WASHINGTON (AP) – FBI agents probing whether Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server imperiled government secrets appear close to completing their work, a process experts say will probably culminate in a sit-down with the former secretary of state.
The FBI has already spoken with Huma Abedin, a Clinton confidant who was among the Democratic presidential front runner’s closest aides at the State Department. Former chief of staff Cheryl D. Mills is also cooperating with the investigation, according to her lawyer.
This signals that agents will probably seek to interview Clinton soon, if they haven’t already, former Justice Department officials told The Associated Press. The FBI’s standard practice is to save questioning the person at the center of an investigation for last, once it has gathered available facts from others.
“With a person like Secretary Clinton, the FBI probably assumes they are going to get one chance to interview her, not only because she is a prominent person but because she is very busy right now with the presidential campaign,” said David Deitch, a former Justice Department prosecutor. “It makes sense they would defer interviewing her until late in their investigation.”
On CBS’s “Face the Nation” on May 8, Clinton said the FBI had not yet reached out to her, but she was “more than ready to talk to anybody, anytime.”