Mysterious document was at center of FBI Clinton decisions

FBI Director James Comey’s decisions toward the end of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server were influenced by a mysterious document that the bureau obtained early last year, The New York Times reported Saturday.

Several former officials familiar with the document told the newspaper that the FBI obtained a memo, also described as an email, that was written by a Democratic operative who was confident that then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch would prevent the investigation from going too far.

{mosads}The communication was retrieved as part of a larger batch of documents hacked by Russia, according to the report.

According to the Times, the document reinforced Comey’s concern that a Democratic Justice Department lacked the credibility to close the case amid the contentious presidential campaign.

Officials told the newspaper that the FBI director was worried that Russia could attempt to undermine the independence of the investigation by leaking the document if Lynch announced that the investigation was closed.

A former official said that Comey then began to prepare his own announcement about the end of the Clinton probe after seeking advice from David Margolis, an experienced veteran of the Justice Department.

“When you looked at the totality of the situation, we were leaning toward: This is something that makes sense to be done alone,” the former senior national security official at the FBI, Michael Steinbach, told the newspaper.