The Department of Justice on Tuesday released portions of search warrant obtained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation after its agents found emails pertinent to the Hillary Clinton investigation during the Bureau’s Anthony Weiner probe. LawNewz.com obtained a copy of the warrant and posted a copy below.
As LawNewz.com reported on Monday, a federal judge ordered the release of the materials after high-profile, Los Angeles attorney E. Randol Schoenberg filed a Freedom of Information Act that demanded the release of the materials.
“I see nothing at all in the search warrant application that would give rise to probable cause, nothing that would make anyone suspect that there was anything on the laptop beyond what the FBI had already searched and determined not to be evidence of a crime, nothing to suggest that there would be anything other than routine correspondence between Secretary Clinton and her longtime aide Huma Abedin,” Schoenberg said in an email response to LawNewz.com after reviewing the warrant.
Here are some of the highlights of the heavily redacted FBI Agent’s Search Warrant’s Application:
- In the process of searching the computer belonging to an unidentified individual (reported in the media to Anthony Weiner and called “Subject Laptop” in the affidavit, agents “observed non-content header information indicating thousands of emails (redacted) resided on the Subject Laptop.”
- The non-content header information indicated the Subject Laptop included “emails sent and/or received by (redacted) and at a (redacted) email account appearing to belong to (redacted) as well as correspondence between one or both of these accounts and State Department email accounts during and around (redacted).
- The FBI investigation into Clinton’s improper handling, storage and transmission of classified information on unclassified email systems “established that emails containing containing classified information were transmitted through multiple . . . accounts used by [all names redacted].”
- The Agent believed there was “probable cause to believe that the Subject Laptop contain[ed] evidence, contraband, fruits, and/or other items illegally possessed in violation of 18 U.S.C. §793(e) and (f).” The inclusion of subsection (e) of §793 is interesting because that requires a “willful” act as opposed to the much discussed, but rarely used, §793(f) that only requires “gross negligence.”
- Paragraph 26 of the FBI Agent’s affidavit gets to the heart of the Bureau’s probable cause argument.
In that paragraph, the Agent states, part:
Given the information indicating [the presence of] thousands of . . . emails located on the Subject Laptop — including . . . the regular correspondence between (redacted) and [Hillary] Clinton, there is probable cause that Subject Laptop contains correspondence between (redacted) and Clinton (lengthy redaction).”
Paragraph 26 continues, part:
Because it has been determined . . . that many emails were exchanged . . . [with various redacted names and accounts] and Clinton that contained that contained classified information, there is also probable cause to believe the correspondence between them located on the Subject Laptop contains classified information . . . produced . . . and owned by the U.S. Government. [A laptop not authorized to contain classified information].
In essence, the FBI Agent is telling the court that they found thousands of emails on a laptop (“Subject Laptop”) that the media has reported belonged to Anthony Weiner. Further, those emails evidently showed regular correspondence between someone (reportedly Huma Abedin) and Clinton. Additionally, the FBI Agent seemed to be concerned that some of the emails contained classified information — based on the evidence revealed by Comey earlier this summer — and with the fact that the Subject Laptop was not authorized to store classified material. Therefore, the Agent argued a search warrant of the Subject Laptop was justified to further investigate the substance of the Clinton emails.
LawNewz.com has updated this breaking news story.
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