Journalist who broke 2016 Clinton tarmac meeting story found dead in apparent suicide

Christopher Sign, the journalist who broke the 2016 tarmac meeting story between former President Bill Clilton and then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch was found dead Saturday morning, according to local police.

45-year-old Sign was found dead by Hoover police and fire personnel just after 8am, after responding to a call for a person down at a Cost Trace residence, AL.com reports.

Hoover police Lt. Keith Czeskleba said Sign’s death is being investigated as a suicide.

"Our deepest sympathy is shared with Christopher’s loving family and close friends. We have lost a revered colleague who’s indelible imprint will serve forever as a hallmark of decency, honesty and journalist integrity. We can only hope to carry on his legacy. May his memory be for blessing," said ABC 33/40 Vice President and General Manager Eric Land in a statement.

Sign revealed a meeting on June 27, 2016 between Lynch and Clinton at the Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, which occurred during the FBI’s investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of an unauthorized email server, according to the Washington Examiner.

The meeting came just days before then-FBI Director James Comey announced that he would not recommend charges for the emails, but called Clinton’s handling of classified information "extremely careless."

"This meeting was unplanned, and Lynch’s staff told the OIG they received no notice that former President Clinton planned to board Lynch’s plane. Both Lynch and former President Clinton told the OIG that they did not discuss the Midyear investigation or any other Department investigation during their conversation," wrote a report from the Department of Justice.

In the wake of the meeting, Lynch obtained an ethics opinion from the Departmental Ethics Office, which stated that she was not required to recuse herself from the investigation, and said that she "fully expected to accept the recommendation of the career agents and prosecutors who conducted the investigation."

Despite Clinton and Lynch claiming that the investigation was not discussed during the conversation, Sign said there was more to the story, writing about the meeting in his book Secret on the Tarmac, released in early 2020.

The book "details everything that they don’t want you to know and everything they think you forgot. But Bill Clinton was on that plane for 20 minutes, and it wasn’t just about golf, grandkids, and Brexit," Sign said on Fox & Friends back in February 2020.

"There's so much that doesn’t add up," he continued.

Since breaking the story, Sign told Fox News in early 2020 that he and his family received numerous death threats. "My family received significant death threats shortly after breaking this story," Sign said at the time. "Credit cards hacked. You know, my children, we have code words. We have secret code words that they know what to do."

Condolences flowed in on Twitter from both former colleagues and those that never met Sign.