Inside the FBI Investigation of Hillary Clinton’s E-Mail
I didn't see this posted here, and thought it held some interesting insights I didn't know before, and I've been following this closely.
I've been worried that this investigation would be brushed under the table the way so many high-level offenders seem to be let off. Two Americas. No way Comey recommends an indictment, no matter what the evidence says,or so I feared. Well, if this is true, not only is Comey no friend of the Clintons, but he could very well be sick of their shit and how they've been skirting the law for decades. I don't think Comey is going to be one to give them any benefit of the doubt or deference to who they are.
I hate reading tea leaves, and won't jinx anything by stating my opinion after reading this. But, if there is a just God.....
http://time.com/4276988/jim-comey-hillary-clinton/
"Comey’s first brush with them came when Bill Clinton was president. Looking to get back into government after a stint in private practice, Comey signed on as deputy special counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee. In 1996, after months of work, Comey came to some damning conclusions: Hillary Clinton was personally involved in mishandling documents and had ordered others to block investigators as they pursued their case. Worse, her behavior fit into a pattern of concealment: she and her husband had tried to hide their roles in two other matters under investigation by law enforcement. Taken together, the interference by White House officials, which included destruction of documents, amounted to 'far more than just aggressive lawyering or political naiveté,' Comey and his fellow investigators concluded. It constituted 'a highly improper pattern of deliberate misconduct.'
"One of his first cases as a line attorney in the same office 15 years earlier had been the successful prosecution of Marc Rich, a wealthy international financier, for tax evasion. But on his last day as President in 2001, Bill Clinton pardoned Rich. 'I was stunned,' Comey later told Congress.
"Despite evidence that several pardon recipients, including Rich, had connections to donations to Bill Clinton’s presidential library and Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign, Comey found no criminal wrongdoing. He was careful not to let the investigation be used for political purposes by either party. When pressed for details in one case, he said, 'I can’t really go into it because it was an investigation that didn’t result in charges. That may be a frustrating answer, but that’s the one I’m compelled to give.'”
Comments
The Clintons might have finally hung themselves
with this one, we'll see. At the very least she shows that she has very poor judgement unbecoming of a President.
There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties.. This...is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.--John Adams
I can't see the FBI coming in with indictments
I'd love to be wrong, but an Obama-run FBI that has looked the other way on Wall Street crimes and Clinton Global Initiative influence peddling is perfectly capable of sweeping email funny business under the rug. The whole issue bores me, frankly, but its political relevance for campaign propaganda purposes can't be denied. That's why I think the general rule is this: the powerful get away with anything.
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Can the FBI hand down indictments
or just recommend indictment to the DOJ? This is one of those areas I'm really unclear about. I know the FBI is investigating, but are the indictments their purview as well?
My understanding is they can either say they found enough for criminal charges to be filed or they didn't, but that the actual indictments had to come from the DOJ, in which Loretta Lynch would make the final decision (or appoint an independent general counsel and step out of it).
Either way, I have to hope that some people in authority are sick of covering for the Clintons. Its not like anyone is going to worry what the public thinks--or even give a crap about the upholding the Constitution.
I hope that there are
enough people at DOJ that still value truth, justice, and the American way to impartially indict Hillary Clinton regardless of what they are sick of. Well, I can hope, can't I. Obama said I should...
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire
fbi agents
do the criminal investigation, hand the results with a recommendation to the prosecutors at doj, and they determine if there is sufficient evidence to present to a grand jury, who then returns indictments, or no bills.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
And we know how much use grand juries are (not)
when it's in the interests of the powerful that nothing be done.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Judicial Watch
Just watched this interesting presentation by Judicial Watch and it brought up a lot of important issues.
Former US Attorney Joseph diGenova addressed the legal aspects and process. He stated that there is definitely a Grand Jury on this matter. He thinks that the FBI will definitely be recommending criminal charges. It will be up to AG Loretta Lynch to determine what charges will be actually brought or whether deals will be made. DiGenova thinks that Clinton and her circle of aides, as well as the State Department's guy in charge of security, Patrick Kennedy (IIRC) are all likely to be charged.
The video brings up the point obscuring transparency and stonewalling FOIA requests has been present and worsening in the US government since at least Bill Clinton's terms but Obama mandated transparency and cooperation with FOIA at the beginning of his 1st term so the actuality is definitely not living up to what was promised initially.
Everyone who received an email from HRC while she was SoS would have known that she was using a private email address so many government officials, likely including PBO would have known that she was not following protocol. Why it wasn't investigated and corrected in the first weeks of her term remains to be determined. The speakers stated that the security folks at State were involved in covering up the fact that she was using a private email account. Claims that "nobody knew" are false and in fact, when there was a problem with the private server, HRC's aides would request assistance from the State Department. The State Department IT team would also have known early on that HRC had NO emails on record.
When the idea of a secure blackberry was discussed, the letter from the State Department included the admonition that the emails would be available for FOIA so it seems pretty clear that the private emails and server were primarily about avoiding FOIA.
Lots more on the video, I'll try to post more notes as the issues come to me. The implications of this investigation could be very far-reaching.
Don't like relying
on JW for this kind of stuff, though they may be totally on the money with their assessment.
Bottom line is that whatever happens with the FBI and the DOJ, whether or not Hillary ever gets indicted or even a slap on the wrist, the stench of this will pervade the air as long as she foists herself into public view. There ought to be some Dems who aren't so bought they still retain enough self-interest, even if they lack ethics and morality, to say 'just let the chips fall where they may.' No matter how good an ally you want to be, there has to come a point where you think "I'm tired of having to defend and clean up after them, they need to quit doing stupid."
