Washington • President Donald Trump on Wednesday morning called U.S. Attorney for Utah John Huber “a garbage disposal unit” for closing an investigation without charges against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Huber, who has served as Utah’s top federal prosecutor since 2015, had been tapped by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to launch an inquiry into the Clinton Foundation and its ties to the sale of a Canadian uranium company — with mining stakes in the Western United States — to a Russian nuclear agency as well as Clinton’s handling of classified emails.
In January, after a multiyear effort, Huber ended the investigation.
Trump, during a Wednesday morning tweetstorm, praised a spoof Twitter account about Huber while slamming the real federal prosecutor.
“Undercover Huber is a great spoof, funny, but at the same time sad, because the real @JohnWHuber did absolutely NOTHING,” Trump tweeted. “He was a garbage disposal unit for important documents & then, tap, tap, tap, just drag it along & run out of time. A.G. Jeff Sessions was played like a drum!”
Trump’s tweet referenced a parody account on Twitter about Huber, called “Undercover Huber,” that has more than 246,000 followers. Huber’s real account is “@USAttyHuber.”
Huber’s office referred questions about the tweet to the Justice Department, which did not respond immediately.
Sessions asked Huber in November 2017 to review whether the FBI abused its authority in surveilling a former top aide to Trump’s campaign and whether federal officials should have probed deeper into allegations of Clinton’s ties to the sale of controlling rights for Uranium One.
Sessions' move was seen as a way to placate Trump and congressional Republicans who were upset with Sessions' decision to recuse himself from the FBI and Justice Department's probe into Russia's effort to interfere in the 2016 election.
After Trump fired FBI Director James Comey and the Justice Department hired special counsel Robert Mueller to continue the probe, Trump blasted Sessions for recusing himself.
Huber spent more than two years investigating the Clinton allegations — all of which had been essentially debunked — and closed the case without charges.
“Current and former officials said that Huber has largely finished and found nothing worth pursuing — though the assignment has not formally ended and no official notice has been sent to the Justice Department or to lawmakers,” current and former administration officials told The Washington Post.
