EXCLUSIVE: Clinton headlined fundraiser for campaign group which gave $500,000 to wife of FBI boss who investigated her emails - and it's closely linked to Hillary's bid for power

• e-mail

Hillary Clinton headlined a major fundraiser for a political action committee shortly before the group steered nearly $500,000 to the wife of the FBI official who oversaw the Clinton email investigation, DailyMail.com has learned.

Clinton's ties to the Common Good VA - a Virginia state PAC run by Clinton's long-time friend and advisor Terry McAuliffe, its governor - came under scrutiny this week after the Wall Street Journal reported that the group donated heavily to the state senate campaign of Jill McCabe.

Her husband Andrew McCabe led the FBI investigation into Clinton's emails.

Andrew McCabe, now the deputy director of the FBI, told the Wall Street Journal that he complied with federal ethics rules and was not promoted to lead the Clinton probe until months after his wife's unsuccessful state senate bid ended.

So close: Hillary Clinton headlines a fundraiser for the Common Good VA and walks on stage with Terry McAuliffe, the Virginia governor who controls its cash. That month it started channeling money to Jill McCabe's campaign

Show me the money: Clinton was used to get donors to have over cash to Common Good VA - and then it handed it to the FBI boss's wife's campaign

Husband and wife: Jill McCabe ran for Virginia state senate with PAC cash from a fund linked to McAuliffe, while her husband Andrew investigated Clinton's email scandal

But Republicans said the large payments from McAuliffe's PAC to Jill McCabe raise questions about the impartiality of the FBI's investigation, which determined that Clinton and her aides did not violate any laws while using a private email server to conduct government business.

Common Good VA was the largest single donor to Jill McCabe's campaign, election records show, giving her $467,000 between June and October of 2015. 

She was the third-largest recipient of money from the group, which can only contribute to Virginia state candidates. 

Her campaign also received an additional $207,788 from the Democratic Party of Virginia, a group over which McAuliffe exerts significant control. Combined, the money made up nearly one-third of her total funding.

McAuliffe has been a Clinton insider for decades, working for them as a fundraiser, a top aide, and a board member at the Clinton Foundation. He also chaired Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign.

But Clinton's ties to Common Good VA go beyond her relationship with McAuliffe. In June 2015, she headlined a key fundraiser for the group, which reportedly brought in over $1 million for the PAC and the Democratic Party of Virginia. 

In the four months that followed, five-and-six-figure donations poured into Common Good VA from out-of-state Clinton supporters and aides.

Common Good VA, which McAuliffe founded in 2014, also appeared to act as a holding zone for future Clinton campaign staffers. 

Over the past two years, at least five employees left the small PAC to take senior roles in Clinton's campaign, according to Virginia election records reviewed by the DailyMail.com.

The National Legal and Policy Center, a Virginia-based government watchdog group, said the financial trail raises significant concerns about the neutrality of the FBI investigation overseen by Andrew McCabe.

'The fact that Hillary Clinton's inner circle was raising substantial funds for Gov. McAuliffe's PAC and this same PAC gave close to a half-million dollars to the campaign of the wife of the senior FBI official involved in the Clinton investigation sure looks like a payoff - a major payoff,' said Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center. 

Close links to Clinton henchmen: Doug Band (left) was Bill Clinton's closest aide and gave cash to the Common Good VA PAC - while Robby Mook is Hillary's campaign manager and was previously on its payroll

'What was already a serious corruption story now looks much worse.'

Clinton was the feature speaker at a June 26, 2015 ticketed joint fundraiser for the Common Good VA and the Democratic Party of Virginia. 

Although the speech was billed as Clinton's first official event after her campaign launch, none of the money raised went to her own campaign.

In her speech, Clinton praised McAuliffe and urged attendees to support Democrats in the state legislature.

'Virginia, let's work together to make sure this beloved commonwealth is blue, that we have Democrats in the state legislature to work with the governor, and that we do have a Democratic president in the White House in 2017,' Clinton told the crowd.

The Clinton campaign and Common Good VA did not respond to requests for comment about the June 2015 fundraiser, and whether Clinton met with Jill McCabe at the event.

The Virginia Democratic Party claimed at the time that the fundraiser pulled in over $1 million. 

According to state election records, a number of high-dollar donations that week to Common Good VA came from Clinton's close friends and aides.

Although Common Good VA is only allowed to fund state-level candidates, many of its largest donations came from outside of Virginia – including $50,000 from Clinton Foundation official Doug Band in New York, $100,000 from Clinton loyalist Robert Johnson in Maryland, and $10,000 from Clinton mega-donor Stephen Cloobeck in Nevada.

In the following months, Common Good VA received several major donations from other close Clinton associates, including $100,000 from Bill Clinton's business partner Ron Burkle in California and $50,000 from Ready for Hillary's finance committee member Leonard Lauder in New York.

In October 2015, both Hillary and Bill Clinton returned to Virginia for campaign stops. 

Bill Clinton spoke at a private fundraiser for his wife, and Hillary Clinton joined McAuliffe at a campaign rally in Alexandria on Oct. 23.

Election records show that the week after Clinton's October speech with McAuliffe, Common Good VA made two large contributions to Jill McCabe's campaign – $125,000 on Oct. 27 and $175,000 on Oct. 29. 

The PAC had previously given Jill McCabe $150,000 on Oct. 1, and several smaller donations in June and August.

Brian Zuzenak, the executive director of Common Good VA at the time, praised Clinton's October speech, saying it would 'help show Virginians what's at stake this November on issues like women's health and preventing gun violence. 

'While Republicans race to the extreme right, Virginia Democrats are building a new Virginia economy for everyone to succeed.'

Zuzenak, who oversaw the donations to Jill McCabe, left Common Good VA last May to join the Clinton campaign as its Virginia field director. 

He isn't alone in the move. Common Good VA's executive director Michael Halle also joined the Clinton campaign as battleground analytics director in the spring of 2015. 

The group's former fundraiser, Amanda McTyre, is now a finance director for Clinton, and staffer Marissa Astor left to become an assistant Clinton campaign manager.

Virginia election records show that Clinton's campaign manager Robby Mook, a former McAuliffe aide, was also on the Common Good VA payroll before he joined her presidential campaign.

Already raising questions: The Trump campaign asked whether Clinton was aware of the contributions to Andrew McCabe's wife

McAuliffe told the Wall Street Journal that he encouraged Jill McCabe to enter the state senate race in March 2015 during a meeting with her and her husband. 

Andrew McCabe has denied he had a conflict of interest in the Clinton investigation, saying he sought and followed advice from FBI ethics officials on issues related to his wife's political campaign.

The FBI official was promoted to assistant deputy director in July 2015. Several months after Jill McCabe lost her state senate race to the Republican incumbent, her husband was promoted to deputy director and tasked with overseeing the Clinton email investigation.

The investigation ultimately found that classified information was sent and received over Clinton's private email server while she was running the State Department, but the FBI said there was not enough evidence of wrongdoing to pursue charges. 

Director James Comey, in announcing the decision, said his investigators did not find indications of clear criminal intent by Clinton and her aides.

The Donald Trump campaign has already slammed the Democratic candidate amid the revelations, and questioned whether Clinton was aware of the contributions to Andrew McCabe's wife.

'Secretary Clinton, did you know about the large campaign contributions made by Terry McAuliffe, your close friend and political ally, to the wife of a top FBI official who helped oversee the investigation into your secret server? Do you think this was a massive conflict of interest?' asked Trump spokesman Jason Miller in statement this week.