FBI faces questions about charge against Michael Flynn, given Clinton aides’ statements on server

Michael Flynn isn’t the only person to have made apparently false statements to the FBI in recent high-profile investigations.

Flynn pleaded guilty last week to lying about his interactions with the Russian ambassador in a January interview with the FBI. Two top Hillary Clinton advisors interviewed as part of the bureau’s investigation into her private server, however, were never charged after appearing to commit a similar offense.

Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller resurfaced FBI documents on Monday that show both Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills denied knowing of Clinton’s private server until after she left the State Department in interviews with investigators. But as Ross pointed out, email evidence contradicts those accounts. In an email sent Feb. 27, 2010, Mills directly asked another aide whether the server was “okay.”

Here’s more, via Ross:

Mills and Abedin were also involved in an Aug. 30, 2011 exchange in which State Department official Stephen Mull mentioned that Clinton’s “email server is down.”

And in a Jan. 9, 2011 email exchange, Cooper told Abedin that Clinton’s server had been malfunctioning because “someone was trying to hack us.”

“Had to shut down the server,” wrote Cooper, who told the FBI in his interviews that he discussed Clinton’s server with Abedin in 2009, when it was being set up.

Former FBI section chief Peter Strzok participated in the interviews of Flynn, Mills, and Abedin. Strzok was removed from the special counsel investigation this summer after the bureau discovered he sent text messages with an apparent anti-Trump bias, according to recent reports.

Strzok’s removal serves as another indication that Robert Mueller is making efforts to ensure his investigation is not tainted by potential charges of bias on the FBI’s behalf. But new parallels between Flynn, who was charged with a felony for his false statements, and Mills and Abedin, who faced no legal consequences, could make that task more difficult for Mueller. FBI Director Christopher Wray is set to testify on Capitol Hill later this week where he will likely be asked to explain the department’s decisions.