Interviews and once-sealed FBI records show that while Hillary Clinton was beginning her job as chief diplomat in Obama’s administration, federal agents observed as multiple arms of Vladimir Putin’s machine started an influence campaign to win access to Hillary, her husband and their inner circle.
According to The Hill, some of the activities FBI agents gathered evidence about in 2009 and 2010 were covert and illegal. For example, one female Russian spy used a false identity to get into the employ of a major Democratic donor, hoping to get intelligence on Hillary’s department. The Russian was moving closer to getting inside the department, but was arrested and deported. Other things were legal like when branch of the Russian state-controlled nuclear energy company hired a firm from Washington to lobby the administration led by Obama. The firm was then providing hundreds of thousands of dollars for support of Bill Clinton’s global charitable initiative. Still, the records show that the company helped the Russians secure federal decisions that led to billions in new U.S. commercial nuclear business.
Only a few weeks after Hillary helped arrange for U.S. executives to travel to Moscow to support Putin’s efforts to build a version of Silicon Valley, Bill Clinton received half a million dollars check provided by Kremlin linked bank for one speech. That surprised the agents.
Even though there is no evidence in the public records that the Bureau believed that the Clintons were doing something illegal, there is evidence that the Russians were seeking influence with a specific eye on the State Department.
An unnamed source pointed to a communication intercepted by the FBI in 2009, when Russian handlers told their spies to gather nonpublic information on the State Department. By then the Clintons had set up several new mechanisms, like a multi-million dollar speech-making business, that proved to be attractive to the Russians.
“In the end, some of this just comes down to what it always does in Washington: donations, lobbying, contracts and influence, even for Russia,” said Frank Figliuzzi, former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence.
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