Posted on 07/14/2016 7:17:24 AM PDT by Kaslin
When FBI Director James Comey publicly revealed his recommendation to the Department of Justice last week that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton not be prosecuted for espionage, he unleashed a firestorm of criticism from those who believe that Clinton was judged by different standards from those used to judge others when deciding whether to bring a case to a grand jury.
The FBI investigation had a bizarre ending to it. FBI recommendations are never made public as this one was. Attorney General Loretta Lynch had been compromised by her politically disastrous but legally consequential meeting out of the view of the media with Bill Clinton just one week before Comey's announcement. Whatever they discussed, the overwhelming public impression was such that Lynch removed herself and her senior aides from the case, effectively leaving the FBI to have the final say. This is unheard of in the post-Hoover FBI.
The Comey announcement itself gave two reasons for recommending against indictment. One was that "no reasonable prosecutor" would take the case. That is not a judgment the FBI gets paid to make. The FBI's job is to gather, present and evaluate facts and evidence, not predict what prosecutors might do with it. The other stated reason for recommending against indictment was that though Clinton may have been "extremely careless" in handling state secrets, she was not "grossly negligent," which is the standard required by the espionage statute.
Yet Comey also acknowledged that Clinton sent state secrets to nongovernmental colleagues who lacked national security clearances, that those people were hacked by hostile intelligence services and that she used her numerous non-secure mobile devices recklessly while inside the territorial borders of those hostile governments. If all that is somehow extremely careless but not grossly negligent, then many who have done far less than Clinton -- and have been prosecuted and convicted -- were wrongly prosecuted.
Since Comey's announcement last week, several new factors have come to light. One is that the DOJ never presented any evidence to a grand jury. It never sought subpoenas from a grand jury. This is unheard of in major criminal investigations because the FBI alone has no subpoena power and needs a grand jury to issue subpoenas for it.
The absence of a sitting grand jury also makes one wonder about the circumstances under which and the purpose for which the DOJ obtained immunity for Bryan Pagliano, Clinton's internet technology adviser. She paid him $5,000 to migrate her public and her secret State Department email streams from the government's secure servers to her own non-secure servers. Immunity, which is essentially the pre-indictment permanent forgiveness of criminal behavior, cannot be given lightly and can only be given in return for testimony -- usually to a grand jury or a trial jury. Strangely, that was not the case here.
Nevertheless, Clinton's persistent problems with personal honesty have brought her face to face with three more criminal investigations. One is for public corruption. The second is for perjury. And the third is for misleading Congress.
The public corruption investigation has been underway for a few months. The allegations are that she exercised the powers of her office as secretary of state to enrich her husband and herself. The evidence here is ample. There are dozens of documented instances in which foreign governments and individuals received beneficial treatment from her State Department -- usually exemptions from compliance with American laws or regulations -- and then collectively gave hundreds of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation at a time when it was not a registered lawful charity.
The second investigation Clinton faces is for perjury. This arises out of a Freedom of Information Act civil lawsuit during which she swore in writing and under oath, citing the phrase "under penalty of perjury," that she surrendered all of her work-related emails to the State Department. When she left the State Department, she effectively took all of her emails with her. Then, when the FOIA cases began, she returned about half of what she had taken, claiming that the other half was personal.
The FBI found that she failed to return thousands of work-related emails, some of which she and her lawyers attempted to destroy and some of which they succeeded in destroying. Who ordered the destruction?
Finally, Clinton will most likely be confronted with charges of misleading Congress. Misleading Congress consists of intentionally creating a false impression in response to material congressional questions. She did this when she denied to the House Select Committee on Benghazi that she had sent or received emails via her home servers that contained state secrets.
The FBI found 110 emails in that category, at least two dozen of which were at the highest level of protection that the government accords its secrets. She also told that same committee that she had surrendered all her work-related emails to the State Department.
Former New York Yankees pitching great Roger Clemens was tried twice (after a trial that ended with a hung jury, he was ultimately acquitted) for misleading Congress when he was forced to speak to a House committee about the contents of his blood and urine as a baseball player. Clinton has misled Congress about her lawful obligations as secretary of state, and she skates free.
