The revelation that several Hillary Clinton staffers received partial immunity in the FBI email probe set off another round of partisan fireworks on Friday: Republicans said they're increasingly convinced the Justice Department mishandled the investigation and Democrats accused the GOP of stoking the issue for maximum political damage in the heat of the presidential campaign.

Oversight Committee Republicans seethed after the disclosure that Clinton’s lawyer Cheryl Mills was granted protection from prosecution for turning over to the FBI the laptop she used while helping sort Clinton’s "work-related” emails from her “personal messages.” The work messages were slated to be made public, while the personal ones were deleted. Also receiving legal protection was Heather Samuelson, a Clinton campaign staffer-turned-legal assistant who made the initial determination on how to categorize the emails.


“If the FBI wanted any other American’s laptops, they’d just go get them — they wouldn’t get an immunity deal,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), an oversight panel member, said in a phone interview. “But everyone associated with the Clinton gets a different set of standards applied to them… It’s the strangest stuff I have ever seen.”

Republicans were also incensed that the immunity deals, which now cover five Clinton staffers at the heart of the controversy, did not require witnesses to cooperate with Congress, sources who reviewed them told POLITICO. Such agreements sometimes include language forcing the recipients to answer other investigative entities, but the Justice deals did not.

Republicans have been trying to question several of those protected individuals, including: Clinton’s top IT staffer Bryan Pagliano, who set up the server; Platte River Networks engineer Paul Combetta, who erased Clinton’s email archive days after news of her email use became public; and John Bentel, a tech staffer at the State Department who told his subordinates never to speak of Clinton’s email when they raised concerns.

This latest email flare-up comes at an inopportune time for Clinton, just days before her first debate against Donald Trump. Republicans said the timing of the immunity news was not intentional; they only learned on Friday of the arrangements with Mills, Samuelson and Bentel and almost immediately disclosed them to the AP, which first reported the story. Regardless, Clinton has been unable to shake the email controversy even after the FBI decided against recommending charges against her in July.

“Of course, Republicans are trying to make political hay out of this, but the facts are that Ms. Mills cooperated fully with the Justice Department and Congress, the FBI concluded that there was no basis for any criminal prosecution,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, in a statement. “Republicans will stop at nothing to tear apart the FBI’s independent investigation to try to damage Secretary Clinton’s presidential campaign.”

Democrats also blasted Oversight for failing to make clear earlier Friday that Mills’ and Sameuelson’s immunity was only “partial,” meaning it only protected them from any criminal charges that might have arisen from scopes of their laptops — not their statements to the FBI.

Cheryl Mills was granted protection from prosecution for turning over to the FBI the laptop she used while helping sort Hillary Clinton’s emails. | Getty

“Republicans are in a frenzy that is disorganized, frenetic, and lurching from point to disjointed point with no actual substantive goal or plan,” said one Democratic source on the panel.

On Tuesday night, in a classified room in the Capitol, a group of Republicans and Democrats on the Oversight Committee met with Justice Department congressional liaison Peter Kadzik to discuss document requests. Republicans had called the hearing because they felt the FBI was not being forthcoming in their request for a full, un-redacted copy of the agency's Clinton investigative report.

Immunity also came up. Republicans wanted to know who else beside Pagliano and Combetta had received legal protection and who approved the agreements. Lawmakers also asked whether the deals required the recipients to still cooperate with other investigative entities.

Kadzik wouldn’t say. A Democratic source said he could not answer the questions because Republicans had only asked for the information a few hours earlier in a letter to the Justice Department, and the answers weren't fully researched.

Kadzik's refusal to answer fully did not go over well with Republicans, and the meeting deteriorated from there, said one GOP source in the room. One Republican threatened to make Kadzik testify in a public setting, should he fail to get them the information, in effect daring him to say that Congress wasn’t entitled to it.

It never came to that. On Thursday morning, Justice delivered the immunity agreements for Pagliano and Combetta. The other three were provided on Friday morning.

Republicans said the findings raised more troubling questions about the Justice Department's actions.

“Immunity deals should not be a requirement for cooperating with the FBI," Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said in a statement, adding that the agreements were handed out "like candy."

Republicans say they have several questions for FBI director James Comey at a hearing next week. For one: how was Mills — a witness to Clinton's actions, and whose own conduct came under scrutiny — able to also represent Clinton as her lawyer during the FBI's interview of the former secretary of State? And why did Justice grant immunity to so many people?

Mills "got an immunity agreement," Jordan said, and still "got to sit in on (Clinton's) interview when she was being interviewed by the FBI… It just raises a lot of questions."

Several people Republicans have tried to talk to about the Clinton email matter have refused to cooperate. On Thursday, the panel held Pagliano in contempt of Congress for refusing to show up to a hearing despite a subpoena. His lawyer said he would not answer questions.

