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To: GPS Info who wrote (122878)10/12/2016 6:30:57 PM
From: Pogeu Mahone  Respond to of 219466
 
Recalling Hillary Clinton’s claim of ‘landing under sniper fire’ in Bosnia

By Glenn Kessler May 23

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Hillary Clinton's 1996 arrival in Bosnia
Play Video2:22

In a 2008 speech in Iraq, Hillary Clinton said she landed in Bosnia under heavy fire. But video of the landing shows otherwise. (AP)

One of our all-time great fact checks was The Fact Checker’s March 21, 2008, report on Hillary Clinton’s false claim that she arrived in Bosnia “under sniper fire.” The article, written by our former colleague Michael Dobbs, was quickly followed by CBS News, PolitiFact and others — and ultimately became a defining moment in the 2008 campaign for the former first lady. The incident even earns a mention in a recent attack ad from the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Readers constantly ask us about Clinton’s Bosnia tale, and ask whether we will fact check it. As noted, The Fact Checker did so eight years ago. But the original version now appears on the web in very small type, so here it is again. We have also included new material on what happened next.

***

“I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

–Hillary Clinton, speech at George Washington University, March 17, 2008

Hillary Clinton has been regaling supporters on the campaign trail with hair-raising tales of a trip she made to Bosnia in March 1996. In her retelling, she was sent to places that her husband, President Bill Clinton, could not go because they were “too dangerous.” When her account was challenged by one of her traveling companions, the comedian Sinbad, she upped the ante and injected even more drama into the story. In a speech earlier this week, she talked about “landing under sniper fire” and running for safety with “our heads down.”

There are numerous problems with Clinton’s version of events.

The FactsAs a reporter who visited Bosnia soon after the December 1995 Dayton Peace agreement, I can attest that the physical risks were minimal during this period, particularly at a heavily fortified U.S. Air Force base, such as Tuzla. Contrary to the claims of Hillary Clinton and former Army secretary Togo West, Bosnia was not “too dangerous” a place for President Clinton to visit in early 1996. In fact, the first Clinton to visit the Tuzla Air Force base was not Hillary, but Bill, on Jan. 13, 1996.

Had Hillary Clinton’s plane come “under sniper fire” in March 1996, we would certainly have heard about it long before now. Numerous reporters, including The Washington Post’s John Pomfret, covered her trip. A review of nearly 100 news accounts of her visit shows that not a single newspaper or television station reported any security threat to the first lady. “As a former AP wire service hack, I can safely say that it would have been in my lead had anything like that happened,” said Pomfret.

According to Pomfret, the Tuzla airport was “one of the safest places in Bosnia” in March 1996, and “firmly under the control” of the 1st Armored Division.

Far from running to an airport building with their heads down, Clinton and her party were greeted on the tarmac by smiling U.S. and Bosnian officials. An 8-year-old Muslim girl, Emina Bicakcic, read a poem in English. An Associated Press photograph of the greeting ceremony, above, shows a smiling Clinton bending down to receive a kiss.

“There is peace now,” Emina told Clinton, according to Pomfret’s report in The Washington Post the following day, “because Mr. Clinton signed it. All this peace. I love it.”

The first lady’s schedule, released on Wednesday and available here, confirms that she arrived in Tuzla at 8:45 a.m. and was greeted by various dignitaries, including Emina Bicakcic, (whose name has mysteriously been redacted from the document.)

You can see CBS News footage of the arrival ceremony below. The footage shows Clinton walking calmly out of the back of the C-17 military transport plane that brought her from Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany.

Among the U.S. officials on hand to greet Clinton at the airport was Maj. Gen. William Nash, commander of U.S. troops in Bosnia. Nash told me that he was unaware of any security threat to Clinton during her eight-hour stay in Tuzla. He said, however, that Clinton had a “busy schedule” and may have got the impression that she was being hurried on her way. (See clarification below.)

According to Sinbad, who provided entertainment on the trip along with the singer Sheryl Crow, the “scariest” part was deciding where to eat. As he told Mary Ann Akers of The Post, “I think the only ‘red-phone’ moment was: ‘Do we eat here or at the next place.'” Sinbad questioned the premise behind the Clinton version of events. “What kind of president would say ‘Hey man, I can’t go ’cause I might get shot so I’m going to send my wife. Oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.”

