Wallowing
Virtually nobody outside of legal circles and academia questioned the appropriateness or outrageousness of Comey’s comments.
One academic legal blogger, Stetson University College of Law professor Ellen Podgor, noted that most FBI investigations with no indictments don’t issue public statements; that the FBI’s investigation was one-sided; that Comey cited hypotheticals without facts; that his accusations about her lawyers were unnecessary and unprofessional; and that it is Congress’ responsibility to upgrade the IT protocols of federal agencies like the State Department.
“When they do provide an announced recommendation of non-indictment, the FBI should limit their statement to just that,” she said. “There is no need to tarnish a person’s reputation in the process—especially when there is no concrete evidence to support the hypotheticals.”
Other practicing lawyers were more blunt.
“The Department of Justice policies are you don’t comment on people you don’t indict. You don’t punish them in the press,” said an ex-Connecticut public defender. “The other thing is the DOJ policy is you don’t do things to affect elections, period. I don’t see anybody questioning this. Everybody thinks the FBI is sacrosanct.”
“I think it was highly inappropriate,” said John Williams, a civil rights lawyer from New Haven, Connecticut. “I suppose he will get away with it because [as FBI director] he is not a prosecutor. And you do get that all too often. Law enforcement will issue a press release and the prosecutor will not say anything.”
“It’s like a perp walk, but this is worse, because they’re saying we will not arrest them,” Williams said. “To hold a press conference where he [Comey] makes comments on the behavior of the person who will not be indicted? That’s not appropriate. I don’t recall ever seeing that by a FBI director. It harkens back to J. Edgar Hoover’s days.”
I read that too, that it was somewhat unethical or inappropriate for Comey to comment. But, given the fact that she is a presidential candidate and that the results of the investigation were so politically potent, a simple refusal to indict without comment simply would not stand. The evidence, of course, is the five “hearings” by the reactionaries in Congress that were immediately scheduled upon hearing the news. Commenting may have been inappropriate but I don’t think Comey had much of a choice.
Coffee spewing through nose malarkey.
“Congress’ responsibility to upgrade the IT protocols of federal agencies like the State Department. Congress is corrupt….”
Congress passed and president signed espionage act, they are not IT tools.
The master of the corrupts is Hillary.
ilsm:
You keep insisting. Don’t drown.
“UPDATE 3 (7/7/16): In his testimony before Congress, James Comey says there were only three emails that bore any sort of classified markings, and that those markings were simply a (c) somewhere in the body of the email and nothing in the header or subject line. He also stated that they were improperly marked and that it was reasonable for Hillary to assume they were not classified.”
State Department: “Hillary Clinton insisted all along that none of the emails she sent or received on her private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State was marked classified at the time. That was contradicted by the Director of the FBI yesterday when he claimed that a ‘very small number’ of her emails were in fact classified at the time. The New York Times then determined that that number was just two. And now the State Department has confirmed that the two emails in question weren’t actually classified at the time, and had merely been marked incorrectly during the course of the investigation.”
HRC is no more guilty than Bill was in the Ken Starr witch hunt which produced, what was that again? Bill was boffing Monica and he lied about it. Years and $millions wasted. Today after a few years of congressional investigation and $millions spent by a Congress sent to Washington to do something for the US, we find the number was 3, then it was two, and now it is nada.
Now the man who could give a sh*t about you or I and is more than willing to place you on vouchers and will not care if they run out is willing to take this entire debacle into another year of nonsense so there candidate may, may have a chance of winning. Congressman Ryan is more than willing to pimp you Ilsm plus your military bennies as well as mine.
(7/7/16): In his testimony before Congress, James Comey says there were only three emails that bore any sort of classified markings, and that those markings were simply a (c) somewhere in the body of the email and nothing in the header or subject line. He also stated that they were improperly marked and that it was reasonable for Hillary to assume they were not classified.”
You are being sold a line.
Her interview with the FBI was not recorded and she was not put under oath?
Run,
Very appropriate title.
Clinton apologist syndrome remains in full bloom here. Sad to see.
No, just dispensing with the baloney Trumpeter.
Frank,
Yeah, funny how these year(s) long investigations turn up nothing, but you consider their results come from “Clinton apologists”.
Some people just do not care that what they say has no basis in fact.
I for one don’t have much use for Hillary, to put it mildly, nor am I engaging in any apologetics on her behalf. This whole affair revolves around the legal requirement of “intent” in order to bring an indictment. She was careless and stupid, yes, and as is normal with the Clintons she considered herself to a special case worthy of special treatment. But Comey and the FBI found (after how long and how thorough an investigation?) that there was no intent to evade or break the law, unlike the Petraeus case, where he knowingly and willingly made the decision to share classified information with his lover. He was convicted of a misdemeanor.
