Obviously this has to do with Comey and the highly publicized and misrepresented request to look at and evaluate emails obtained as evidence in another case within the Justice department, but this is a GQ question.
One Federal agency has legally obtained evidence in the course of investigating one possible crime. Another agency suspects that the evidence in the first agency’s possession might be pertinent to a case of theirs and want to evaluate the evidence to see if it does.
What are the criteria that justifies the second being able to look at the evidence collected under a warrant pertinent to a different investigation?
Is there a standard of possible or probable pertinence to their case (which could be culpatory or exculpatory)? Or is the FBI granted permission to go on whatever fishing expeditions they want with no reasonable bar of possible relevance?
Let’s place it in a more historic context and say that the FBI legally investigated Martin Luther King and found no sufficient ground to charge him with any crime. Could they within the law look at any and all material gathered by other agencies investigating any other individuals that had dealings with MLK looking for material that might be used against him within files collected during the course of those other investigations? What would be the standard they would have to meet to be able to do that legally and above board? What should be the standard?
You’re asking two broad questions here. The first question is when can one federal investigating agency share information with another federal investigating agency. Generally, those agencies have policies that restrict their sharing confidential investigation materials with anyone except for certain policy purposes or as permitted or required by law. Those policies generally allow the agencies to share information with each other subject to the conditions of a “Memorandum of Understanding” or “MOU” about the information sharing. MOUs could be between two federal agencies (like the FBI and the Treasury) or between state and federal agencies. Here is the first MOU I found on the internet involving the FBI. https://epic.org/privacy/virginia_fusion/MOU.pdf
The second is when can the FBI use evidence it lawfully obtained in one investigation to further another unrelated investigation? As a practical matter the answer is almost whenever it wants. If in the course of investigating one crime the FBI discovers evidence of another crime “in plain view,” it can use that evidence to further its second investigation. Items are in plain view when the law enforcement officer is lawfully present at the place where the evidence can be plainly viewed and the officer has a lawful right of access to the object. If the FBI got a warrant for the emails and reviewed them in its offices, those conditions are easily met. Another limit to the plain view doctrine is that the criminality of evidence discovered in “plain view” must be “immediately apparent.” Horton v. California :: 496 U.S. 128 (1990) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center I don’t know whether Clinton/Abedin emails discovered in the course of the Wiener investigation would be “immediately apparent” as criminal in some other investigation.