As Trump was promising to “drain the swamp” in Washington and portraying the federal government and Clinton as corrupt, two top allies of one of his most high-profile surrogates were convicted — and another went on television and claimed that FBI contacts had tipped him off about its ongoing investigation of Clinton.

And the journalist on whose story Trump has based his recent claim that Clinton will be indicted went on television Friday morning to apologize, calling his report “a mistake.”

pdq wrote:
There is no continuing FBI investigation of the Clinton Foundation[/url], in any real sense, excepting within the minds of right-wing nutjobs, within and outside of the FBI.

At least two confidential informants from other public-corruption investigations had provided details about the Clinton Foundation to the FBI, these people said.
The FBI had secretly recorded conversations of a suspect in a public-corruption case talking about alleged deals the Clintons made, these people said. The agents listening to the recordings couldn’t tell from the conversations if what the suspect was describing was accurate, but it was, they thought, worth checking out.

Prosecutors thought the talk was hearsay and a weak basis to warrant aggressive tactics, like presenting evidence to a grand jury, because the person who was secretly recorded wasn’t inside the Clinton Foundation.

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FBI investigators grew increasingly frustrated with resistance from the corruption prosecutors, and some executives at the bureau itself, to keep pursuing the case.

As prosecutors rebuffed their requests to proceed more overtly, those Justice Department officials became more annoyed that the investigators didn’t seem to understand or care about the instructions issued by their own bosses and prosecutors to act discreetly.

In subsequent conversations with the Justice Department, Mr. Capers told officials in Washington that the FBI agents on the case “won’t let it go,” these people said.

As a result of those complaints, these people said, a senior Justice Department official called the FBI deputy director, Mr. McCabe, on Aug. 12 to say the agents in New York seemed to be disregarding or disobeying their instructions, these people said. The conversation was a tense one, they said, and at one point Mr. McCabe asked, “Are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated investigation?’’ The senior Justice Department official replied: ”Of course not.”