Hillary's Espionage and the Statute of Limitations

American Thinker ^ | 09/22/2017 | Mark A. Hewitt

[ForYourChildren]

Alger Hiss was a U.S. State Department official who was accused in 1948 of being a Soviet spy. Hiss's indictment stemmed from alleged espionage in the form of secret State Department documents spirited out of Foggy Bottom and into the hands of persons "not authorized to receive" them. "The Pumpkin Papers" consisted of sixty-five pages of retyped secret State Department documents, four pages in Hiss's own handwriting of copied State Department cables, and five rolls of developed and undeveloped 35mm film.

Being charged under the Espionage Act was appropriate for those who obtained any information relating to the national defense and delivered that information to someone who was not authorized to have it. The former State Department official, Alger Hiss, typed classified information on his office typewriter, slipped the copies into a briefcase, removed classified information from the State Department, and provided all of this to his Soviet handler, who photographed and microfilmed it. The FBI wished to prosecute Alger Hiss for espionage, but the Justice Department indicated that the statute of limitations had run out, and Hiss was convicted of the lesser crime, perjury, for lying to the FBI.

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton insisted that she "had broken no rules" to conduct government business through the use of a private email service in lieu of the U.S. government's unclassified system, the Non-Classified Internet Protocol (IP) Router Network (abbreviated as NIPRNet) and the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet). These are a system of interconnected computer networks used by the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of State to transmit classified information.

[ForYourChildren]

One can only dream.

[ForYourChildren]

“The Pumpkin Papers: Key Evidence in the Alger Hiss Trials”

http://www.famous-trials.com/algerhiss/650-keyevidence

[ForYourChildren]

“18 U.S. Code § 794 - Gathering or delivering defense information to aid foreign government”

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/794

[BenLurkin]

Lock her up.

[COBOL2Java]

I thought the picture at the end of the article was a photo of Hillary’s ankle

[dr_lew]

I was swayed by a TV dramatization of the prosecutor’s summation in the Hiss trial, that is to say, one portion of it, in which the prosecutor made the analogy of Hiss and Chambers to a giraffe and a hippopotamus, who had known each other in the “old days” in the jungle. This hinged on testimony of Hiss that he “did not remember” interactions with Chambers, AFAIR.

The prosecutor set this up, then described the Hippopotamus asking the Giraffe if he remembered him, which the Giraffe repeatedly denied, until the Hippopotamus finally pinned him down, and the Giraffe exclaimed, ( in the words of the prosecutor ... ) “Oh, I remember you!”

So you see, Hiss wasn’t coming clean.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks ForYourChildren.

[bagster]

I thought the picture at the end of the article was a photo of Hillary’s ankle

Nah, that woulda had WAY too many pixels and woulda crashed the entire world wide web. Not enough computer power in the known universe.

(Author's commentary: How do you like my vast computer knowledge indicated by my computer techno language? Nerd, right?)

[GOPJ]

Spoliation of evidence is prohibited by an array of laws and regulations. Also, anyone who destroys relevant evidence or assists in such destruction is subject to criminal prosecution, civil fines, tort liability, exclusion of testimony, and dismissal of claims, as well as adverse evidentiary inferences. We have little way of knowing if any one of the 33,000 missing documents under Mrs. Clinton's control could have been used "to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation." The Trump DOJ should be making all possible efforts to retrieve the missing 33,000 emails and determine once and for all: "was it espionage or was it yoga?"

ping

[JohnnyP]

Like she says, there is no evidence she did anything wrong.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Am I the only Freeper around who actually met Whitaker Chambers (1961, Baltimore)? He looked exactly like his newspaper pictures, sort of a rumpled Charles Laughton (the actor), but his mind was a sharp as a knife.

Hiss’ Soviet identity was finally proven when the late Ed Mark wrote an article for the “Journal of Intelligence and Security” in which he was able to definitively put Hiss at a key meeting (such as Yalta, Potsdam, etc) in a process of eliminating other possible spy suspects. He was able to use the Venona papers to narrow down Hiss as “Liberal” (codename) who was mentioned as being at this meeting when other suspects weren’t.

Espionage is a very intricate and underground process but the laws on espionage are very clear, esp. the handling of classified information.

Hillary. There’s a cell waiting for you at Leavenworth. Pack up your cankle socks and head west. Don’t worry. Huma should be joining you later.

[Revolutionary]

It doesn’t say what the statute of limitations date(s) are for this instance. What are they????

[ronnie raygun]

Just imagine one day hearing that Hillary Clinton has been indicted and later convicted and sentenced, all of the criminals will be running to the FBI to sing on one another and we will have some sort of deterrent in place for the next time and possibly the re emergence of integrity trust and honor

[Pearls Before Swine]

“Bill Ayers was just some guy in my neighborhood.”

[pax_et_bonum]

From the article:

There doesn't seem to be a race against the clock for the Trump DOJ to charge Mrs. Clinton with espionage. Alger Hiss escaped prosecution under the Espionage Act of 1917 due to the statute of limitations having expired. Also, there was no appetite by the DOJ to charge the former senior State Department official and Democrat lawyer. Although federal statute USC 3282 provides for a five-year statute of limitation for the vast majority of federal crimes, this statute of limitations does not necessarily stand in the case of espionage prosecution. It is generally agreed by legal scholars that acts of espionage can be prosecuted for at least ten years after the alleged act.

[Leo Carpathian]