Andrew C. McCarthy:
There is no way of getting around this: According to Director James Comey (disclosure: a former colleague and longtime friend of mine), Hillary Clinton checked every box required for a felony violation of Section 793(f) of the federal penal code (Title 18): With lawful access to highly classified information she acted with gross negligence in removing and causing it to be removed it from its proper place of custody, and she transmitted it and caused it to be transmitted to others not authorized to have it, in patent violation of her trust. Director Comey even conceded that former Secretary Clinton was “extremely careless” and strongly suggested that her recklessness very likely led to communications (her own and those she corresponded with) being intercepted by foreign intelligence services.
Yet, Director Comey recommended against prosecution of the law violations he clearly found on the ground that there was no intent to harm the United States.
In essence, in order to give Mrs. Clinton a pass, the FBI rewrote the statute, inserting an intent element that Congress did not require. The added intent element, moreover, makes no sense: The point of having a statute that criminalizesgross negligence is to underscore that government officials have a special obligation to safeguard national defense secrets; when they fail to carry out that obligation due to gross negligence, they are guilty of serious wrongdoing. The lack of intent to harm our country is irrelevant. People never intend the bad things that happen due to gross negligence.
I would point out, moreover, that there are other statutes that criminalize unlawfully removing and transmitting highly classified information with intent to harm the United States. Being not guilty (and, indeed, not even accused) of Offense B does not absolve a person of guilt on Offense A, which she has committed.
It is a common tactic of defense lawyers in criminal trials to set up a straw-man for the jury: a crime the defendant has not committed. The idea is that by knocking down a crime the prosecution does not allege and cannot prove, the defense may confuse the jury into believing the defendant is not guilty of the crime charged. Judges generally do not allow such sleight-of-hand because innocence on an uncharged crime is irrelevant to the consideration of the crimes that actually have been charged.
james comey is not qualified to make the decision made. hilary is guilty of treasonable acts again this country. wonder what hilay and billy paid him or was it the DNC??
this POS resignation is long overdo.
No, that IS NOT what Comey said. Comey clearly stated that the evidence failed to establish that two specific criteria specified in the law were met, and that meeting at least one of them is required before a criminal violation can be found to exist. He specifically stated that every box WAS NOT checked, and that is why prosecution was not being recommended.
It was not the job of Comey to make any recommendations it was his job to gather evidence and present it to the prosecutor then the Legal types to decide if the evidence gathered would be sufficient.
We all commented that they would never bring this to a court, never going to happen so why the shock, the suprise in some cases outrage. Pffffft we called it, the FBI layed out what she did but said it was “intent” they were looking for, ya intent sure what ever…
I guess she could parade around with a banner listing the launch codes and as her gatherings are so small they would not find intent. Which to be guilty intent isn’t a requisite for prosecution.
The FBI almost always makes a recommendation regarding charges when it completes an investigation. The entire investigative process is conducted with the intention of gathering evidence that supports an assertion that some specific law or laws have been broken. What the FBI doesn’t make is the decision itself.
@Greg: During the news conference he had plenty of things that are against the law that she and her staff had done.
One that has had a liberal beat beat down for nearly 8 years. Infiltrated by the —Muslim brotherhood in USA known as CAIR
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/06/documents-show-obama-administrations-close-ties-to-muslim-brotherh