- Mark F. Giuliano, a career FBI agent who served as second-in-command during the FBI’s contentious probe of Hillary Clinton’s personal email server when she was vying for the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, passed away at his Decatur, Georgia, home on March 2. His sister Ann Britz stated that an apparent heart attack was the cause. Mr. Giuliano began his almost three-decade FBI career in 1988 as a street agent in Washington, where he pursued violent crime and gangs. Later on, he oversaw prominent criminal cases including the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted initiative.
- Like many FBI agents, his work had a major shift in focus after the 2001 al-Qaeda terrorist strikes. The FBI began to focus more on threats to international security, and he briefly oversaw an FBI force that assisted American Special Forces in Afghanistan. In a time when terrorist threats were constantly changing, Mr. Giuliano worked as a senior FBI official, managing day-to-day operations as the number of Americans suspected of attempting to travel abroad to join ISIS or other terrorist groups skyrocketed into the hundreds, and testifying before Congress about FBI mistakes prior to the 2009 Fort Hood shooting.
- Following years of high leadership positions at FBI headquarters, Mr. Giuliano was appointed as the agency’s top agent in Atlanta in 2012. The following year, Director James B. Comey invited him back to Washington to assist in running the bureau as deputy director. In 2015, Mr. Giuliano and Comey initiated the Clinton investigation, which turned out to be one of the most significant in FBI history. The inquiry included classified material discovered on a non-government, private email server and concerned the former first lady, senator, and secretary of state.
- Though those developments took place after Mr. Giuliano departed in early 2016, having already worked longer than he had intended in a high-stress position with regular turnover, the FBI’s handling of the investigation had a significant influence on the 2016 presidential election. Comey declared he was wrapping up the investigation in July 2016, but he did so during a press conference when he went into great detail about Clinton’s wrongdoings. The crucial actions made by Comey and Mr. Giuliano’s replacement, Andrew McCabe, would be the focus of ongoing discussions about the right role for the Justice Department and FBI in American politics, as well as internal probes and repeated assaults from President Donald Trump.
- Mark Francis Giuliano, the eldest of nine children, was raised in Middleburg Heights, Ohio, after being born in Erie, Pennsylvania, on May 28, 1961. Following his retirement from the FBI, Mr. Giuliano went on to work for Invesco, an investment management business, where he eventually became chief administrative officer. Colleagues at the FBI recalled Mr. Giuliano as a focused yet compassionate supervisor.
Source:
The Washington Post
