GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump on Tuesday said Hillary Clinton is the one who effectively gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the state Senate campaign of the wife of an FBI official involved in the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s email practices, calling it a “criminal act.”
Mr. Trump said on Fox News that Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe is the “single closest person” to Mrs. Clinton and former President Clinton.
Mr. McAuliffe’s political action committee gave $467,500 to Jill McCabe, a Democratic candidate for state Senate in Northern Virginia, between June 9, 2015 and Oct. 29, 2015, according to the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP), a non-partisan tracker of money in state politics.
The state Democratic party also gave about $200,000 to Ms. McCabe’s ultimately unsuccessful campaign that year.
Ms. McCabe is married to Andrew McCabe, who oversaw the FBI’s field office in Washington, D.C. and was later promoted to deputy FBI director, serving under Director James Comey, the Wall Street Journal reported this week.
“Now, that’s Clinton giving the money, because that’s how close they are,” Mr. Trump said. “So Clinton gave [to] the FBI agent who…was the top person in charge of her email case, which is a disgrace that she got off of that.”
“She gave money, at a huge clip - $675,000 - to the wife of the FBI agent who [was] in charge of her investigation,” he said.
“Let me tell you something: that’s a criminal act,” he said.
Others have also called for an investigation. Cause of Action Institute, a watchdog group, on Tuesday sent a request for an investigation to the Department of Justice, as well as an open records request to the FBI.
Mr. McAuliffe told reporters Monday there wasn’t much to the story, saying efforts to recruit Ms. McCabe to run started in February 2015, before news broke of Mrs. Clinton’s secret email server, which ultimately led to the FBI investigation.
He said he met with the McCabes on March 7, and that was the only time he ever met with Mr. McCabe.
“So unless I live in a time capsule, if you actually read the story, none of it makes sense,” he said, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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