The smaller the mind the greater the conceit. --Aesop
One thing this commentary didn't address
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that HRC's aides had .gov email addresses. Only HRC did not have one.
I could picture a scenario where Huma Abedin or whoever would send an email on HRC's behalf using the .gov address. HRC would argue that a copy of her State-related emails got into the government record because her aides' .gov emails would be saved. Also, other officials might not clue in that HRC didn't have her own .gov account; they'd just assume that everything went through her aides.
However, if the FOIA requests are specific for emails sent by HRC, they would miss anything sent on her behalf by aides.
And behind the scenes, HRC and her aides were communicating through private emails using the private server.
If anything is going to come of it,
which I doubt, I hope it happens really soon. Monday would be good.
While the DOJ might not prosecute under Obama...
You can rest assured it will be the 1st order of business for the Teapublican Congress...
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."
~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,
Which would immediately lead to impeachment
should she win the WH. The good news is that it would be war and nothing would get done making SS safe for a minute.
I am glad you are following this closely and hope you will continue to share your findings.
Whether or not she gets indicted is less important to me than Hillary losing the primary race to Bernie. The Third Way/Clinton machine is Enemy #1. If we can't beat it, beating the GOP doesn't matter.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
The way it is reported
is boring as hell. If you are not an IT, most of it is not understandable. If you do not know fbi and doj and NSA protocols, it is not understandable. If Clinton was making arms deals and fracking deals and encouraging the Honduran military rule right in Obama's face, and Bill and the Foundation getting "donations", right in Obama's face, and it was all fine and dandy, then yeah, Dallasdoc, it looks like there is nothing to see here.
It is all on Comey.
We shall see.
Will Obama spend his post-presidential life heading up an enormous charitable foundation?
YOU BETCHA!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Agree with Come that
Agree with Comey that overlooking Clinton ' s shady practices during the Whitewater investigation made sense. Whitewater was a faux scandal.
But the private email account and server is a problem, obviously unethical, illegal and potentially dangerous to national security. The dishonesty and stonewalling in this case is wrong and needs to be addressed. It just continues to lower the bar for public accountability and government transparency. Let it pass and the GOP will exploit the opportunity to take such criminal activity much farther in more destructive ways.
AG Lynch may choose to sweep it under the rug, but it's the public ' s responsibility to make everyone involved in that decision to go on record. It's an old, but effective rule grassroots activists apply to public officials - you can say no, but you must say it in public.
"If you can't eat their food, drink their booze, take their money and then vote against them you've got no business being in Congress."
^^^This comment^^^
I have posted in the past that I do not believe that under any circumstances should a public official be conducting public business on a private account or a private server. This is all about accountability and we the people should insist that our government officials be accountable.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
An important IT question
Is it true that it should have been obvious that the lack of a ".gov" address meant that it should have been obvious that a private server was involved? I thought it was possible to redirect an email to a different (government) server.
Don't think so
I think it just indicates that the sender is not using an official government email account.
The video I linked above includes the reporter commenting on finding out that an elected official (Chuck Grassley or am I misremembering?) uses a gmail account rather than a .gov. In response to an FOIA, initially the reporter was told that the official doesn't use email and then some months later the FOIA office came back saying that he uses a gmail account. You wouldn't expect or assume that he uses a private and personal server.
It's funny about that though. If I get an email from someone official and the email address doesn't look official, I assume that the email is fake. I'm a bit surprised that HRC and her aides would be taken seriously if they were sending emails from personal accounts.
However, the State Department knew she had a private server in her basement in Chappaqua.
If nothing else this created an opening for a challenge.
Without it she would been coronated already. And it pretty much ensures she won't be elected. Repugs will have field day.
OK, it's Fox Spews--but even they get it correct sometimes
Not a big fan of Fox Spews, folks, but i would like those with greater familiarity with the Law than I, to make comments on this Youtube video:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iWyJlDPk38&ab_channel=SteliosJames-Foster]
Wishful thinking? Likely event? Does the "Judge" really know what she's talking about? Okay, so you be the judge. Please do not resort to "consider the source" retorts. The Judge gives criminal codes as part of her reasoning. Are those citations accurate and do they apply to HRC? Let's have some factual discussion here. I am not a lawyer--so let the Legal Trust at c99 get to work on this, please.
Not a lawyer but
I have heard similar concerns raised by other legal experts. This video really simplifies it but I think it does a good job of refuting some of the lies that HRC has used to defend herself.
Thinking about this, I wonder which way PBO and the AG are going to handle it. Either they have HRC's back and they sweep the whole thing under a rug or Obama decides that he wants the record of his government to live up to his original mandate for transparency and they make an example of HRC. It depends on who is really pulling the strings, which outcome will happen.
Emails
This whole email bit is proving one disturbing fact: Shrill isn't all that smart. SOS is one office that protected/secured email should be the First Commandment! Good god, look at all the international hacking and other cyber stealing/spying that is going on. It's just basic common sense. I am not looking forward to having another yahoo near those nuclear codes, buttons, whatever POTUS has nowadays. It was scary enough with dimwits like Rayguns and Dumbya having access.
I sure hope this skunk grows some serious legs. PBO and the Bernster having nuclear access doesn't bother me.
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.