Regardless of how big an A-hole one might be, he/she is due her day in court (unlike all those held in Guantanamo). Without due process we would all find ourselves in something akin to the legal wasteland that is Guantanamo. Now that she will not be indicted, the affair reverts to what it has been mainly all this time — a political affair. It does not speak well for her that she engaged in this habit of hers, but she did not break the law.
run, thanks for the post above. As I commented elsewhere on this site, before reacting to news blurbs it would be helpful to look at what they claim to be based on; in this case the actual testimony of Director Comey. Of course that requires work and who wants to do that?
Some people can connect the dots ,and some can’t or don’t want to… Yesterday over at PCR.org he ran a piece that showed that Comey has been comfey with the Clintons in covering for them and their dirty work for many years in NY. There is no question of “intent” of “willful” in any of this. Comey only had to make it look like justice was being fair in the investigation and that his hands were tied by the law in the decision to recommend he should not have had to make…The “fix” was in is clear to see as he was made the scapegoat for more Clinton obstructionism and b.s….
Utter garbage, WR Amazing how some people act like they accuse other people of acting.
This was a stupid, harmless mistake that had no negative effect on anyone except the person accused.
It never ends with you people.
”
Let’s review the numbers.
Examining the 30,000 emails that Clinton turned over, the FBI agents found 110—the back and forth of 52 email chains—that contained classified information. Of these, just eight had material that she should have known was “top secret”; 36 of them had “secret” information; and eight more had stuff that she should have known was “confidential.”
The agents also scrounged through the bits and pieces of 30,000 more emails that she didn’t turn over and found three—three!—that contained classified information: one secret and two confidential.
About those first 30,000 emails, the ones Clinton turned over, the FBI handed them out to auditors at other agencies that might have an interest in the matter, and after months of review they “up-classified” 2,000 emails to confidential. In other words, when Clinton wrote or received those 2,000 emails, she and her correspondents would have had no reason to suspect they were jotting down classified facts. But the reviewers have declared them classified retroactively. Your taxpayer dollars at work…..
Top secret information is another matter, but the stuff that showed up in Clinton’s private email wasn’t so special. Seven of the eight email chains dealt with CIA drone strikes, which are classified top secret/special access program—unlike Defense Department drone strikes, which are unclassified. The difference is that CIA drones hit targets in countries, like Pakistan and Yemen, where we are not officially at war; they are part of covert operations. (Defense Department drone strikes are in places where we are officially at war.) But these operations are covert mainly to provide cover for the Pakistani and Yemeni governments, so they don’t have to admit they’re cooperating with America. Everyone in the world knows about these strikes; nongovernment organizations, such as New America, tabulate them; newspapers around the world—including the New York Times, where some of the same reporters are now writing so breathlessly about Clinton’s careless handling of classified information—cover these strikes routinely.
The other top secret email chain described a conversation with the president of Malawi. Conversations with foreign leaders are inherently classified.”
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2016/07/hillary_s_email_scandal_was_overhyped.html
William Ryan,
I’ve been reading PCR since you turned me on to him, and read his post yesterday about Comey protecting the Clintons. The problem I’ve found with him, and with the piece yesterday, is that they are simple assertions, without any proof being offered. He made the claim that Comey retired to a tony law firm as a reward for protecting the Clintons, and even that the AG Lynch would do the same. That’s all well and good, but where is the proof?
While we are all wallowing in the muck lets remember that the Clintons tarnished their own reputations when it comes to trust and transparency…EM how would you feel if it was one of your family that got killed in Benghazi after many, many requests for greater security. Did the Moslem brother hood know of the lack of security during the attack? Did they hack her e-mails to get that information ? We will never know.Why did HRC set up private servers? Why did they delete so many e-mails that were not available during the Benghazi investigation? Why do the Clintons have such a long history of lack of transparency and trust? Why did they sell out the American middle class on NAFTA, Glass-Steagal and uranium to the Iranians? How about the sell out to all the Wall St. barons to do and change nothing that needs change on Wall St.and the TPP? Please give me a break when it comes time to vote one is obligated to get educated.
William Ryan: “Yesterday over at PCR.org … ”
I assume you mean Paul Craig Roberts who wrote that Brown vs. Board of Education and the 1964 Civil Rights Act “resulted in stripping white males of their constitutional protections and turning them into second-class citizens.”
In keeping with the post’s title, thanks for letting us know which pigsty you wallow in.
The whole thing is ridiculous, and rather than a few emails out of 60,000 showing extreme carelessness, they at most show nobody’s perfect.
The system was set up specifically for non-classified exchanges. About 99.99% of the emails were, as intended, non-confidential. Not a single one of them was marked confidential, and the ones that subsequently were deemed top secret appear to have been about a subject that, while the CIA officially deems its very existence to be top secret still, had been widely reported in the news and presumably raised important diplomatic issues that required quick decisions. In other words, from the perspective of Hillary Clinton as recipient or sender of the emails — or, as it appears, the recipient or sender of an email chain that, if one scrolled down, such information (without a confidential header) could be found — the system appeared to be working perfectly.