Replying to Sinbad earlier this week, Clinton dismissed him as “ a comedian.” Her campaign referred me to Togo West, who was also on the trip and is a staunch Hillary supporter. West could not remember “sniper fire” himself, but said there was no reason to doubt the first lady’s version of events. “Everybody’s perceptions are different,” he told me.

Clinton made no mention of “sniper fire” in her autobiography “Living History,” published in 2003, although she did say there were “reports of snipers” in the hills around the airport.

UPDATE: March 21, 6:45 p.m.

Lissa Muscatine, who served as Hilary Clinton’s chief speechwriter in 1996 and accompanied her on the Bosnia trip, feels that I have failed to provide a full picture of what took place. She gave me her “vivid recollections” of the arrival in Tuzla, which I quote below:

I was on the plane with then First Lady Hillary Clinton for the trip from Germany into Bosnia in 1996. We were put on a C-17 — a plane capable of steep ascents and descents — precisely because we were flying into what was considered a combat zone. We were issued flak jackets for the final leg because of possible sniper fire near Tuzla. As an additional precaution, the First Lady and Chelsea were moved to the armored cockpit for the descent into Tuzla. We were told that a welcoming ceremony on the tarmac might be canceled because of sniper fire in the hills surrounding the air strip. From Tuzla, Hillary flew to two outposts in Bosnia with gunships escorting her helicopter.

UPDATE: March 22, 8:45 a.m.

Gen. Nash says that I misquoted him in saying he was unaware of any “security threat” to the first lady. While he was unaware of any “sniper threat,” he now tells me there were a couple of “security concerns” that day, which he found out about after returning to his headquarters after greeting Clinton at the airport. There was a “non-specific report” of a possible truck bomb in the area. The military also had information that “some of the communications associated with the First Lady’s visit were being monitored.”

“In both cases, we took appropriate security action,” said Nash, adding that Clinton’s visit was not disrupted.

The Pinocchio TestClinton’s tale of landing at Tuzla airport “under sniper fire” and then running for cover is simply not credible. Photographs and video of the arrival ceremony, combined with contemporaneous news reports, tell a very different story. Four Pinocchios.

Four Pinocchios



( About our rating scale)



***

AftermathMichael Dobbs’s Four Pinocchio ruling – and the attention paid to Clinton’s false recounting – ultimately led her campaign to concede that “it is possible in the most recent instance in which she discussed this that she misspoke in regard to the exit from the plane.” But officials continued to insist that she was “going to a potential combat zone” – even though the war had ended three months earlier.

Finally, in an effort to put the controversy behind her, Clinton told the Philadelphia Daily News:

“Now let me tell you what I can remember, OK — because what I was told was that we had to land a certain way and move quickly because of the threat of sniper fire. So I misspoke — I didn’t say that in my book or other times but if I said something that made it seem as though there was actual fire — that’s not what I was told. I was told we had to land a certain way, we had to have our bulletproof stuff on because of the threat of sniper fire. I was also told that the greeting ceremony had been moved away from the tarmac but that there was this 8-year-old girl and, I can’t, I can’t rush by her, I’ve got to at least greet her — so I greeted her, I took her stuff and then I left, now that’s my memory of it.”

Over time, the incident became etched in the minds of Clinton’s detractors, which is why it resonates today.

There is one interesting update to the episode. Former ambassador Christopher R. Hill, who accompanied Clinton on the trip, published a memoir in 2014, “ Outpost,” in which he recounted that just before landing in Bosnia, the staff and reporters received an unusually intense briefing about the security situation. Hill’s account does not necessarily excuse Clinton’s false statement, but it is an example of how memories can be forged in unexpected ways. Here’s what he wrote on pages 114-115:

[During the landing at Tuzla], I ventured over to listen to a member of the security detail briefing the first lady and her team on the situation we would likely encounter on the ground. As she did for every briefing she received, she listened attentively, glancing at her reading material as he talked and talked.