Back in the Whitewater days, when the propensity of both Bill and Hillary Clinton to lie routinely and naturally first became apparent to the media and the public, the late, great New York Times columnist William Safire referred to Mrs. Clinton by a moniker that enraged her husband. He became so fearful of the truth and so furious with Safire that he publicly threatened to punch Safire in the nose.
Safire called Hillary Clinton a congenital liar. He was right. That was 20 years ago. Some people never change.
Who is this man to judge Queen Hillary!
She rules by divine assignment!
Mere mortals have no say over her behavior!
The counter-royalists cry like little babies over things beyond their comprehension.
Queen Hillary is the right hand of god!
Only she knows what is best for us!
The spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt speaks to her!
She comes from the home of god, Illinois!
Long live Queen Hillary and the Democrat Royalty!
Trump should change her name to the name The New York Times gave her 20 years ago, Congenital Liar.
I think y’all should read the article again. Here it is. By the way its 20 year birthday should be noted.
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/08/opinion/essay-blizzard-of-lies.html
Clinton? Personal Honesty? Surely you jest.(and stop calling me Shirley...)
“Hillary Clinton” and “personal honesty:” two phrases that are seldom seen in the same neighborhood.
William Safire got it right when he called her a congenital liar.
It’s long passed time for Magna Carta Ver. 2.0
Exposing the Clinton feces?
Hildabeast and personal honesty?
That’s like islam and peace. The two are at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Oxymoron
As bad as hitlery is - and she’s really bad - those that are in positions of power to stop her - and don’t - are worse. Much worse. Shame on them.
William Jefferson Clinton, as he contemplated his path to power in politics, including his alliance with a likewise power-seeking partner, both of whom have displayed enormous problems with simple honesty--both of whom would have been smart to have consulted the advice of Thomas Jefferson, that great Author of the Declaration, early President, and defender of liberty:
"If ever you find yourself environed with difficulties and perplexing circumstances, out of which you are at a loss how to extricate yourself, do what is right, and be assured that that will extricate you the best out of the worst situations. Tho’ you cannot see when you fetch one step, what will be the next, yet follow truth, justice, and plain-dealing, and never fear their leading you out of the labyrinth in the easiest manner possible. The knot which you thought a Gordian one will untie itself before you. Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty, by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice. This increases the difficulties tenfold, and those who pursue these methods, get themselves so involved at length that they can turn no way but their infamy becomes more exposed. It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual, he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all it’s good dispositions." - Thomas Jefferson, 1785, Letter to Peter Carr
William Jefferson Clinton is no Thomas Jefferson
The headline alone is an OXYMORON.
We live in a money civilization eighteenth century "principles" no longer motivate most Americans.
BTTT!
The Clinton woman and Bill need to be held accountable......they should be stripped of any association with the US government and banned from all activites that impinge on US sovereignty.
In sum, the Clintons are just feckless bottom feeders....con artists and pirates hijacking our tax dollars, and the wealth of others. They are practiced experts at duping people. hat tip himnohero)
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Honest ta God...anymore of that "Clinton Solidarity" and I'll puke.
THE CLINTON SOLIDARITY ACT CAPTURED ON FILM
One Clinton lies and the other swears to it.
"I never had sexual relations with that woman...Miss Lewinsky."
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STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE
VINTAGE TIME COVER The Clintons leave the WH
arm-in-arm after Bill got lewinskied. Plotting to exploit
Bill's BJ for votes, the Clintons' political apparat never faltered.
Hillary later went on network TV all decked out in virginal pearls,
denying everything, blaming Billy's B/J on "an invention of
the VRWC." Bill later admitted to it, was impeached, and disbarred.
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NOTE---Pres Clinton was a tax-paid employee using tax -paid offices .....
but the sucker claimed it was his business what he did there (groan).
How could anyone even put those two things in the same statement?
Good one!
BTTT!
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