Citizens United: Hillary Clinton Email Investigation Needs Independent Counsel | [site:name]

Conservative watchdog group Citizens United sent a letter to Congress on Monday, exhorting lawmakers to back the growing push for a special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail account while she was secretary of state.

Though the FBI continues to investigate whether Clinton’s use of an unprotected server jeopardized classified information, President Obama publicly dismissed that concern during an October 11 interview, saying he “[didn’t] think it posed a national-security problem.” The statement reportedly angered FBI investigators, who saw it as a signal to attorney general Loretta Lynch that the White House wants Clinton cleared, whether the facts warrant it or not. Lynch, who was named a U.S. attorney by President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, may also have a conflict of interest.

The appointment of an independent special counsel would take the decision out of Lynch’s hands, with the FBI submitting their recommendation and findings to the counsel’s office instead of the Department of Justice. The counsel would then determine whether or not a Clinton prosecution is warranted.

“It’s clear that Attorney General Lynch should not allow herself to oversee the FBI investigation into the e-mail practices of her former boss’s spouse and potential Democratic nominee for president, Secretary Hillary Clinton,” wrote Citizens United president David Bossie in the letter, obtained exclusively by National Review. “The only course of action for Attorney General Lynch is to get this case away from the influence of political appointees at the White House and Department of Justice by appointing an impartial special counsel who is well respected on both sides of the aisle.”

#share#As the House Select Committee on Benghazi pivots away from Clinton’s e-mails to focus more firmly on the September 11, 2012 terrorist attacks in Libya, calls have grown for a special counsel to take over the private-server inquiry. Senate majority whip John Cornyn (R., Texas) urged Lynch to recuse herself last month, and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee demanded the appointment of a special counsel late last week. Democrats have panned the idea — Vermont senator Patrick Leahy and California senator Dianne Feinstein called it “purely political and completely unnecessary.”

#related#Citizens United first called for the appointment of a special counsel to take over the Clinton e-mail investigation back in July. With the Senate’s No. 2 Republican and a presidential candidate throwing their weight behind the idea, the group is now working to gin up support in the House. In April 2014, lawmakers passed a resolution demanding that then-attorney general Eric Holder appoint a special counsel to investigate the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups. Though the resolution attracted the votes of 26 House Democrats, Holder ultimately ignored it.

— Brendan Bordelon is a political reporter for National Review.