Official: FBI team on Clinton email probe not near 150

The FBI does not have close to 150 agents working the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's email server, a source familiar with the matter told POLITICO Monday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, commented after the Washington Post reported that FBI Director James Comey told an unnamed member of Congress that 147 agents were working the Clinton investigation.


Asked about the Post report, the source said: "That number is greatly exaggerated."

The source and other officials declined to provide any further details about FBI staffing or the status of the inquiry.

The Post report followed similar but slightly different reports in other media outlets. In January, Fox News reported that 100 FBI agents were working regularly on the Clinton case with as many as 50 more on temporary assignment. At about the same time, the Washington Examiner reported that a former U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., Joseph DiGenova, indicated a similar scope to the FBI probe.

"There are now, I am told, 150 agents working on this case," DiGenova said, calling that "a very unusually high number."

Both the Fox and Washington Examiner reports focused on an expansion of the Clinton email probe to cover possible public corruption involving the Clinton Foundation. The FBI has declined to confirm that any such probe is underway, although Comey has confirmed publicly that the FBI is looking into issues involving classified material on the Clinton server.

In a court filing Friday, an FBI records official called that investigation "active" and "ongoing."