I found myself almost rolling my eyes as the briefer went on and on about the possibility of snipers and what the plan of action would be (essentially, making a beeline to the armored vehicles parked nearby). As the briefing continued for what seemed like half an hour, one of the journalists, a little worried, asked me if it was going to be that dangerous.

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I explained I was not going to contradict the briefer, but, whispering, I told him I seriously doubted we would encounter any such threat. For heaven’s sake, I explained, it was a U.S. military base with thousands of troops, where there had not been a single such incident in the three months they had set up camp. He was relieved, but those more attentively listening to the briefer were not, as they contemplated that soon they could be running for their lives across an open tarmac a la “sniper alley” in Sarajevo.

There were of course no snipers, and as the nervous passengers exited from the rear of the aircraft off an enormous steel ramp that could handle tanks and other tactical vehicles, we were greeted by a group of Bosnian children in colorful native dress. Hope none of them is a sniper, I thought. They presented Mrs. Clinton with bright bouquets of spring flowers that were quickly gathered up by aides while the first lady patted the children on the head … The visit seemed over before it began by the time we made our way back to the airstrip and boarded the C-17 for the flight to Germany. But the threat of snipers seemed to be all most people could remember.



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Hillary Clinton
Democratic presidential candidate


"I remember landing under sniper fire."
in a speech – Monday, March 17, 2008
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To: GPS Info who wrote (122878)10/12/2016 6:38:35 PM
From: Pogeu Mahone  Respond to of 219466
 
Another reasonable case:

Chelsea Clinton was jogging around the World Trade Center on 9/11.Hillary told NBC’s “Dateline” that on Sept. 11, 2001 her daughter Chelsea Clinton was out jogging and getting a cup of coffee right near the World Trade Center, while the first plane hit. Years later, Chelsea wrote a firsthand account in Talk Magazine claiming that she was watching TV in a friend's apartment as the planes hit. This lie is a smack in the face to all parents out there who had children whom were in actual danger on that horrible day. Hillary Clinton tried to capitalize on the 9/11 terrorist attacks and use it to her political advantage. That is disgraceful.



To: GPS Info who wrote (122878)10/12/2016 6:42:07 PM
From: Pogeu Mahone  Respond to of 219466
 
Another reasonable case Hillary is a liar!
Her and Bill were dead broke upon leaving the White House.Upon an interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer, Hillary Clinton made a claim that she and her husband were broke after leaving the White House. “You have no reason to remember, [but] we came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt,” she said to Sawyer. “We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to piece together the resources for mortgages for houses, for Chelsea’s education. It was not easy. Bill has worked really hard. And it’s been amazing to me. He’s worked really hard.”

According to The Washington Post, Bill Clinton has made $104.9 million between January 2001, when he left the White House and January 2013, when Hillary stepped down from Secretary of State. Hillary Clinton tried painting a picture in the American people's minds that she somehow can relate to everyday, middle-class struggles.

Upon her claim being exposed as a lie, Hillary publicly stated she regrets saying it and also said, “At least I pay my taxes!” Yes, the woman who claims she will topple the top 1 percent is worth millions…and lied about it.



To: GPS Info who wrote (122878)10/12/2016 6:44:14 PM
From: Pogeu Mahone  Respond to of 219466
 
Another reasonable case that Hillary is a liar:

The Benghazi terrorist attacks were due to an anti-Islam YouTube video.Four Americans died in Benghazi, Libya following a terrorist attack on our nation's embassy. According to those four families, Hillary Clinton told them those attacks were due to an anti-Islam YouTube video. She explicitly blamed the attacks on the film and promised the families she would go after the creators of this video. However, Hillary’s own emails and notes suggest that at that time she knew these attacks were a planned terrorist attack and not due to some video.

Hillary sent an email to Chelsea Clinton the night of the attack saying it was carried out by an “Al-Qaeda-like [sic] group.” Also, according to notes from a phone call that Clinton had with the Egyptian Prime minister the next day, she acknowledged, “We know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack. Not a protest.”
So which party is lying? Either the families of the deceased are and Hillary never told them the attacks were due to a video or Hillary is and she also lied to the families.