What the evidence appears to show clearly is a whole lot of care, indeed, meticulous care, not to have confidential information put into her email system. At the right moment she should push back against that “extremely careless” description (without attacking Comey, of course, who seems to be highly respected).
Comey is looking at it from the perspective of intelligence and law enforcement perspectives that basically consider all non-public information to be sensitive. He is focused on the handling of the specific information that subsequently has been designated as top secret, and from his perspective the information in those emails should have been recognized for its sensitivity. When he is saying she or someone under her was “extremely careless,” he is, in fact, talking only about the handling of that handful of sensitive memos he found.
But the State Department has a different mission that can be compromised by too much secrecy, and it seems the two agencies are in constant, inevitable, scuffles over whether something should be considered confidential or not. Thus, what the CIA might want to deem confidential even though its existence is known to the entire world through the press (like its drone program) might be something that would require a diplomatic response if the U.S.A. were not to insult the intelligence (brain-type) of other countries.
Keep in mind, too, that any top secret information that should not have been sent to her private email system should not have been on the .gov government email system, either. It has been subject to many secuity breaches.
MS57 and BillB the source if you would had read a bit further and turned the page was from the many enlightening articles at Investor Research Dynamics, Dave Kranzler research. He points out the “revolving door” of DOJ appointees and Covington & Burling (Goldman Sachs law firm) who revolved Comey, Holder and next perhaps Lynch is live and well thanks to HRC…You must remember that back when HRC was 27 on the House Judiciary Committee she was fired by Jerry Zeifman because she was a liar, broke house rules of confidentiality and constitution. Today some see Goldman Sachs operated as a criminal enterprise and declares the rule of profit 1st and the rule of law 2nd or dead…How much proof do you need?
William Ryan,
Brother, if you’re looking for me to defend Hillary’s character, forget it. She and Bill are cut from the same cloth – self-serving career politicians who would say or do pretty much anything to advance their careers. If you remember, during the whole Monica Lewinski affair, Bill went on national television, essentially looked the nation in the eye and said, “I did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinski…” which was a bald-faced lie. During a deposition he actually said, infamously, “it depends on what the definition of “is” is.” In 2001 the Arkansas Supreme Court suspended his license to practice law for 5 years, whereupon the US Supreme Court disbarred him from practicing law before the Court. I honestly don’t see a shadow of a difference between them when it comes to honesty, which explains why 50% of the population doesn’t like her or trust her. If this was a normal cycle and she faced anyone else but The Donald, she wouldn’t have a chance.
Likewise, you will certainly never hear me defend Goldman Sachs.
My only point was a legal one. When the FBI goes crawling around in your underwear drawer for a year, then decides that according to the law she is not culpable, I have to take them at their word. If the FBI’s career agents and lawyers determined for themselves that she did break the law, can you imagine the uproar from them had Comey, in an insidious plot to protect her, said there were no grounds to prosecute when in fact there were? He may or may not be in the practice of defending her, but they found no intent on her part to break the law. The original report from the State Department’s IG and from the FBI were scathing, damning, yet no grounds to indict her were found.
Under our legal system, evidence of past sins is irrelevant in a new proceeding, and prosecutors may not use those past sins as evidence in a new case. There are two questions regarding this whole thing, one political and the other legal. In the former, I think the evidence of self-serving dishonesty and moral corruption is abundant. In the second though, insufficient evidence was found to indict her.
Correct and I am certainly not going to hand this election to Trump.
Run75441,
Amen to that! I don’t think folks have really thought through what a true menace to the Republic this populist poseur really is.
run75441
Only 3 of Clinton’s breeches were actually marked classified!
Wow.
The analysis by classifiers is that over 30 contained enough data which revealed US information significant to the national security.
A stamp does not make a document classified!
The analysis should have been marked and protected.
Ilsm,
Why don’t you provide proof of your assertions?
Cause the simple fact you keep changing the numbers is more than a little suspicious.
Benghazi?
“CHECK!, PLEASE!”
EMike,
What do you suspect?
I conclude that Hillary had a disdain for duty and due diligence. What she did got a lot of less connected people jailed.
You cannot quibble your way out of failed to perform duty.
Civilians have abysmal low regard for duty.
Ilsm,
Absolute bs. Unfounded, unsourced.
If you were just a little bit more delusional perhaps Fox News would have a place for you.
Ever think to have any sort of proof, even circumstantial proof for your claims?
You are a cipher, and no one with a brain will pay any attention to your thoughtless accusations.
My only suggestion that could possible help you is to drink more, take your meds on schedule and not talk.
It is early in PDT!
I am in EDT and I do not allow my mind to be affected by chemicals organic or otherwise.
You could try thinking.
What I conclude is my business and you could try to use critical thinking rather than “stfu”.
Run this
You should allow your mind to be affected by chemicals. It ain’t working right.
Just one bs comment and thought after another. And your only link to something is to one of the worst bands in American rock history.
Couple of chords, couple of lyrics, garbage.
The conversation is beginning to remind me of the Yogi Berra quote, “It’s deja vu all over again.” Here’s a comment I wrote two days ago under Kimmel’s post regarding Clinton’s Judgement.
