FBI never asked Clinton aides for all their devices Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/fbi-hillary-clinton-devices-230592#ixzz4OoqWRQHu Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook
Republicans insist the agency gave too much deference to the former secretary and her team.
GOP lawmakers say the decision not to demand the aides’ electronics, or even to ask for them, raises doubts about how the FBI and prosecutors handled the probe.
.. Republicans have argued for months that the FBI, federal prosecutors or both, treated witnesses in the Clinton probe with unusual deference. The GOP appears to have stepped up that argument in recent days.
.. Some news reports suggested that Abedin failed to turn the laptop over to investigators. In a statement issued by one of her lawyers Monday, Abedin insisted she didn’t know she had any emails stored on Weiner’s computer. However, it appears she was never asked to turn over any devices to anyone.
.. “Secretary Clinton used several different servers and administrators of those servers during her four years at the State Department, and used numerous mobile devices to view and send email on that personal domain. As new servers and equipment were employed, older servers were taken out of service, stored, and decommissioned in various ways,” Comey said. “Piecing all of that back together—to gain as full an understanding as possible of the ways in which personal email was used for government work — has been a painstaking undertaking, requiring thousands of hours of effort.”
It’s also possible the FBI or prosecutors elected not to demand all the Clinton aides’ computers and other electronics because doing so might have triggered a legal battle that could have slowed the probe.