Well, she was asked this question in an interview with ABC and she vigorously defended that she is not the liar. Looking at her track record, only an idiot living in an alternate reality could think Hillary is telling the truth. What incentive would these four families have to accuse Hillary of lying? Not only did Hillary lie to four families whose loved ones died in a terrorist attack but she then tried to paint them as the bad guys.



To: GPS Info who wrote (122878)10/12/2016 6:54:37 PM
From: Pogeu Mahone  Respond to of 219466
 
Yet Another reasonable case Hillary is a liar:

Her private email was used for personal use only and contained no classified information.As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton conducted government business over her private email. What made his exceptionally unusual was that she not only used a private email but her own server. Usually somebody would use a server such as Yahoo or Google. Hillary made her own in her basement.

At the beginning of the email controversy she claimed that her private email on her private server was used only for personal use. Investigations by the Intelligence Community Inspector General prove otherwise. According to a letter written by him to Congress, emails on Hillary Clinton’s home server contained classified information on levels higher than previously thought, including a level meant to protect the most sensitive of U.S intelligence.

He said, “Several dozen emails containing classified information determined by the IC element to be at the CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, and TOP SECRET/SAP information.” Hillary tried to pull one over on the American people by claiming that she is correct by saying nothing was labeled “classified.” We aren’t stupid, whether it was labeled classified, confidential, secret or top secret, doesn't matter. She still created her own email server to conduct government business and had information on there that shouldn’t have been.



To: GPS Info who wrote (122878)10/12/2016 7:01:56 PM
From: Pogeu Mahone  Respond to of 219466
 
Pantsuit on fire.
Another reasonable case that Hillary is a liar:


Hillary Clinton's wrong claim that FBI director Comey called her comments about email 'truthful'By Lauren Carroll on Monday, August 1st, 2016 at 6:00 p.m.

Hillary Clinton claimed that FBI director Comey said her comments regarding her email use were 'truthful.' Pants on Fire!
Hillary Clinton said that she has told the public a consistent and truthful story about classified material on her emails, and FBI director James Comey backed her up. That immediately caught our attention.

On the July 31 edition of Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace played a video montage of several times Clinton said something like: "I am confident that I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time."

Wallace remarked, "After a long investigation, FBI director James Comey said none of those things that you told the American public were true."

That’s not what Clinton heard Comey say, she responded.

"Director Comey said my answers were truthful, and what I've said is consistent with what I have told the American people, that there were decisions discussed and made to classify retroactively certain of the emails," she said.

Clinton appears to have selective hearing.

In saying Comey called her answers "truthful," Clinton was apparently referring to — and putting a positive spin on — a comment Comey made in a July 7 congressional hearing regarding Clinton’s closed-door interview with the FBI as part of their investigation. Comey said, "We have no basis to conclude she lied to the FBI."

In her interview with Wallace, Clinton was making the point that what she told the public is consistent with what she told the FBI, and Comey said what she told the FBI was "truthful," campaign spokesman Josh Schwerin said.

So Clinton’s statement implies that Comey has confirmed that her public comments are accurate. That is incorrect.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, asked Comey at the July 7 congressional hearing, "Did she lie to the public?"

Comey responded, "That's a question I'm not qualified to answer."

He also said he hadn’t compared Clinton’s public comments with the FBI interview to see if there were inconsistencies. There is no transcript of the FBI interview.

When Comey announced the FBI’s findings July 5, it was clear that there are obvious inconsistencies between what Clinton said publicly about classified information on her private email server before her FBI interview and what the FBI found. Pointedly, Clinton said there wasn’t any classified information in her email, and he said there was.

Take the video Wallace played on Fox News Sunday. In it, Clinton said, "I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified materials" (March 10, 2015); "I am confident that I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time" (July 25, 2015); "I had not sent classified material nor received anything marked classified" (Aug. 18, 2015).

But Comey reported that, of the tens of thousands of emails investigators reviewed, 113 individual emails contained classified information, and three of them bore markings signifying their classification status. (Information can still be classified even if it does not have a label.) Eight email threads contained top-secret information, the highest level of classification, 36 contained secret information, and the remaining eight contained confidential information.

