The Trump campaign is pouncing on news that Clinton friend Terry McAuliffe donated money to an FBI investigator’s wife when she ran for office.
The Wall Street Journal broke the story Sunday. The FBI has been under fire for not recommending indictment against Hillary Clinton.
“Last night’s revelation that close Clinton ally Terry McAuliffe authorized $675,000 to the wife of a top official at the FBI, who conveniently was promoted to deputy director, and helped oversee the investigation into Clinton’s secret server is deeply disturbing and calls into question the entire investigation,” Trump senior communications adviser Jason Miller said in a statement.
“The fact that this was allowed to occur shows either outright negligent behavior by the FBI or a level of corruption that is beyond belief. The FBI needs to fully address these issues as soon as possible,” Miller added.
The Republican National Committee likewise expressed alarm.
“Given all we know about how the corrupt Clinton machine operates, it’s hard not to see this as anything other than a down payment to influence the FBI’s criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server,” RNC chairman Reince Priebus said.
“These troubling revelations are the epitome of the rigged system millions of Americans are fed up with. We simply cannot allow the kind of rank corruption Hillary Clinton and her cronies traffic in to take root in our nation’s highest office,” Priebus said.
The Wall Street Journal reported:
The political organization of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, an influential Democrat with longstanding ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton, gave nearly $500,000 to the election campaign of the wife of an official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation who later helped oversee the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s email use.
Campaign finance records show Mr. McAuliffe’s political-action committee donated $467,500 to the 2015 state Senate campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe, who is married to Andrew McCabe, now the deputy director of the FBI.
The Virginia Democratic Party, over which Mr. McAuliffe exerts considerable control, donated an additional $207,788 worth of support to Dr. McCabe’s campaign in the form of mailers, according to the records. That adds up to slightly more than $675,000 to her candidacy from entities either directly under Mr. McAuliffe’s control or strongly influenced by him. The figure represents more than a third of all the campaign funds Dr. McCabe raised in the effort.
Mr. McAuliffe and other state party leaders recruited Dr. McCabe to run, according to party officials. She lost the election to incumbent Republican Dick Black.