““On Teflon Clintons: one rule for the oligarchs.”
You see. That comment is part of the mythology of the political class. It flies in the face of reality. The Clintons are not great leaders by any stretch of my imagination, but neither have they been free from constant and exaggerated criticisms of who they are and what they do. One simple fact is that they seem to receive too much money, all apparently legal, for simply being within the political class. And near to the top of the class at that. But someone is always suggesting that they smell a rat in regards to what the Clintons are up to. And now there have been so many accusations of evil doing that we can’t seem to separate out the fact from the fiction. Look at Trump. He goes around screaming “Crooked Hilary” and hardly gets called out for his obvious projection. Who has been more crooked in his business dealings, in the colloquial sense of the term, than Trump or don’t we count his multiple bankruptcies and long lists of unpaid creditors?
As I noted previously, no one has yet been able to get a proper indictment against her, or him for that matter. Not that the Republicans haven’t tried. What was that ridiculous showboat of a Committee investigation all about? Was it really the Libyan incident that was being investigated? Too much bullshit is being passed around and it is thinning out any legitimate critique of what the woman brings to the political table. On the other hand, who would be any better choice? How about Ted Cruz. Marco Rubio? As the President? Really?? Carly Fiorino, there’s a winner for the White House. You see. You have to see any candidate within the context of who else is available for the job.
It fits right in under this thread from Run entitled Wallowing. So I’m posting a verbatim copy of a comment amongst a long list of virtual copies of comments on a subject that seems to go on endlessly in spite of the recognition that the subject matter is a repetition of unsubstantiated accusations against a politician that no one seems to like, but for reasons that no one is able to state clearly and with supporting documentation of those reasons. This is something like that Winston Churchill quote describing the difficulty of identifying Russia’s reasons for something or other. You know, riddles, enigmas and its all a mystery. She’s guilty!! I know it!! I can tell by the look in her eyes!!
Jack,
I argued the other day that the email “scandal,” for lack of a better word, has two components, one legal, one political, and that specifically on this “scandal” there was not enough evidence to indict her on whatever charges the Right and many elements on the Left hoped would stick. Your comment is an intelligent mix of the two which focuses more on the political in order to substantiate the absence of the legal. I don’t think anyone can argue that, indeed, there has been and is a “vast right-wing conspiracy” out to get Billary. But when 50% of the population has an internal distrust of her based on gut-feeling, it can’t be chalked up to simply being influenced by right-wing attacks. I for one certainly have not been.
On this thread, ILSM, for example, has been, as part of that 50%, righteously pissed off, and has offered evidence in support of his case (and been remarkably abused for it by others). His arguments focus completely on the political side of the broader argument while neglecting the legal side of this particular “scandal.” His politically-based arguments derive from the totality of nearly 30 years of experience of the Billary show, and he is convinced that, regarding the Billarys, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Below are two articles that go far to explain why he, I and the 50% believe she is absolutely politically corrupt. Has she been indicted or prosecuted based on the evidence presented in the articles? No, and never will be. But she has justly been indicted and convicted by the citizenry of being thoroughly corrupt, both politically and morally.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/99b5f98f78a34d3f9febfd513bb4d206/firms-paid-clinton-speeches-have-us-govt-interests
http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/36369-focus-secretary-clinton-approved-a-4-million-sale-for-sandy-hook-gun-maker-remington-in-2012
Thanks MS!
I observe/concluded the legal is a tool of the politically corrupt.
As POGO pointed out yesterday if Clinton were not a political idol he/she would have been treated as a whistleblower.
A generation ago in a different stage of life I ran an “investigation” large and part time on a compromise of damaging information in a distributed printed document, not unlike e-mails.
Great care is demanded when working with potentially damaging facts….
Intent has nothing to do with relieving responsibility.
FBI made law and politically it is all good, but politics is corruptible.
“the recognition that the subject matter is a repetition of unsubstantiated accusations against a politician that no one seems to like, but for reasons that no one is able to state clearly and with supporting documentation of those reasons.” -Jack-
Exactly.
And it will never stop.
Jack,
From the WaPo today:
“In email probe, echoes of another time prosecutors weighed charging Hillary Clinton with a crime.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-email-probe-echoes-of-another-time-prosecutors-weighed-charging-hillary-clinton-with-a-crime/2016/07/09/5bbeb7c8-4498-11e6-88d0-6adee48be8bc_story.html
Ilsm,
You’re welcome.
Up until 2000, when the right-wingers on the Supreme Court stepped in and stopped the recount in FL and gave the election to Bush, I, perhaps foolishly, had absolute faith in the Supreme Court. I’m not sure if you can call that decision corrupt. It was definitely political, which is yet another example of the legal/political divide I pointed out.
