Andrew McCarthy explains at National Review Online why he believes “the fix was in” to help Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton avoid any legal problems linked to her email scandal. The House Government Oversight Committee is reviewing the case.

The committee is especially troubled by the facts that (a) unbeknownst to Congress, the Justice Department gave immunity to a key witness; yet, (b) prosecutors and the FBI indulged that witness’s refusal to answer critical questions. Specifically, Paul Combetta, a technician at Platte River Networks (the Colorado firm retained by the Clintons to handle the private e-mail system), is the person who destroyed Clinton’s e-mails despite the fact that they were under congressional subpoena. Nevertheless, he was permitted to invoke attorney-client privilege — not his own, mind you, but Mrs. Clinton’s – in declining to discuss any instructions he received before (and after) carrying out the mass deletion of tens of thousands of Clinton e-mails, a task for which he used the “BleachBit” program in an effort to ensure that the deleted e-mails would be irretrievably lost.

For months, in the course of pointing out that only the Justice Department, not the FBI, has authority to confer immunity on witnesses, I have been raising questions about (a) who in the investigation has been given immunity, and (b) exactly what kind of immunity — statutory? transactional? conditional? I have also tried to highlight the dubious basis (to be charitable) for claiming attorney-client privilege. These remain important issues, and it’s good that the committee plans to probe them.

I also hope, though, that the committee will investigate a more fundamental matter: Why was Hillary Clinton so willing to speak with the FBI?

Why were her aides, deeply implicated in Clinton’s conduct, so willing to submit to FBI interviews? Even Cheryl Mills, who reportedly had refused to cooperate in a State Department inspector-general investigation of the Clinton e-mail system’s undermining of federal law, was entirely comfortable answering the FBI’s questions — at least to the extent the Obama Justice Department allowed questions to be asked.