How many FBI agents are working on Hillary Clinton’s email server? A report earlier this week

How many FBI agents are working on Hillary Clinton’s email server? A report earlier this week said it was nearly 150, but was then revised sharply downward.

DAVID A. GRAHAM MAR 30, 2016

Just how serious is the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails? Since the bureau doesn’t like to speak about it publicly, people have to judge from outside signs—for example, how many agents are working on the case. So when The Washington Post reported this week than there were 147 FBI investigators looking into whether any crimes were committed in the handling of classified material on Clinton’s private email server, and whether that server was hacked, it was a bombshell. Republicans exulted and Democrats felt a rising nausea. The story swept across cable TV and the web.

Except it turns out maybe that wasn’t the case. The FBI now says there are fewer than 50 agents working the case, though it won’t say how many, and the Post corrected its article. It’s yet another case of confusion and fog of war in a story that involves a scandal-plagued political dynasty, partisan intrigue, the intelligence community, the FBI, the vagaries of federal email rules and national-security law, and the obscure world of cybersecurity. Something went wrong here—Clinton has apologized for using the server—but whether any crime was committed remains hazy, subject to interpretations filtered through a partisan lens and leaks from an investigation that remains largely under wraps.


The Post report did lay out in clear sequence how the controversy began. As soon as she became secretary of state, Clinton was frustrated by rules that prohibited her use of her personal Blackberry while in her office in Foggy Bottom. She and her aides considered several possibilities for getting her email access, including asking the NSA to provide a specially encrypted device to her, similar to the one President Obama had received. (That request was turned down.) Clinton never got an encrypted Blackberry, but she began using her private email server in early 2009.

At the end of February, the State Department released the last batch of Clinton’s emails, as ordered by a federal judge. Earlier this month, The Washington Post reported that the Justice Department has granted immunity to a former Clinton staffer to work with investigators, an indication of progress in the criminal case over the emails. Bryan Pagliano, the staffer, helped Clinton set up a server in her home in New York, which she used for her emails while running the State Department. Pagliano previously invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when called to testify by congressional committees. A spokesman said the Clinton campaign was “pleased” that Pagliano was cooperating, though what else are they going to say?

more: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/tracking-the-clinton-controversies-from-whitewater-to-benghazi/396182/