Jack Smith’s Team Blocked FBI Inquiry Into the Clinton Campaign’s 2016 Funding of the Steele Dossier

Emails show Smith team tied to blocking Clinton campaign inquiry as DOJ builds grand conspiracy case https://t.co/D0FQDarqZ8

— John Solomon (@jsolomonReports) November 14, 2025

… Jack Smith and more.

Emails released Thursday appear to show the officials shut down a potential FBI investigation tied to possible campaign finance violations carried out by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign when it used cutouts to fund the opposition research firm Fusion GPS and British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s anti-Trump dossier. Two officials tied to Smith’s anti-Trump investigation were linked to the decision by the FBI not to pursue the alleged campaign finance wrongdoing by Clinton’s campaign.

The Federal Election Commission ruled in 2022 there was “probable cause” to believe Hillary for America and the DNC violated federal laws by “misreporting the purpose of certain disbursements” and fined them.

The FEC said the DNC paid $849,407 and the Clinton campaign paid $175,000 to Perkins Coie for what was alleged in a complaint to be “opposition research done by Fusion.” The Clinton campaign reported the purpose of all those payments as “legal services” while the DNC reported the purpose of most of those payments as “legal and compliance consulting.”

Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias hired the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which in turn hired Steele in 2016. Elias has testified he was aware of Fusion’s plans to have Steele brief reporters on his anti-Trump research during the 2016 contest, met with Steele during the 2016 contest and periodically briefed the campaign about the findings from Fusion and Steele.

Special Counsel John Durham said members of the Clinton campaign, Fusion GPS and Perkins Coie all played a coordinated role in pushing collusion claims and that Elias was part of the “joint venture” in 2016.

The FBI would pass on a criminal investigation into the campaign finance angle – and new records appear to show why.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Thursday that “the decision to decline the investigation” into the Clinton campaign and the DNC was made by Richard Pilger, then a leader in the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, and by J.P. Cooney, who was working at the time within the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

Grassley noted that Pilger “was later pivotal in reviewing and approving the opening of Smith’s Arctic Frost investigation” while Cooney “served as Smith’s Deputy Special Counsel for that investigation.” Pilger had previously been tied to Smith’s involvement with the Lerner saga years before.

The FBI Washington Field Office’s electronic communication about the aborted inquiry, dated July 2019 and made public Thursday, said the bureau was seeking a “prosecutorial consultation” from the U.S. attorney’s office in the nation’s capital and from the DOJ’s public integrity unit about “DNC and Fusion GPS FEC violations.”

The document made it clear that the FBI passed on this investigation in part due to input from Pilger and Cooney.