As reported earlier this week, the FBI probe of Democrat presidential frontrunner and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server has expanded. Today, the FBI is further expanding its investigation by putting Clinton under the microscope for potentially violating a federal false statements statute, a felony offense. More from Fox News:
The FBI has expanded its probe of Hillary Clinton's emails, with agents exploring whether multiple statements violate a federal false statements statute, according to intelligence sources familiar with the ongoing case.
Fox News is told agents are looking at U.S. Code 18, Section 1001, which pertains to "materially false" statements given either in writing, orally or through a third party. Violations also include pressuring a third party to conspire in a cover-up. Each felony violation is subject to five years in prison.
"The agents involved are under a lot of pressure and are busting a--," an intelligence source, who was not authorized to speak on the record, told Fox News.
The section of the criminal code being explored is known as "statements or entries generally," and can be applied when an individual makes misleading or false statements causing federal agents to expend additional resources and time.
A few things here. First, up to this point Team Hillary and her liberal supporters have knocked Republicans for focusing on her private email use. The FBI's new exploration of Clinton's potentially and deliberately false statements not only expands the probe, but brings the investigation to a whole new level. It's going to be even more difficult now for Clinton and her campaign to argue this is simply about emails, when in fact the probe includes Clinton's lies. Second, the cover up portion of this is huge. We already know Clinton went out of her way to delete at least 40,000 emails off her private server that she deemed "personal," and we also know her closest aides, including Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, are also being closely looked at by Congress and the FBI for potential destruction of evidence. Don't forget Clinton's claims that she turned all required documentation and email over the to the State Department when in fact, she did not. Third, considering the top three words voters use to describe Clinton are liar, dishonest and untrustworthy, this expansion will do her no political favors with the American people.
Finally, the expansion of the FBI probe creates a bigger chance for an indictment not for only hosting classified information on a private server, but for lying to investigators in an effort to cover up wrongdoing.