Senator Chuck Grassley says if there is political interference with the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private mail server the information uncovered during the investigation could be leaked. The Des Moines Register reports Grassley made the statements at a Rotary Club breakfast on Friday:

“Is there going to be political interference? If there’s enough evidence to prosecute, will there be political interference?” Grassley wondered aloud during a breakfast meeting with the Des Moines A.M. Rotary club on Friday. “And if there’s political interference, then I assume that somebody in the FBI is going to leak these reports and it’s either going to have an effect politically or it’s going to lead to prosecution if there’s enough evidence.”

When Grassley was asked if he meant to say the FBI should leak the investigation he clarified his statement:

“I wouldn’t be encouraging it because if it’s a violation of law, I can’t be encouraging a violation of law,” he said. “This is kind of my own opinion, this is something I’ve heard.”

Something he’s heard? From whom? Grassley doesn’t say but one possibility is that he heard this from sources close to the FBI investigation.

This is of course speculation but consider that we’ve already had suggestions that sources with knowledge of the investigation believe there is enough evidence to prosecute Clinton. Back in January Catherine Herridge reported:

One intelligence source told Fox News that FBI agents would be “screaming” if a prosecution is not pursued because “many previous public corruption cases have been made and successfully prosecuted with much less evidence than what is emerging in this investigation.”

Later the same month Herridge reported an intelligence source saying there was “incredulity” about what was “being discovered.” And more recently we’ve seen former FBI agents write a letter to Director Comey urging him not to let politics interfere with the case, as if there was some ambient concern, perhaps filtering to them from current agents, that interference might happen.

Again, all of this is reading between the lines, but it does appear there is some sense within the FBI that the evidence is there to move forward assuming political influence doesn’t win the day. And if so, this may be a sort of warning from the rank-and-file who don’t want politics taking precedence here. The message is: you won’t be able to bury this.

Ultimately, if Clinton is innocent there will be nothing damaging for anyone to leak. But if there is convincing evidence of corruption and/or negligence, Americans probably should know about that before the election.