The FBI approached the Department of Justice earlier this year and asked the public integrity unit to open an investigation of the Clinton Foundation.

But the DOJ declined, according to CNN.

The reasoning, the report said, was that the Justice Department had looked into Hillary Clinton's family foundation a year before and didn't find enough evidence to do so.

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As new Hillary Clinton emails were released this week, CNN reported that the FBI had asked the Department of Justice to investigate the Clinton Foundation

This nugget was buried in a CNN story today that detailed the latest release of Clinton's emails to the public at the hands of conservative watchdog Judicial Watch.

The organization released 296 pages of Clinton's emails this week including 44 that the former secretary of state didn't initially hand over to the State Department, Judicial Watch said.

These new conversations shed light on how intertwined Clinton's State Department was with her family foundation.

In one highly-cited example, the now-former head of the Clinton Foundation, Doug Band, reaches out to Clinton's top State Department aides, including Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, in April 2009 and notes that it's 'important to take care of' a particular person whose name has been redacted.

In another exchange that year Band requests that Abedin and Mills put Gilbert Chagoury, a longtime buddy of Bill Clinton's who donated millions to the Clinton Foundation, in touch with 'the substance person re Lebanon' at the State Department.

Top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin responds in the affirmative to a request from the Clinton Foundation head to introduce a donor to the government's top expert on Lebanon

'It's jeff feltman,' Abedin replied, according to the emails. She was referring to Jeffrey Feltman, who was then the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon. 'I'm sure he know him. I'll talk to jeff,' she said, seemingly following orders.

The Clinton campaign was quick to push back on the insinuations drawn from the cozy conversations contained in the emails.

'Neither of these emails involve the secretary or relate to the Foundation's work,' said Clinton campaign spokesman Josh Schwerin in an emailed statement to the network. 'They are communications between her aides and the President's personal aide, and indeed the recommendation was for one of the Secretary's former staffers who was not employed by the Foundation,' he continued, referencing ex-President Bill Clinton.

Additionally, the Clinton campaign said Chagoury had wanted to offer insights to the Lebanon point person at the State Department about the country's forthcoming election and wasn't looking for any kind of favors.

The campaign then went after Judicial Watch, whose dogged inquiries and Freedom of Information Requests led to the discovery of Clinton's private email system, which has caused her a political headache throughout her presidential campaign.

'The right-wing organization behind this lawsuit has been attacking the Clintons since the 1990s and no matter how this group tries to mischaracterize these documents, the fact remains that Hillary Clinton never took action as secretary of state because of donations to the Clinton Foundation,' Schwerin said.

That didn't stop Clinton's rival Donald Trump, who's dealing with his own controversy after suggesting the 'Second Amendment' would be one way to handle Clinton and her judicial picks, from making use of the emails' revelations and CNN's reporting that the Justice Department had declined to investigate the Clinton Foundation.

'Once again, the Department of Justice has protected Hillary Clinton. Earlier this year the DOJ denied a request from the FBI to investigate her pay-to-play, corrupt Clinton Foundation,' team Trump wrote in an email to supporters this afternoon, asking for donations.

'News of its rejection comes immediately after leaked emails exposed a concerning link between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department!' the plea continued.