BREAKING: Member of Jack Smith's Trump prosecution team discouraged FBI from investigating Clinton Foundation in 2016

A top prosecutor on special counsel Jack Smith’s team has been revealed to have discouraged the FBI from investigating the Clinton Foundation in 2016, claiming negligible evidence.

According to Fox News, this was despite multiple Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) that came in relation to hundreds of thousands of dollars in foreign transactions.

The official has been identified as Ray Hulser, former chief of the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section (PIN), who currently serves on the team prosecuting 2024 GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.

Hulser was identified as the individual in special counsel John Durham’s report into alleged Russia collusion by Trump, which was released in May of 2023.

The report stated that in January of 2016, "three different FBI field offices, the New York Field Office, the Washington Field Office, and the Little Rock Field Office, opened investigations into possible criminal activity involving the Clinton Foundation."

The investigation out of Washington was opened as a "preliminary investigation, because the case agent wanted to determine if he could develop additional information to corroborate allegations in a recently-published book, 'Clinton Cash' by Peter Schweizer, before seeking to convert the matter to a full investigation."

The New York and Little Rock investigations were "based on source reporting that identified foreign governments that had made, or offered to make, contributions to the Foundation in exchange for favorable or preferential treatment from Clinton." 

Because there were multiple FBI field offices opening investigations, there was a "perceived need to conduct coordination meetings between the field offices, FBI Headquarters, and appropriate U.S. Attorney’s offices," as well as "components" from main Justice Department.

One such meeting took place on February 1, 2016, in which Hulser was present.

In an interview with Durham as part of the investigation, Hulser said that the FBI briefing on the Clinton Foundation was "poorly presented and that there was insufficient predication for at least one of the investigations due to its reliance on allegations contained in a book." 

"Hulser downplayed information provided by the New York Field Office CHS [confidential human source] and recalled that the amount involved in the financial reporting was ‘de minimus,’" Durham’s report states.