FBI Agents Investigating Hillary Clinton's E-mail Server Threatened With Polygraph to Prevent Leaks

[George W. Maschke]

Massimo Calabresi, reporting for Time magazine on the FBI's investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a personal e-mail server to conduct official business, notes that agents working on the case have been told they may be polygraphed:

[FBI Director James] Comey is keeping a close watch on the investigation, getting briefings from team leaders and personally overseeing the case. Agents have been told they may be polygraphed to prevent leaks, the sources familiar with the probe say. "I want to ensure [the Clinton email investigation] is done in the ways the FBI does all its work: professionally, with integrity, promptly," Comey told Congress in February. "And without any interference whatsoever."

[xenonman]

Hopefully, enough damaging information about Hillary will come to light early enough to help Bernie Sanders' campaign.

[Savannah Isis]

Maybe the FBI is going to poly Hillary Clinton?

Just kidding, of course.

At worst, she would get a friendly, "gentleman's poly" so she will have passed a polygraph "test".

[Aunty Agony]

So let me see if I have this straight: Hillary Clinton is the one who is suspected of willfully violating the law, disseminating classified documents, placing government agents and employees in grave danger, and causing clear and present harm to the United States of America -- but the law officers investigating these serious charges are the ones who will be subjected to polygraph examination?

We have long known that make-believe science yields make-believe security, but we now have evidence that make-believe investigation yields make-believe justice.

[xenonman]

Maybe the FBI is going to poly Hillary Clinton?

Just kidding, of course.

At worst, she would get a friendly, "gentleman's poly" so she will have passed a polygraph "test".

What's involved in a "gentleman's polygraph"?

[George W. Maschke]

Massimo Calabresi's reporting for Time has been confirmed by Fox News:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/07/13/gag-order-fbi-confirms-special-secrecy-agreements-for-agents-in-clinton-email-probe.html

The FBI has confirmed to a senior Republican senator that agents were sworn to secrecy -- and subject to lie detector tests -- in the Hillary Clinton email probe, an extensive measure one former agent said could have a "chilling effect."

A July 1 letter sent by a senior deputy to FBI Director James Comey to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, detailed the restrictions on agents. The letter, reviewed by Fox News, confirmed agents signed a "Case Briefing Acknowledgement" which says the disclosure of information is "strictly prohibited" without prior approval, and those who sign are subject to lie detector tests.

[Drew Richardson]

Although the use of lie detection/polygraphy to enforce such an agreement is, of course, stupid, that is not what interests me about this situation.  Bureau agents don't have carte blanche authority to talk about the details of any criminal investigation--it is puzzling as to why this one needs its own non-disclosure acknowledgment.

[Ex Member]

Doc, Comey faced a very unique and unenviable conundrum. As two roads diverged in a yellow wood, one led down the path of integrity whereby nobody is above the law; the other was to set someone above the law in order to avoid a constitutional crisis. The polygraph stipulation, in my opinion, is demonstrative of the stress he was under. Maybe Nixon should have stood his ground.