About 2,000 emails have been retroactively classified, or up-classified, meaning the information was not classified when it was emailed, but it is now.

"Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information," Comey said in a July 5 statement.

Then, there was this exchange between Comey and Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., at the congressional hearing:

Gowdy: "Secretary Clinton said there was nothing marked classified on her emails either sent or received. Was that true?"

Comey: "That’s not true."

Gowdy: "Secretary Clinton said, ‘I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material.’ Was that true?"

Comey: "There was classified material emailed."


In fairness to Clinton, Comey said some of the classified emails were insufficiently marked, and it’s understandable that she didn’t realize that some of the ones without labels were actually classified.

But he also said of some of the classified emails that did not bear markings, "There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton's position or in the position of those with whom she was corresponding about the matters should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation."

We’ll also note a couple other major inconsistencies between Clinton’s remarks and the FBI’s findings:

Clinton repeatedly said she turned over all work-related emails to the State Department in 2014, about 30,000 emails. However, Comey said FBI investigators uncovered "several thousand" work-related emails that she had not handed over to the State Department.

And, Clinton has said her email servers "had numerous safeguards. It was on property guarded by the Secret Service. And there were no security breaches."

Comey said that while there’s no evidence anyone successfully hacked Clinton’s email servers, they certainly were susceptible to attack. There was no full-time security staff, which are found at government agencies and commercial email providers like Google. Further, he noted that Clinton used her personal email abroad, which could have allowed "hostile actors" to access her account.


Our ruling

Clinton said regarding the presence of classified information in her email, FBI director James "Comey said my answers were truthful, and what I've said is consistent with what I have told the American people."

A reasonable person would interpret Clinton’s statement to mean that Comey has endorsed her public remarks about her email. This is not the case.

Talking specifically about Clinton’s closed-door FBI interview, Comey said there is "no basis to conclude she lied to the FBI" about her email practices. But Comey has specifically declined to comment on whether Clinton’s public remarks have been accurate.

Further, while not explicitly rebuking Clinton’s public comments, Comey highlighted a major problem with them.

Clinton repeatedly said she did not have any classified information whatsoever in her email, marked or unmarked. After the FBI investigation, including the interview with Clinton, Comey said she unequivocally did.

We rate her claim Pants on Fire.

Share The Facts

Hillary Clinton
Democratic presidential nominee


Says, regarding the presence of classified information in her email, FBI Director James "Comey said my answers were truthful, and what I've said is consistent with what I have told the American people."
on "Fox News Sunday" – Sunday, July 31, 2016
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About this statement:
Published: Monday, August 1st, 2016 at 6:00 p.m.

Researched by: Lauren Carroll

Edited by: Angie Drobnic Holan

Subjects: Candidate Biography

Sources:
Fox News Sunday, interview with Hillary Clinton, July 31, 2016

FBI, " Statement by FBI Director James B. Comey on the Investigation of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s Use of a Personal E-Mail System," July 5, 2016

CQ, "Hearing on FBI Recommendations on Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Email Server, Panel 1," July 7, 2016

PolitiFact, " PolitiFact Sheet: Hillary Clinton’s email controversy," July 19, 2016

PolitiFact, " FBI findings tear holes in Hillary Clinton's email defense," July 6, 2016

PolitiFact, " FBI investigation undermines Clinton email defense," July 5, 2016

Washington Post, " Clinton’s claim that the FBI director said her email answers were ‘truthful,’" July 31, 2016

Washington Post, " Clinton’s claims about receiving or sending ‘classified material’ on her private e-mail system," July 7, 2016

Phone interview, Clinton spokesman Josh Schwerin, August 1, 2016

How to contact us
Email comments and suggestions for fact-checks to truthometer@politifact.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. (If you send us a comment, we'll assume you don't mind us publishing it unless you tell us otherwise.)

