure for FOIA, these materials became available for release and were posted automatically and electronically to the FBI&#x27;s public reading room in accordance with the law and established procedures,&quot; the statement said.</p><p>The FBI indicated that this was only a &quot;preliminary&quot; release that could therefore be followed by more.</p><p>Rich was indicted on federal charges of tax evasion in the United States. He was a fugitive from the Department of Justice -- at a time one of the FBI&#x27;s most wanted -- living in exile in Switzerland at the time of his indictment. He died there in 2013.</p><p>In a controversial move, Bill Clinton pardoned him on his last day in office on January 20, 2001. The FBI opened its investigation into the pardon later that year.</p><p>Rich&#x27;s ex-wife Denise Eisenberg Rich, whose name was redacted from the FBI files, &quot;has been a major political donor to the Democratic Party, and these donations may have been intended to influence the fugitive&#x27;s pardon,&quot; reads a bureau note requesting that a preliminary investigation be opened.</p><p>Some of the donations went to the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation, the predecessor to the Clinton Foundation, according to the document.</p><p>&quot;It appears that the required pardon standards and procedures were not followed,&quot; reads the FBI document dated February 15, 2001.</p><p>The Rich case fell under the watch of current FBI Director James Comey, then a younger prosecutor.</p><p>The FBI document dump comes as Comey is under fire, from both Democrats and some Republicans, for effectively reopening in recent days the bureau&#x27;s investigation into Hillary Clinton&#x27;s use of a private email server.</p><div><strong>seb-oh/dw</strong></div><div><strong>© 1994-2016 Agence France-Presse</strong></div>

<p>WASHINGTON - The FBI has unexpectedly released documents concerning ex-president Bill Clinton's pardon of the husband of a wealthy Democratic donor, in a surprise move just days before the election in which his wife is seeking to become America's first female president.</p>

WASHINGTON - The FBI has unexpectedly released documents concerning ex-president Bill Clinton's pardon of the husband of a wealthy Democratic donor, in a surprise move just days before the election in which his wife is seeking to become America's first female president.