(Ken Silva, Headline USA) A newly unearthed FBI memo shows that agents seemingly had a strong case against then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for trading political favors in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation when she was Secretary of State—but that top Justice Department officials prevented the bureau from investigating further.
The memo, a timeline of the Clinton Foundation investigation, was reportedly unearthed by top aides to FBI Director Kashyap Patel. It was first reported by Just the News.
According to the memo, the Clinton Foundation caught the interest of certain FBI agents in 2015, after journalist Peter Schweizer published the book Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. In January 2016, FBI offices in New York, Arkansas, and Washington DC were authorized to open an investigation, but were told not to take any further investigative steps until consulting with the Justice Department.
On Feb. 1, 2016, FBI and DOJ officials first met in the Little Rock to discuss the case. A pro-Clinton official was there and refused to recuse himself from the meeting—indicating that the case was compromised from the beginning.
DOJ and FBI officials met about the Clinton Foundation in Little Rock in early 2016. Agents wanted a pro-Clinton official to recuse himself from the meeting, but he refused.
The case was compromised from the jump pic.twitter.com/6sp2ahXB4G
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) August 14, 2025
That same month, the DOJ told the FBI offices that it would not support an investigation—“implying this case was just based on open source reporting and fishing through a book,” according to the newly released FBI memo.
However, the FBI had an informant who “possibly” had information about the Clinton Foundation, the memo said. The informant’s info made it all the way up to then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who reiterated that no further steps should be taken without his approval. McCabe did authorize agents to debrief their informants about the matter—but he said not to recruit anymore informants.
Weeks later, the DOJ became more adamant about stifling the investigation. Then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates ordered the Eastern District of Arkansas to “shut it down” entirely. The memo doesn’t explain the reason for Yates’s decision.
The DOJ was against the investigation, despite the fact that the FBI had a cooperating witness who recorded conversations with someone associated with the Clinton Foundation, according to the newly released FBI memo.
Wow though — the FBI didn't just have informants giving tips. It had a cooperating witness who recorded conversations with a Clinton Foundation associate.
Release the recordings!!! https://t.co/oxep4hkUkw pic.twitter.com/UyHYJku2Ve— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) August 14, 2025
Then, the FBI decided to consolidate the entire case into the New York City field office, ostensibly because that’s where the majority of the Clinton Foundation’s activities were.
As the election neared, the Clinton Foundation investigation ground to a halt. After Trump won in stunning fashion, agents started worrying that the statute of limitations was approaching. Still, nothing happened. Trump did say that he wouldn’t be pursuing charges against Clinton.
The last entry in the FBI memo is from August 2017. It says FBI agents were still looking into 19 Clinton Foundation bank accounts obtained by the Little Rock field office during a separate campaign finance investigation. But nothing ever came from the matter.
Some eight years later, the second Trump administration is now investigating whether the Obama administration conspired to tilt the election towards Clinton in 2016. To that end, Director Patel has also released a long-hidden annex to John Durham’s 2023 Special Counsel report, which shows that the Obama administration pressured the FBI to downplay then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s email scandal ahead of the 2016 election.
Patel is running an investigation into whether there was a “grand conspiracy” between intelligence officials and Democratic politicians.
Trump has indicated that Obama won’t be charged because he was operating under presidential immunity, but that other officials could still be open to criminal liability.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