Upon reflection I realized that the Court has always been political, i.e. the political necessarily intrudes on the legal, depending entirely on which President does the nominating. That’s why, for example, that the election of Clinton is so important. The Donald has no business whatsoever being anywhere near the Oval Office, let alone nominating Justices. He is a genuine menace to the Republic unlike any other major party candidate I can think of in the whole history of the country.
When you say that “I observe/concluded the legal is a tool of the politically corrupt,” I think it is important to replace “may” with is.” It is often so but it is not always so. There really are tons of judges, prosecutors, etc. who would no more bend the law to politics than cut off an arm.
Let me offer a suggestion. Look up and closely examine Richard Posner.
Cheers, brother.
7th District COA. Both he and Easterbrook were giving Gov. Walker a hard time.
Islm: “What she did got a lot of less connected people jailed.”
Name one.
BillB,
Attila?
Snowden’s intent was very honorable, he cannot come home.
Petraeus only lost a star, for a lot less, he is connected as well.
Stop looking for crooks more criminal than Clintons. Or should it be criminals more crooked?
Islm, given your inability to name even one person that supports your claim that “what she did got a lot of less connected people jailed”, we can assume your statement is false.
BillB,
Thomas Drake: “Former NSA executive Thomas A. Drake is charged with unlawfully retaining classified information at a time when he was in touch with a Baltimore Sun reporter who later chronicled mismanagement at the agency.”
“The government has used the 1917 Espionage Act, which has been criticized as vague and overbroad, to charge Drake, one of five such cases against alleged leakers under the Obama administration. Drake is not accused of spying, but the law’s provisions criminalize the unauthorized retention of classified material.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/case-against-ex-nsa-manager-accused-of-mishandling-classified-files-narrows/2011/06/07/AGk3ZZMH_story.html
Jeffrey Sterling: Among other counts listed in the indictment against him, one was for “Unlawful Retention of National Defense Information.”
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/323711-sterling-indictment.html
Bradley Manning: Among the charges upon which he was convicted was violation of 18 U.S.C. § 793(e) of the Espionage Act. The law forbids ‘unauthorized persons’ from taking ‘national defense’ information and either ‘retaining’ it or delivering it to ‘persons not entitled to receive it’.
Stephen Kim: One of the two charges upon which he was indicted was for violating 18 U.S.C section 793 (d), that part of the Espionage Act referring to disclosure of information. His real crime? Talking to a reporter, James Rosen.
John Kiriakou: Among the four counts in the indictment against him, two were for violating the Espionage Act for allegedly illegally disclosing national defense information to individuals not authorized to receive it (like Sydney Blumenthal). He was convicted and sentenced to two years.
Ironically, upon the conviction of John Kiriakou, the CIA director, David Petraeus, sent a memo to agency employees noting Kiriakou’s conviction, saying: “It marks an important victory for our agency, for our intelligence community, and for our country. Oaths do matter, and there are indeed consequences for those who believe they are above the laws that protect our fellow officers and enable American intelligence agencies to operate with the requisite degree of secrecy.” Petraeus was later convicted of violating his oath and sharing information with his girlfriend, who was not authorized to receive classified information. He was convicted of a misdemeanor.
Given these names, I guess Ilsm’s statement is true.
Ms 57, incorrect. All the cases you cited included the elements of knowledge and intent. They deliberately compromised classified information. Clinton did not.
So Islm’s statement is still false. The people you cited were not jailed for “what she did.” She did not deliberately disclose classified information. The people you cited deliberately disclosed classified information.
Did you not read the text of the law above?
BillB:
Mens rea and actus rea are certainly components. Mostly, the gov has the burden of proving intent. They didn’t as there was no clear evidence HRC deliberately sent out classified information. The documents were mismarked and not clearly marked. A process and procedural failure.
BillB,
As I went to lengths to explain, the indictments against Drake, Sterling and Manning included “unlawful retention of classified material,” which is precisely why the State Department looked so long and hard at Clinton’s emails, asking whether Hillary did just that – unlawfully retain classified material. Ultimately she was not indicted because the FBI determined there was no intent.
The indictments against Kim, Kariakou and Petraeus were for based on both retention and disclosure. Kiriakou was convicted and served two years. Petraeus was convicted of the exact same crime but his conviction was reduced to a misdemeanor and did no jail time. If that’s not a double standard of the kind Ilsm points out, what is?
If you want another example that is even more on point and addresses precisely the issue you raise – intent — take the case of U.S. Marines Sergeant Rickie Roller. I won’t go into all the facts – you can read them in the two links below – but he went to jail essentially for “gross negligence,” even though there was absolutely no intent on his part. You’ll recall that phrase “gross negligence” because Comey used it either in his initial press conference regarding Hillary’s case or in his testimony on the Hill, I forget which. There was no intent by either Clinton or Roller to unlawfully retain classified material, yet she gets off and he goes to jail. Why?
http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/director-comeys-clinton-standard-wouldve-helped-this-marine-avoid-a-conviction/
“Justice Department officials say they generally do not prosecute civilians at the CIA, Pentagon, State Department or other federal agencies who mishandle secret documents, as long as there is no evidence of criminal intent, the information is not divulged to a third party, and the employees are disciplined administratively by their agencies.” (How has Hillary been disciplined, administratively or otherwise?)
