Long time Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin has been very angry with Chuck Grassley over what she perceives as his attempts to ruin her reputation by asking questions about her pay stubs. Following some new information which came out this week it’s going to be fascinating to hear why she wasn’t quite so vocal about federal investigators who were apparently trying to trash that same reputation more than a year ago and they were using the word embezzlement. Unbeknownst to the press and public, the feds were looking into her rather unique employment status and the payouts she received in the autumn of 2014. (Washington Times)

Federal investigators formally investigated top Hillary Rodham Clinton aide Huma Abedin for the crime of embezzlement after confirming she took a “Babymoon” vacation and maternity time at the State Department without expending her formal leave, resulting in thousands of dollars of pay she wasn’t entitled to receive, The Washington Times has learned.

The probe also gathered evidence she filed time sheets charging the government for impermissible overtime and excessive hours after she converted from a full-time federal employee to a State Department contractor.

Those timecards were filed during a period that remains under investigation over questions about possible conflicts of interest, documents gathered by the State Department inspector general show.

The feds were closing in on this case quite a while ago and they turned up more than we heard about this summer. It was rather laughable to think that she never took a single a single sick day or vacation the entire time she was there, including when she had a baby and went on vacation to France and Italy. But the questions don’t stop there by a long shot. According to this report, Abedin’s alleged violations happened in two phases. When she was initially employed at State as a full time staffer she failed to file required forms letting her employer know that she was taking leave and continued to receive her full pay. The Office of the Inspector General determined that this resulted in her receiving an overpayment of more than $10K when she officially left the position, part of a lump sum payment of roughly $33K. (Man… I have to get into government work.)

But Huma had an explanation for why she never noticed… it was Anthony Weiner’s fault.

She suggested her husband, the disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner, failed to let her know.

“My husband handles all the finances in our household,” she told investigators during a recorded interview in October 2014.

She said she only learned of the payment after being contacted by investigators two years after her departure. “I did ask my husband to look up our bank statements, and we did have a deposit,” she said during her interview.

Well… I guess that’s all cleared up then.

But there was a second round of pay issues. After leaving her full time position she continued to be on the payroll as a “special government employee.” In this position Abedin was working as a contractor who had to bill the government for her hours. The rules state that contracted employees could only bill 1,040 hours for an entire year, but in only six months she had billed Uncle Sam for 1,290 hours. Good work if you can get it, I suppose.

So why wasn’t she held to account for this taxpayer money? The answer here really carries a bit of a stench. After more than a year of investigations the IG’s office turned over the case to Justice for prosecution. They declined.

The “alleged violations” cited were improperly requesting and approving annual leave and “embezzlement,” the documents state.

“The case was not declined based on the merits of the investigation,” stated the final investigative report, dated Jan. 26.

Such a designation usually means federal prosecutors decided not to pursue a case, but only because they didn’t think it worth the resources, not because the facts and evidence couldn’t support a case.

So the OIG felt that they had enough of a clear cut case to go after her for embezzlement, but the Justice Department found that it wasn’t worth the resources to pursue her. My, my, my… that’s awfully convenient. We’re not talking about an insubstantial amount of money here for one employee and it’s part of the public purse. But for some strange reason the case wasn’t worth going after so they dropped it.

This government job thing is sounding better and better.