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To: GPS Info who wrote (122878)10/12/2016 7:14:10 PM
From: Pogeu Mahone  Respond to of 219466
 
Another reasonable case Hillary is a liar:

The Few, The Proud, The Marines – Very recently, Clinton claimed to have been turned down by the Marines when she applied in 1975. Washington Post fact-checkers quickly realized the absurdity that a rising legal star at the time, and soon to be wife of Bill Clinton, would drop everything and ship off with the Marines. They gave her a couple of Pinocchios for her tall tale.

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To: GPS Info who wrote (122878)10/12/2016 8:24:10 PM
From: Pogeu Mahone2 Recommendations

Recommended By
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ggersh

  Respond to of 219466
 
The decision to let Hillary Clinton off the hook Corrupted Comey and the US attorney general.

FBI, DOJ roiled by Comey, Lynch decision to let Clinton slide by on emails, says insider

The decision to let Hillary Clinton off the hook for mishandling classified information has roiled the FBI and Department of Justice, with one person closely involved in the year-long probe telling FoxNews.com that career agents and attorneys on the case unanimously believed the Democratic presidential nominee should have been charged.

The source, who spoke to FoxNews.com on the condition of anonymity, said FBI Director James Comey’s dramatic July 5 announcement that he would not recommend to the Attorney General’s office that the former secretary of state be charged left members of the investigative team dismayed and disgusted. More than 100 FBI agents and analysts worked around the clock with six attorneys from the DOJ’s National Security Division, Counter Espionage Section, to investigate the case.

“No trial level attorney agreed, no agent working the case agreed, with the decision not to prosecute -- it was a top-down decision,” said the source, whose identity and role in the case has been verified by FoxNews.com.

A high-ranking FBI official told Fox News that while it might not have been a unanimous decision, “It was unanimous that we all wanted her [Clinton’s] security clearance yanked.”

“It is safe to say the vast majority felt she should be prosecuted,” the senior FBI official told Fox News. “We were floored while listening to the FBI briefing because Comey laid it all out, and then said ‘but we are doing nothing,’ which made no sense to us.”

Andrew Napolitano, former judge and senior judicial analyst for Fox News Channel, said many law enforcement agents involved with the Clinton email investigation have similar beliefs.


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“It is well known that the FBI agents on the ground, the human beings who did the investigative work, had built an extremely strong case against Hillary Clinton and were furious when the case did not move forward,” said Napolitano. “They believe the decision not to prosecute came from The White House.”

The claim also is backed up by a report in the New York Post this week, which quotes a number of veteran FBI agents saying FBI Director James Comey “has permanently damaged the bureau’s reputation for uncompromising investigations with his cowardly whitewash of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information using an unauthorized private email server.”

“The FBI has politicized itself, and its reputation will suffer for a long time. I hold Director Comey responsible,” Dennis V. Hughes, the first chief of the FBI’s computer investigations unit, told the Post. Retired FBI agent Michael M. Biasello added to the report, saying, “Comey has singlehandedly ruined the reputation of the organization.”

Especially angering the team, which painstakingly pieced together deleted emails and interviewed witnesses to prove that sensitive information was left unprotected, was the fact that Comey based his decision on a conclusion that a recommendation to charge would not be followed by DOJ prosecutors, even though the bureau’s role was merely to advise, Fox News was told.

“Basically, James Comey hijacked the DOJ’s role by saying ‘no reasonable prosecutor would bring this case,’” the Fox News source said. “The FBI does not decide who to prosecute and when, that is the sole province of a prosecutor -- that never happens.

“I know zero prosecutors in the DOJ’s National Security Division who would not have taken the case to a grand jury,” the source added. “One was never even convened.”

Napolitano agreed, saying the FBI investigation was hampered from the beginning, because there was no grand jury, and no search warrants or subpoenas issued.

“The FBI could not seize anything related to the investigation, only request things. As an example, in order to get the laptop, they had to agree to grant immunity,” Napolitano said.

In early 2015, it was revealed that Clinton had used a private email server in her Chappaqua, N.Y., home to conduct government business while serving from 2009-2013. The emails on the private server included thousands of messages that would later be marked classified by the State Department retroactively. Federal law makes it a crime for a government employee to possess classified information in an unsecure manner, and the relevant statute does not require a finding of intent.

