Two powerful congressional committee chairmen want FBI Director Kash Patel to now remedy what they describe as “a historic investigative and national security failure” by thoroughly assessing previously ignored documents regarding then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s illegal use of private email to conduct official business.

In a July 29 letter to Patel, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rick Crawford (R-Ga.) told Patel that “allowing years of covering up intelligence that runs contrary to the stories perpetuated as the so-called Russia Collusion Hoax and with respect to the Hillary Clinton e-mail mishandling investigation, the full scope of damage caused by partisan senior leaders and others in the law enforcement and intelligence community in the years since the 2016 presidential election is finally coming to light.”

It took years of intense congressional pressure, they noted, but the effort recently resulted in “the declassification of an appendix to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Inspector General (OIG), report on the 2016 election after years of effort. As you’re aware, this report focused on … the FBI’s mishandling of the Clinton investigation [under then-Director James Comey].” That IG report was made public in 2018, except for the appendix, which was stored away in an obscure Northern Virginia FBI office.

The Clinton investigation was prompted by a March 2015 New York Times news report that the then-secretary of State under President Barack Obama had used a private email system that included server equipment located in the New York residence she shares with former President Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton was widely expected at that point to be the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, but the email story quickly became a national scandal and a serious threat to her political ambitions.

Federal officials are required to use only highly secure government email systems to conduct official business, particularly since classified documents and discussions are being transmitted. After the FBI investigation began, it was learned that some 60,000 private emails found on the private Clinton system were involved. Even so, FBI investigators never saw more than 30,000 of those messages because Clinton’s lawyers claimed they did not deal with official business. Those emails were subsequently destroyed under circumstances that have never been fully explained.

Comey told the nation on July 5, 2016 — three weeks before the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia — that while Clinton had clearly made serious mistakes and violated multiple federal laws and regulations, it was his judgment that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring charges against her.

The next month, a Navy seaman was convicted of misusing classified information, and his defense lawyers questioned why he was sentenced to prison while Clinton was not even charged.

The fact that the documents referenced by the IG report’s appendix were never examined by FBI investigators or made public “are at the heart of why the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) became distrusted by so many under your agency’s prior directors: a failure to impartially conduct its law enforcement and intelligence mission,” according to Grassley and Crawford.

“Concerning the issue at hand, Comey’s FBI shockingly failed to review and exploit evidence in its own possession, even though they admitted in written memos the information was necessary to conduct a ‘thorough and complete investigation.’ The FBI also failed to review and exploit other foreign intelligence information,” they told Patel.

Because of that failure by the FBI under Comey in its investigation of the Hillary Clinton email scandal, “literally, an entire collection of data, including ‘reports purporting to analyze or characterize intercepted U.S. communications,’ and information concerning ‘cyber intrusions into U.S. entities’ were simply swept away into the dark confines of history — until now. We refuse to allow this dereliction of duty to continue, and trust that your leadership will immediately seek to rectify this oversight by prior DOJ and FBI leadership,” Grassley and Crawford wrote.

The two Republican lawmakers asked “that this material be immediately dug out from hiding and properly assessed. How evidence which purportedly includes information related to ‘former President Barack Obama’s emails’ and ‘network infrastructure diagrams for U.S. government classified networks,’ remained unreviewed by the preeminent law enforcement agency in the world is mind-numbing. We know you will not similarly ignore evidence in your agency’s possession, no matter where its exploitation or conclusions might lead.”

Questions of why Comey’s FBI ignored the documents referenced in the IG report appendix are not the only issue raised by the situation. Grassley and Crawford are also concerned that there may be evidence that the FBI kept documents and information that should have been provided to Congress.

“If, in fact, the data in question has been evaluated since the release of the original OIG annex in July of 2018, Congress is unaware of any analysis arising from such a review. That would be a problem, as well, as congressional oversight would have been hampered,” the lawmakers told Patel.

The FBI declined to comment on the Grassley-Crawford letter to Director Patel in response to a request from The Washington Stand.