FBI releases 17-year-old archive from Clinton pardon case

WASHINGTON (AP) – The FBI has released a 17-year-old archive of documents from a long-closed investigation into Bill Clinton’s presidential pardon of a fugitive financier.

The release comes a week before the presidential election and amid the bureau’s controversially timed review of emails from a Hillary Clinton aide.

The 129 pages of heavily censored material have been published on the FBI’s Freedom of Information Act webpage. FBI officials say the documents had been requested under the federal records law.

The documents describe the FBI’s investigation into Bill Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich, who was indicted in 1983 and lived in Switzerland. The case was closed in 2005 without federal charges. Rich died in 2013.

The files briefly cite the Clinton Foundation in connection with a large donation in support of Clinton’s presidential library.