“A former Justice Department official who handled such cases said the
practice of not prosecuting civilians for security violations developed more than 20 years ago “so as not to embarrass [federal agencies or the White House] in the courtroom.”
“No matter how gross the violation, there would be no prosecution if the agency took strong administrative action,” such as removal from the job and loss of security clearances, the former official said.
“Military personnel often are treated more severely. Jail sentences or stiff administrative penalties, such as demotions and discharges, are common for service members caught removing classified material without authorization [even if, as is the case with Clinton and Roller, they found no intent but did find gross negligence; Roller goes to jail, Clinton goes to the White House].
“”There’s no accountability,” agreed Melvin A. Goodman, a former senior CIA analyst and professor of international security at the National War College. “What [John] Deutch did, that was pretty gross. Important people seem to get away with more than lesser people.”
Goodman’s comments could have come straight from Ilsm’s mouth. It’s not a novel concept but a fact.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2000/03/18/us-inconsistent-when-secrets-are-loose/6a928f72-d79b-430d-9c0b-93c67af05568/
Ms 57, in the Roller case, he had knowledge of the classified material and he had intent to conceal the fact that he had it illegally. Once he knew he had the material he had a duty to protect it and he carelessly allowed it to fall into the hands of a furniture mover. As he admitted, he conspired to destroy the evidence to prevent the discovery of his mistake. This totally different from the Clinton case.
Like all other cases you cited, the Roller case included the required elements of knowledge and intent. The Clinton case did not.
BillB,
The truth is we will never know. She destroyed 30,000 emails. Who knows what was in them. And many of the statements she has made concerning her ignorance (meant in the literal sense by me) of proper procedures at State have been disputed by the IG — who has reopened the case for some reason I’m not sure anyone knows. Thus Comey’s charge of “gross negligence.”
I think it’s perfectly fair to say that both Roller and Clinton were guilty of gross negligence. Roller thought to destroy the evidence and got caught. Clinton destroyed 30,000 emails and didn’t get caught. Was that destruction purposeful? We’ll never know.
I have to point out that you disregard the comparison of the cases regarding Kariakou and Petraeus. Kariakou purposely divulged information to a journalist regarding CIA torture, which I consider to be a benefit to the public. As far as I can tell Petraeus divulged information to his girlfriend to get laid. He gets the misdemeanor rap and no jail, Kariakou goes to jail. That stinks no matter how you slice it and illustrates the double standard that Melvin A. Goodman — a former senior CIA analyst and professor of international security at the National War College — sees: “There’s no accountability… Important people seem to get away with more than lesser people.” Ilsm makes the same argument.
Don’t get me wrong. I am very happy that she got away with it, otherwise it would be President Trump — a perfect catastrophe in the history of the Republic. But I don’t trust her as far as I can throw her.
Good talking to you, brother. Cheers.
MS 57; the cases you cite are not equivalent at all. As you point out in both of them the violators intentionally revealed the information. You say, in effect, so what? The one guy was revealing information the public needed to know and the other guy was just trying to get laid. Still, the fact is they intentionally revealed the information. Hillary didn’t. How supercilious can you get?
Ms 57: “Clinton destroyed 30,000 emails and didn’t get caught.”
The government has specific rules for the use of email accounts, both at .GOV and other personal email accounts. The user is supposed to make copies of the work related emails and send them to archives. Personal emails they are supposed to delete. This is exactly what Clinton did. That is standard procedure. They don’t want the archives cluttered with personal email.
The FBI later recovered the deleted emails and they were indeed personal, not work related. They were properly deleted. There was no deletion of classified information.
BillB,
You’re putting words in my mouth. I didn’t say “so what,” you did. And supercilious means haughty or arrogant. Is that what you meant to say? If so, how does it apply?
You have disregarded for the third time Goodman’s statement that “There’s no accountability… Important people seem to get away with more than lesser people.”
From Forbes: “According to the official statement of FBI director, James Comey, agency experts were unable to recover information from Clinton’s wiped-clean server, and Clinton’s legal team claims there are no backups. Thus the contents of the 30,000 deleted “private” emails are not known unless they are in the hands of foreign intelligence hackers, who could deploy them to influence the 2016 election, blackmail a President Clinton once in office, or to embarrass her and the United States.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2016/07/09/its-the-30000-wiped-clean-clinton-e-mails/#6cd0c20467fe
From Comey’s statement: “I should add here that we found no evidence that any of the additional work-related e-mails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them…”
“The lawyers doing the sorting for Secretary Clinton in 2014 did not individually read the content of all of her e-mails, as we did for those available to us; instead, they relied on header information and used search terms to try to find all work-related e-mails among the reportedly more than 60,000 total e-mails remaining on Secretary Clinton’s personal system in 2014. It is highly likely their search terms missed some work-related e-mails, and that we later found them, for example, in the mailboxes of other officials or in the slack space of a server.”
