Waiting for Huber: whatever happened to the investigation into FBI abuse of power?

Nearly 18 months after US Attorney John W. Huber was appointed to investigate whether the Obama-era FBI and Department of Justice abused their power when they obtained spy warrants on Trump campaign operatives and their handling of alleged pay-for-play Clinton Foundation schemes, there’s no sign of any activity. Members of Congress remain in the dark about what if any progress has been made, and likely witnesses say they haven’t been contacted.

The Utah prosecutor, appointed by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions hasn’t convened any grand juries, or issued any subpoenas or indictments. His office hasn’t even responded to Congressional demands for reports on its work.

‘It concerns me that we haven’t heard a darn thing,’ Rep. Jim Jordan said last week. ‘It’s like Where’s Waldo?” “Where’s Huber?”’

Huber’s office has maintained its total silence even as President Trump and other Republicans’ demands for an investigation become more strident. They want to know how a discredited dossier was used to authorize spying on Trump campaign operative Carter Page in 2016 and whether the FBI and DOJ deliberately misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts, as well as why officials did not investigate millions in foreign Clinton Foundation donations, and why Hillary Clinton did not face criminal charges for mishandling of classified material. Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday that he hoped Attorney General William Barr would ‘look at the probability of criminal misbehavior… [and] DOJ corruption and political bias.’

But this would appear to be redundant, because Huber was appointed to look into this. Yet even though reports were promised last summer, they still haven’t been produced

‘I’m disappointed. I don’t know what is holding them up,’ said former State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard.

The silence from Huber’s office is ‘very weird,’ an intelligence source said. ‘Nobody knows a damn thing.’

The Spectator USA asked the Department of Justice whether they could provide an update on what work counsel has undertaken, if they have contacted any members of Congress or responded to their requests, and what has been done in the last 18 months. Spokesperson Wyn Hornbuckle responded only, ‘we have no updates at this time.’

This is exceedingly strange, because there should be something to show for 18 months of work, legal analysts say.

‘There should be some proof of life,’ said Andrew Leipold, a law professor at the University of Illinois who worked with special counsel Kenneth W. Starr on the Whitewater investigation.

‘We should see people going in and out of his building, people interviewed leaking to the press, or a target calling a press conference,’ he added. ‘The fact that none of that has happened is puzzling.’

Some witnesses and their attorneys assert that Huber’s appointment a year and a half ago was meant to silence Republicans while shielding the Obama administration FBI and Department of Justice officials from true scrutiny.

‘At the time, people wanted a special counsel, but Jeff Sessions announced he brought in Huber and people said, “OK, we got Huber on it,”’ said former Justice Department prosecutor Victoria Toensing. ‘But it was a head fake.’

Toensing now works in private practice and represents a Uranium One whistleblower and FBI informant Doug Campbell. Neither Campbell nor Toensing have been contacted by Huber, despite Campbell’s claims to have evidence that the Russians secured US-based uranium rights in a quid pro quo scheme with the Clinton foundation.

Huber ‘should have contacted Doug Campbell within the first two months’ of being assigned, Toensing said. ‘It’s a farce. It’s an embarrassment how this has been handled.’

Two other Clinton Foundation whistleblowers offered to turn over 6,000 pages of evidence, but heard nothing back from the Department for several months, despite reaching out repeatedly. The Department only responded after Republican leaders raised the alarm in the media. Similarly, private financial-crimes investigators Lawrence Doyle and John Moynihan say they sent evidence of alleged Clinton foundation pay-for-play schemes, tax fraud, and misappropriation of funds to Huber’s office by mail in April and again in May, but heard nothing back. They were told the materials had been ‘lost’ when they followed up, so they re-sent them by FedEx in October, only to finally receive a call on November 30 that an assistant US attorney would ‘review’ it.

Deepening the mystery, the Justice Department just found the document authorizing Huber to look into how the department handled the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One, after claiming no such document existed. The Department testified in Federal court that ‘when the Attorney General directed Mr Huber to evaluate these matters, no written guidance or directives were issued to Mr Huber in connection with this directive, either by the Attorney General, or by other senior leadership office staff.’ But in response to a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request, a DOJ lawyer now says they found the document that started Huber’s work.

Perhaps giving up on Huber, Sen. Graham said Sunday he hopes a special prosecutor will be appointed.