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PolitiFact: Facts dispute Trump's claim that donation to FBI spouse linked to Clinton email decision

 
Donald Trump
Donald Trump
Published Oct. 27, 2016

The statement

"The man who was in charge of the investigation of Hillary Clinton accepted essentially from Hillary Clinton $675,000 that went to his wife."

Donald Trump, Oct. 25 in a speech

The ruling

Trump's claim, which suggests a quid pro quo, suffers from a timeframe that doesn't add up.

At the time of the contribution, the candidate's husband was not directly involved in the FBI investigation of Clinton's email server, according to the FBI. The bureau says that by the time he had some oversight role in the Clinton investigation, the election involving his wife had been over for three months.

Here are the details.

In 2015, Dr. Jill McCabe, a pediatrician, was recruited to run for one of the 40 seats in Virginia's Republican-controlled Senate by Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who co-chaired Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign and chaired Hillary Clinton's unsuccessful 2008 run for president.

According to the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story, McAuliffe and other Virginia Democrats met with McCabe and her husband, Andrew, on March 7, 2015, to urge her to run as part of an effort to take back the Senate.

At the time, Andrew McCabe was assistant director of the FBI's field office in Washington and had focused much of his career on terrorism.

The FBI released a statement that Andrew McCabe "consulted with top FBI headquarters and field office ethics officers for guidance, including briefings on the Hatch Act, to prevent against any actual or potential conflict-of-interest, in the event she decided to go forward."

Based on that advice, the FBI said, when Dr. McCabe chose to run, Andrew "McCabe and FBI lawyers implemented a system of recusal from all FBI investigative matters involving Virginia politics, a process followed for the remainder of her campaign."

News that Clinton was using a private email account in violation of federal record-keeping requirements broke March 2, 2015.

McCabe announced her candidacy on March 12, 2015.

That July, the FBI was called in to begin a criminal investigation into the use of Clinton's private server at her home in New York. And that same month, Andrew McCabe was promoted to associate deputy director, third in command at the FBI. He moved to FBI headquarters in September.

McAuliffe, through his political action committee, and the state Democratic Party, donated to Dr. McCabe's campaign.

On Oct. 1, 27 and 29, McAuliffe's PAC, Common Good VA, gave Dr. McCabe's campaign a total of $450,000. (An additional $17,500 had been given earlier). The Democratic Party of Virginia spent $207,788 on Sept. 30 and Oct. 22 for mailings on her behalf. That would amount to 40 percent of the $1.7 million spent by the campaign.

In November, Dr. McCabe lost her race to incumbent Republican Dick Black.

On Feb. 1, 2016, three months after his wife's defeat, Andrew McCabe became the FBI's deputy director.

In a statement to the Wall Street Journal, the FBI said it was the first time McCabe had any oversight role over the Clinton case.

"Months after the completion of (his wife's) campaign, then-Associate Deputy Director McCabe was promoted to Deputy, where, in that position, he assumed for the first time, an oversight role in the investigation into Secretary Clinton's emails," according to the FBI statement.

But perhaps the biggest flaw in Trump's argument comes with his assertion that McCabe was in charge of the decision on whether to recommend prosecution.

It was FBI director James Comey, not McCabe, who made the decision to recommend that the Justice Department not file charges against Clinton. Comey has repeatedly explained his decision under oath.

Trump's statement contains a small element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a completely different impression. We rate it Mostly False.

Edited for print. Read the full version at PolitiFact.com.