“It is also likely that there are other work-related e-mails that they did not produce to State and that we did not find elsewhere, and that are now gone because they deleted all e-mails they did not return to State, and the lawyers cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery.” (If they knew there was such an important investigation going on why would they do that?)
“With respect to potential computer intrusion by hostile actors, we did not find direct evidence that Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail domain, in its various configurations since 2009, was successfully hacked. But, given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, we assess that we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence. We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account. We also assess that Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account.”
https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b.-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clintons-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system
The Espionage Act, which is now being used against people who are essentially whistleblowers, was intended to prohibit interference with military operations or recruitment, to prevent insubordination in the military, and to prevent the support of U.S. enemies during wartime. But, because “there’s no accountability and important people seem to get away with more than lesser people,” she will not be charged while whistleblowers are.
She is reckless and “supercilious.” Her actions, lacking intent, were not criminal, but she certainly is culpable of acting in the most irresponsible manner, and after decades of covering her ass she knows how to game the system. Evidence that may have convinced the FBI to indict is lost, scrubbed by lawyers – lawyers! — acting on her behalf. She escapes the noose of the law but is condemned in the court of public opinion. Fifty percent of the citizenry distrusts her. They can’t all be wrong.
Need proof of another instance where she escaped the noose of the law?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-email-probe-echoes-of-another-time-prosecutors-weighed-charging-hillary-clinton-with-a-crime/2016/07/09/5bbeb7c8-4498-11e6-88d0-6adee48be8bc_story.html
That constitutes a pattern of behavior: act irresponsibly, walk to the edge of criminality, game the system, rely on being one of “the important people,” and escape.
The absolute stupidity in this thread is beyond belief.
Where did these people grow up that they could speak like this to normal human beings and not end up with their mouth full of blood?
Biggest problem with the internet is the total lack of personal responsibility.
Other than CoRev, this site used to have posters with a sense of responsibility, but these people are despicable.
“If you were just a little bit more delusional perhaps Fox News would have a place for you.”
“You are a cipher, and no one with a brain will pay any attention to your thoughtless accusations.”
“My only suggestion that could possible help you is to drink more, take your meds on schedule and not talk.”
“You should allow your mind to be affected by chemicals. It ain’t working right.”
“Just one bs comment and thought after another.”
***
“Where did these people grow up that they could speak like this to normal human beings and not end up with their mouth full of blood?”
“Biggest problem with the internet is the total lack of personal responsibility.”
One shot, and one shot only.
You forgot what began the thread.
EMichael
July 9, 2016 9:56 am
Ilsm,
Why don’t you provide proof of your assertions?
Citing “Whitewater” as escaping prosecution through being “one of the important people seems to be ignoring who Ken Starr was (and is). If he could have prosecuted her (and him), be assured he would have.
Jack:
Years later and $millions spent to find out he could not prove anything to bring her to court. Now Ken is involved in a cover up of his own at Baylor. No longer the president there and lost whatever integrity he had. Surprised they did not disbar him also for covering up.
During all the back and forth nobody answered my question as to why the Clinton’s and Goldman Sachs feel the need to provide for the “revolving door” in the Justice Dept. Or why does Goldman Sachs and the Clintons feel the need to control what happens in the Justice dept. and or Attorney Generals opinions? Perhaps someone with greater insight can to help connect those seemingly willful dots of intent…
William Ryan,
Perhaps noone is answering your question is because it assumes facts not in evidence (as lawyers like to say) and you are not supplying anything other than your suspicions.
Jack:
Thank you for answering. Too much surmising, conjecture, supposition, and opinion going on in this thread. I understood what happened and the FBI Director let everyone know. Not enough evidence to bring it to trial.
” because it assumes facts not in evidence”
Better known as the biography of HRC.
William Ryan,
Leaving aside HRC, the answer is to protect corporate interests.
Covington and Burling is an international law firm servicing only multinational corporations. On their web page their pitch includes: “100+ M&A lawyers and 500+ M&A deals valued at more than $500 billion in the past five years; Dozens of top-ranked regulatory practices across substantive areas; 850+ lawyers and advisors in offices around the world, INCLUDING MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED FORMER GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS (my emphasis); Covington represents 35 of the FT Global 50 and more than half of the Fortune 100.” Among their clients are JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Bank of America.
Eric Holder worked at C&B from 2001-2007. His major client was Chiquita (source of the term “Banana Republic”). They admitted guilt in paying “protection money” to an Auto-Defense Force (AUC) in Colombia. AUC is a right-wing, extra-governmental paramilitary organization that was on the US list of terrorist organizations. The “protection money” was paid to ensure Chiquita would have “labor peace,” i.e. that AUC would “take care of,” meaning kill, union organizers working on behalf of campesino laborers seeking better wages and working conditions. Holder’s role was not to defend the corporation or any officers or employees on criminal charges but to negotiate the best deal possible with the government. They paid a fine of $25 million.
