A newly released batch of emails between FBI agents show that long-time Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin threatened to invoke her 5th Amendment right if she was not granted immunity in a FBI investigation. The threat came in December 2016, when an FBI inquiry into the Clinton email scandal had thought to have been concluded but an investigation into an inappropriate online relationship between Abedin’s husband and an underage girl was ongoing.
In a message to colleague Lisa Page, FBI agent Peter Strzok wrote: “Talked to DoJ about HA interview. Told them we had to interview, no immunity. They said they thought that would get counsel to the point of saying she’s either taking the 5th in the Gj or you need to give her immunity. I said that’s fine, please have discussions to get the decision to that point and I would run up the chain.”
“HA” is believed to be a reference to Abedin.
Abedin used to download Clinton’s emails to a personal laptop and the print important messages out on paper for reading – Clinton’s preference. Weeks prior to the Election Day 2016, the FBI, who had been investigating the improper online relationship between an underage girl and Abedin’s husband, former congressman Anthony Weiner, discovered the trove of messages.
The discovery prompted then FBI Director James Comey to inform Congress that the Clinton email investigation was effectively reopened. The FBI would subsequently announce that many of the discovered messages were duplicates of ones already in the FBI’s possession.
Abedin had immunity in the Clinton email investigation, raising questions about whether a new investigation had been opened or why Abedin would be requesting immunity in an investigation involving her husband.
The Justice Department announced recently that it was taking another look into the Clinton email scandal.