Although Comey found that Clinton was “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,” he said “no charges are appropriate in this case.”

Well before Comey’s announcement, which came days after Bill Clinton met in secret with Comey’s boss, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, there were signs the investigation would go nowhere, the source told FoxNews.com. One was the fact that the FBI forced its agents and analysts involved in the case to sign non-disclosure agreements.

“This is unheard of, because of the stifling nature it has on the investigative process,” the source said.

Another oddity was the five so-called immunity agreements granted to Clinton’s State Department aides and IT experts.

Cheryl Mills, Clinton's former chief of staff, along with two other State Department staffers, John Bentel and Heather Samuelson, were afforded immunity agreements, as was Bryan Pagliano, Clinton's former IT aide, and Paul Combetta, an employee at Platte River networks, the firm hired to manage her server after she left the State Department.

As Fox News has reported, Combetta utilized the computer program “Bleachbit” to destroy Clinton’s records, despite an order from Congress to preserve them, and Samuelson also destroyed Clinton’s emails. Pagliano established the system that illegally transferred classified and top secret information to Clinton’s private server. Mills disclosed classified information to the Clinton’s family foundation in the process, breaking federal laws.

None should have been granted immunity if no charges were being brought, the source said.

“[Immunity] is issued because you know someone possesses evidence you need to charge the target, and you almost always know what it is they possess,” the source said. “That's why you give immunity.”

Mills and Samuelson also received immunity for what was found on their computers, which were then destroyed as a part of negotiations with the FBI.

“Mills and Samuelson receiving immunity with the agreement their laptops would be destroyed by the FBI afterwards is, in itself, illegal,” the source said. “We know those laptops contained classified information. That's also illegal, and they got a pass.”

Mills’ dual role as Clinton’s attorney and a witness in her own right should never have been tolerated either.

“Mills was allowed to sit in on the interview of Clinton as her lawyer. That's absurd. Someone who is supposedly cooperating against the target of an investigation [being] permitted to sit by the target as counsel violates any semblance of ethical responsibility,” the source said.

“Every agent and attorney I have spoken to is embarrassed and has lost total respect for James Comey and Loretta Lynch,” the source said. “The bar for DOJ is whether the evidence supports a case for charges -- it did here. It should have been taken to the grand jury.”

Also infuriating agents, the New York Post reported, was the fact that Clinton’s interview spanned just 3½ hours with no follow-up questioning, despite her “40 bouts of amnesia,” and then, three days later, Comey cleared her of criminal wrongdoing.

Many FBI and DOJ staffers believe Comey and Lynch were motivated by ambition, and not justice, the source said.

“Loretta Lynch simply wants to stay on as Attorney General under Clinton, so there is no way she would indict,” the source said. “James Comey thought his position [excoriating Clinton even as he let her off the hook] gave himself cover to remain on as director regardless of who wins.”

The decision by Comey and Lynch not to prosecute has renewed FBI agents’ belief that the agency should be autonomous.

“This is why so many agents believe the FBI needs to be an entity by itself to truly be effective,” the senior FBI official told Fox News. “We all feel very strongly about it -- and the need to be objective. But that truly cannot be done when the AG is appointed by a president and attends daily briefings.”

Adding to the controversy, WikiLeaks released internal Clinton communication records this week that show the Department of Justice kept Clinton’s campaign and her staff informed about the progress of its investigation.

Leaked emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s gmail account show the Clinton campaign was contacted by the DOJ on May 19, 2015.

“DOJ folks inform me there is a status hearing in this case this morning, so we could have a window into the judge’s thinking about this proposed production schedule as quickly as today,” Clinton press secretary Brian Fallon wrote in relation to the email documentation the State Department would be required to turn over to the Justice Department.

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, who previously served in the U.S. Treasury Department in the Office of Chief Counsel for the IRS, where he was responsible for litigation in the U.S. Tax Court, said it was clear from the start that the FBI never intended to prosecute.

“This was a fake, false investigation from the outset,” Sekulow said.

Adam Housley joined Fox News Channel (FNC) in 2001 and currently serves as a Los Angeles-based senior correspondent.