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Meet the Activist Who Smelled Something Fishy With the FBI's Anti-Clinton Records Dump, and Got Internal Watchdogs Investigating

When an official FBI Twitter account that had been dormant for a year sprang to life with old documents about the Clintons, Jonathan Hutson took action.

By Adele M. Stan / AlterNet
November 3, 2016

As AlterNet reported, the FBI on Sunday suddenly reactivated a long-dead Twitter account whose purpose is to announce the release of FBI documents obtained by members of the public under the Freedom of Information Act. Amid a flurry of ho-hum releases (including the Bureau's own ethics handbook) over the next two days, two stood out: a nothing-burger on Fred Trump, the father of the Republican presidential nominee; and heavily redacted documents from a 15-year-old closed investigation into President Bill Clinton’s pardon of financier Marc Rich, and the William J. Clinton Foundation.

This took place just as Hillary Clinton, the former first lady, entered the final round of her bout against Donald Trump. Jonathan Hutson, a Maryland-based communications consultant, smelled something fishy.

The @FBIRecordsVault Twitter account sprang back to life as FBI director James Comey took heat from Democrats (as well as politicians across the political spectrum) for sending a vague letter, just 11 days before the presidential election, to the chairmen of eight congressional committees, informing them his agents had found emails on a computer belonging to Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin, that might be pertinent to the investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state.

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http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/meet-activist-who-smelled-something-fishy-fbis-anti-clinton-records-dump-and-got

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Is Reckless Comey Seeking Revenge on Critics via FBI Twitter Account?

The FBI director's actions may harm the very process of democracy.

By Adele M. Stan / AlterNet
November 1, 2016

Something very dangerous is happening in the Federal Bureau of Investigation: The nation’s foremost law enforcement agency appears to be at war both within itself and with the Department of Justice, to which it belongs. The disagreements all involve our national politics and the FBI’s appropriate role in them, leaving the American people with yet another major institution on their do-not-trust list. The government is coming ever more undone, so much so that a recent Twitter post from an FBI account is raising questions about who's behind it—the director of the FBI, or agents seemingly beyond his control.

The chaos burst into public view on Friday, October 28, 11 days before the 2016 presidential election is scheduled to take place. That’s when FBI director James Comey issued—against the wishes of DoJ officials and counter to department guidelines—his infamous letter informing the chairmen of eight congressional committees that agents investigating a possible sex crime by former congressman Anthony Weiner had found correspondence on his computer, involving his estranged wife Huma Abedin, that may be pertinent to the bureau’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state. (Abedin is a longtime Clinton aide.) Comey hadn’t seen the emails, he said, and didn’t know what was in them, leaving a lot of people scratching their heads and wondering if he just wasn’t trying to sway the election.

In the meantime, as noted in a letter to Comey from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, the FBI was investigating links between Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and the government of Russia. There again, it may well be that the FBI hasn’t uncovered any actionable information, but its director has not seen fit to write a letter to Congress in order to inform committee chairs that it has discovered a server used by the Trump Organization, possibly to conduct traffic between itself and the Alfa Bank of Russia.

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http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/reckless-comey-seeking-revenge-critics-fbi-twitter-account