(Credit: Mark Reinstein/Shutterstock.com)
Justice Department officials tied to special counsel Jack Smith’s team have been linked to the blocking of an FBI inquiry into the Clinton campaign’s 2016 funding of the Steele Dossier, with this being just the latest revelation about Smith as the Trump Justice Department builds a grand conspiracy case alleging years of anti-Trump lawfare.
Emails released Thursday appear to show the officials shut down a potential FBI investigation tied to possible campaign finance violations carried out by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign when it used cutouts to fund the opposition research firm Fusion GPS and British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s anti-Trump dossier. Two officials tied to Smith’s anti-Trump investigation were linked to the decision by the FBI not to pursue the alleged campaign finance wrongdoing by Clinton’s campaign.
The decision by the Trump DOJ and FBI to open a probe that treats the last decade of political weaponization of law enforcement and intelligence agencies as an ongoing criminal conspiracy will likely be aided by the wave of recently-released information obtained by congressional investigators.
J.P. Cooney (Credit: LinkedIn)
(…) Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias hired the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which in turn hired Steele in 2016. Elias has testified he was aware of Fusion’s plans to have Steele brief reporters on his anti-Trump research during the 2016 contest, met with Steele during the 2016 contest and periodically briefed the campaign about the findings from Fusion and Steele.
Special Counsel John Durham said members of the Clinton campaign, Fusion GPS and Perkins Coie all played a coordinated role in pushing collusion claims and that Elias was part of the “joint venture” in 2016.
The FBI would pass on a criminal investigation into the campaign finance angle – and new records appear to show why.
Richard Pilger (Credit: public domain)
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Thursday that “the decision to decline the investigation” into the Clinton campaign and the DNC was made by Richard Pilger, then a leader in the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, and by J.P. Cooney, who was working at the time within the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.
Grassley noted that Pilger “was later pivotal in reviewing and approving the opening of Smith’s Arctic Frost investigation” while Cooney “served as Smith’s Deputy Special Counsel for that investigation.” Pilger had previously been tied to Smith’s involvement with the Lerner saga years before. (Read more: Just the News, 11/13/2025) (Archive)