Posted on 03/07/2016 3:32:45 PM PST by Kaslin
Last week’s Washington Post bombshell, the news that the Justice Department has given immunity from prosecution to the former State Department staffer who maintained Hillary Clinton’s “homebrew” email server, is forcing Mrs. Clinton and her apologists to alter their media strategy.
For months it has been obvious that a serious criminal investigation of the former secretary of State’s reckless mishandling of classified information has been underway. Yet Camp Clinton has maintained that the government is merely engaged in a “security inquiry” that is focused on the physical server itself -- not a probe of criminal suspects. This has never made sense. The FBI, which has assigned many agents to the case, is in the criminal investigation business.
Plus, when the now-immunized former staffer, Bryan Pagliano, invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege in refusing to testify before the House Benghazi committee, it signaled that he feared truthful answers would incriminate him.
Now with Pagliano apparently poised to cooperate with the FBI, the claim that Mrs. Clinton is not a criminal suspect is untenable. So Clinton and her supporters are changing tack: instead of implausibly insisting there is no crime to investigate, they argue that there is no crime worth prosecuting.
This narrative was first floated a few months ago. The story goes like this: retired General David Petraeus, the former CIA director, committed a classified information offense that -- according to Clintonistas -- was far more serious than Mrs. Clinton’s conduct, yet Petraeus was permitted to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor count. Ergo, a prosecution of Mrs. Clinton over her comparatively minor misconduct cannot be justified.
When Camp Clinton first began spinning its Petraeus yarn, I explained that it relies on Anne M. Tompkins, the former U.S. attorney for western North Carolina who oversaw the prosecution against the general. Tompkins, who just happens to be a Hillary Clinton donor, exploits the aura of authority from her obvious familiarity with the Petraeus case to suggest that she is a reliable source on Clinton case -- which she dutifully portrays as weak. To note just the most obvious problems with her analysis: even when she worked for the government (which she no longer does), Tompkins never had anything to do with the Clinton investigation; and she can’t possibly know the full extent of the FBI’s evidence because the probe is ongoing and, quite properly, the FBI is not commenting publicly.
Moving right along, though, Ms. Tompkins relates that, despite his serious crimes, General Petraeus was permitted -- by Tompkins, of course -- to plead guilty to a mere misdemeanor. Thus, she reasons, it would be unthinkable to file charges -- particularly, harsher felony charges -- against Clinton, the purportedly lesser offender.
Precious, no?
The Obama-appointed prosecutor who plea-bargained egregious felonies down to a slap on the wrist for the Obama-appointed CIA director would have us view her irresponsible charging decision as the gold standard for evaluating similar cases.
And how’s this for a small world: the defense lawyer who beguiled Tompkins into giving Petraeus a near-total pass just happens to be David Kendall -- Mrs. Clinton’s lawyer.
As it should have been
Petraeus was nailed way before Hillary was stapled onto the FBI dart board in Comey’s office. Petraeus never ran a pay for play scheme that netted two billion dollars for a foundation he started.
Hillary can only obfuscate so much. The tax evasion and bribery will be her undoing.
Obama may pardon her but there’s going to be a massive backlash once the magnitude of her criminality leaks out. Trump for one will not let it go. Since the media can’t ignore Trump there’s going to be a colossal blow up.
Trump has the additional drawback of being the Republican candidate least able to exploit the Clinton Foundation, as he was a donor.
I think the Foundation is potentially a bigger scandal than the e-mails. Fact is, she took money from foreign countries and businesses doing business with the USA while she was Sec of State. Were she anyone else, this conflict of interest would bar her from holding the position. The Foundation is a sham - 84+% of the “contributions” goes to “overhead”. It’s money paid for influence, simple.
And Trump paid it.
Libs are the first to decry (conservative) money in politics. Much of the Trump/Sanders revolt is that the system is fixed by big money. The Clintons are the poster children for this. The other Republican candidates can drive this home; Trump can not, without admitting to soliciting a bribe.
Hag Clinton (Queen of crime) “I always try to tell the truth”. LOL!!
Libs are the first to decry (conservative) money in politics. Much of the Trump/Sanders revolt is that the system is fixed by big money. The Clintons are the poster children for this. The other Republican candidates can drive this home; Trump can not, without admitting to soliciting a bribe.
Nonsense. Cruz has accepted multi million dollar “donations” from individuals. He’s in a far worse position than Trump on the Politican-Donor Complex issue.
Questions the media will never ask:
Ms. Clinton, emails that were classified and restricted from existing outside the government’s closed email system were found on your server. How did they get there?
Why can’t you be observed while entering your airplane?
Hillary and her SOS crew have copied&pasted all kinds of material from Agent Lists and Code Books--had the Top Secret information flying for years from computer to computer over her private bathroom server.
1 to 10 years in a Federal pen is chump change--she should be tried for treason.
And why did people die?
Because she to have absolute manipulative control and full delete power over every single email that oozed out from her tenure as Obama's Secretary of State--tens of thousands of them.
Hillary and her SOS crew have copied&pasted all kinds of material from Agent Lists and Code Books--had the Top Secret information flying for years from computer to computer over her private bathroom server.
1 to 10 years in a Federal pen is chump change--she should be tried for treason.
And why did people die?
Because she to have absolute manipulative control and full delete power over every single email that oozed out from her tenure as Obama's Secretary of State--tens of thousands of them.
Loose lips sink ships!
“Trump has the additional drawback of being the Republican candidate least able to exploit the Clinton Foundation, as he was a donor.”
I disagree. Trump has standing to claim that he was a victim of fraud.
He’s in a different position re the donations. I was referring to the Foundation, which took money form foreign countries as well as big monied interests.
Cruz and others may have their issues re donations, but they are garden variety, common to all candidates. Clinton and the Foundation are in a different league, one I’ve never seen in politics before. It’s an influence peddling machine that, at the very least, creates the mother of all conflicts of interest and should disqualify her from office.
Face it; Trump paid to get this influence.
Have you alerted the FEC of this crime?
OK - He can argue that.
FOX only ambushes Republicans.
I hope you are dead wrong. There is a possibility that Hillary does get indicted and they put up Biden since he’s been waiting in the wings for the opportunity but didn’t want to do all the heavy lifting (read campaigning).
Amen!!!
Just doing his part to help out, you know.
I’ve only heard of busts like that in old WWII movies. It must have been some code word. I’d rather not know it, I might get busted back to TV Tech II in and sent back into PBS. That would be a painful pain cut.
At the end of it all I outranked him. LOL
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