While Attorney General, only a handful of mid-level employees of the banks mentioned above were charged with a crime. No bankers of consequence were charged with any crimes because such institutions were “too big to fail.” Instead, he turned to negotiating fines, as he did with Chiquita. The results of those negotiations were fines measuring in the billions. The Banks and their shareholders were happy the fines were so low, and rewarded their CEOs with hefty increases in salary, stock-options and bonuses as a sign of their success. The fraud committed by those banks, including continuing to market the derivatives to institutional and individual buyers while setting up in-house means to short-sell the same financial instruments, or the foreclosures fraud, are or ought to be well-known. Tellingly, heavy financial donors in the financial industry recently warned HRC that her selection of Elizabeth Warren would dry up donations.
After Holder resigned as AG in 2014, he returned to C&B, saying “this is home for me.” A headline in the National Law Journal read “Holder’s Return to Covington Was Six Years in the Making.” C&B held open an 11th floor corner office for his return. He will no longer be a lawyer but a rainmaker, the premier member of those “one hundred former government officials” C&B uses to attract corporate business.
This is just one example in answer to your question about why corporations “feel the need to control what happens in the Justice Department” – or the Treasury Department, or politicians and the legislative process, or the SEC, or the wide range of the government’s regulatory bodies, etc.
Thank you very much Ms57 for your most astute answer. But does this mea that the G.S. rule of profit 1st,rule of law 2nd is dead? Is Mrs. Lynch and Mr. Comey in line for new jobs-rewards at C&B? Perhaps this is why we need new laws that will put a time restrictions on the “revolving door” policy between them and the Justice dept. Where is Holder working now and how many Wall St. felons got indicted or convicted under his A.G. law? Where was the special prosecutor in any of those cases? Opps I forgot that there is Clinton law and then the regular rule law for the rest of us and that ” we cannot prove willful intent”….B. S…
The Attorney General’s position has to be filled by a lawyer. Expecting that person on leaving office to abandon his or her profession and not working for a law firm is rather naive, isn’t it? Many Justice Dept. attorneys on leaving the department end up doing criminal defense in private practice for example. Indeed the department often recruits attorneys on the basis that it will give them experience that will be useful in private practice.
William Ryan,
No executive at Goldman Sachs or any of the other truly powerful banks (just 5 of which now control 43% of all American banking activity) ever wake up with anything other than profit on their minds. One of the two legal mandates required for them to continue to exist is to maximize profits for their shareholders. If it comes at the expense of a true, healthy democracy, so be it. If it comes at the expense of the law, so be it. For example, HSBC, one of the UK’s largest banks, pleaded guilty in 2012 to laundering money for drug cartels and nation states on the US list of terrorists. Despite the advice of DOJ lawyers that criminal prosecutions should proceed, Holder was convinced that a prosecution would undermine global financial stability. HSBC negotiated to pay a fine instead.
Holder is prohibited from representing any client who had “issues” with the DOJ for two years. But he above representing any more Chiquitas now. He will never litigate a case ever again. For C&B, and him, it would be a waste. He will “advise” clients – and convince other huge corporations to be represented by C&B.
The financial industry bailout was a complete failure on several scores. First, as a condition of being bailed out by the citizens of the country, the big Wall Street banks ought to have been forced to reorganize themselves by allowing the bankruptcy laws to do what they were intended to do. Instead, those same banks are now bigger than ever, and no one seriously believes they will ever be allowed to fail, allowing them to continue betting on markets. Second, because Holder never prosecuted any Wall Street executive, more irresponsibility in the industry’s corporate executive suites will flower and the cynicism rampant in our country on both right and left will continue to infect the Republic. Third, it was the middle- and working-classes who bore the brunt of the Financial Crisis, losing their homes and savings while Wall Street completely recovered. And no plans have been made to protect those folks for the next time Wall Street implodes.
For politicians, generals, staff members, former employees of regulatory agencies, etc., the dynamic is different. Their payoff comes after they have left office of the Army. For people like the Clintons, those payoffs are huge. When Clinton left office in 2001, Hillary has said they were dead broke. Today, just 16 years later, Bill is worth $80 million and HRC is worth $43 million. Repealing Glass-Steagall was good for their wallets.
Yes, extend the length of time that must elapse before any pol or general or staffer is allowed to go to work for any industry or organization with which they dealt.
Before all else, reform the way political campaigns are financed, either by passing an amendment repealing Citizens United, which is widely disliked by substantial majorities on both right and left, or by publicly financing campaigns. Members of Congress spend 2/3 of their time dialing for dollars, seeking contributions, making promises to back the interests of those donors. A sure sign of a withering democracy at the expense of corporate interests is when, for example, the incoming chairman of the House Banking Committee says, as he did in 2010, that “my chief responsibility is to protect the interests of the banking industry.” Representative democracy is dying. What would happen, how much healthier would the democracy be if those members of Congress were spending 2/3 of their times working to represent the citizens rather than raising money?