Politics & Government
FBI Releases Documents On Loretta Lynch, Bill Clinton Meeting
News of the meeting was a political bombshell during the 2016 presidential campaign.

WASHINGTON, DC — The FBI released documents Friday afternoon showing internal correspondence about the infamous meeting between then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former President Bill Clinton on a tarmac during the 2016 presidential campaign. That meeting drew heavy criticism at the time because presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was under investigation by the FBI, which Lynch then oversaw as head of the Justice Department.
The documents reveal that an official with the department was concerned about the fact that news of the meeting leaked to press. In one email in which the names were redacted, a person wrote that the source of the story was a local police officer and that the leak violated the "principle and basic tenet of executive protection."
Another email describes the leaker as a "security threat."
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The documents also include a transcript of Lynch's discussion of the meeting with a reporter in which she denied that Benghazi, the site of a terrorist attack during then Secretary of State Clinton's time in office, was mentioned.
"Our conversation was a great deal about his grandchildren," Lynch said. "It was primarily social and about our travels."
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Lynch's meeting with the former president led her to distance herself from the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server during her time at the State Department. Lynch said she would accept the recommendation of then-FBI Director James Comey. Comey held a controversial press conference that both criticized Hillary Clinton and also revealed that no charges would be brought against her.
Read the documents released here>>
Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images
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