Jed Babbin:
What makes us any different from Venezuela now?
It’s a matter or record. Americans now populate the largest, wealthiest and most powerful banana republic in the world. The differences between Obama’s America and Maduro’s Venezuela are defined only by degree.The defining characteristics of banana republics are a matter of history. First, the law is not enforced against a chosen class in a banana republic, usually the allies of the autocrat in charge. Second, foreign policy is always performed in the autocrat’s interests and often in disregard of the nation’s actual interests. This describes how America functions in the era of President Obama.
The newly-released FBI documents on the investigation of Hillary Clinton make it clear beyond argument that the fix was in and that the FBI never had any intention of recommending that she should be prosecuted for her crimes.
That is very hard to write. I have had very good friends among the agents of the FBI, men of unshakeable dedication to the fair enforcement of the law. But that is no longer the FBI’s goal, as just a few references to the documents published last week reveal.
First, you had to notice that the FBI agreed that there would be no videotape of its interview of Clinton. Not only would there not be a videotape, but no court reporter would be present to record a transcript. That itself is highly unusual, but there is far more, and far worse.
Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s chief of staff at the State Department, had to have participated in sending classified material to Clinton on her private and unsecured “clintonemail.com” email system. Yet when the FBI questioned Clinton, Mills was permitted to attend as one of Clinton’s lawyers. That is not only unethical under the Bar’s unenforced ethics standards, but obviously a huge violation of the most elementary of FBI procedures that requires witnesses — and possible suspects — to be questioned separately in isolation from one another.
Clinton told the FBI that she relied on others’ judgment in sending her sensitive information on the unsecured email system. She also claimed that as a result of a head injury she didn’t recall key events such as being trained by the State Department on handing classified information or retaining records in accordance with federal law.
Clinton, as a U.S. senator, served on the Armed Services Committee from 2003 to 2009. She was a member of three subcommittees, including the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities. In that capacity, she would have been instructed on how to handle highly-classified information and a great deal of it would have passed through her hands. She would have had many occasions to handle it and to transmit it among her colleagues and staff and executive branch officials. Further training by the State Department would have been unnecessary for her to know how such information had to be protected against disclosure.
Clinton’s obvious lie was one of many she told the FBI. Let’s remember that on at least one occasion, she told her State Department staff to remove the classified markings on some material and send it “in the clear” on an unsecured channel — her private email system.
The FBI found that Clinton had used a multitude of Blackberry and other personal devices while she was secretary of state. Thirteen of them are missing and have never been recovered. Anyone who has used a Blackberry or other personal email device can testify that they last for years. Clinton, while she was secretary of state, apparently got a new one every six or eight weeks. All of those devices, given the frequency of her communications, would have had classified information on them.
How could anyone of sound mind be so careless? Was her 2012 concussion so severe as to cause frequent memory loss? Writing about Clinton’s health is verboten. Why, if it was so severe that it caused her to work part time as secretary of state, as she told the FBI?
(At least two devices are said to have been destroyed by her staff. Two others (an Apple iPad and a thumb drive) each of which reportedly contained a complete archive of her emails, were sent by a staffer to a person at Platte River Networks, the company Clinton hired to maintain her system, but may never have arrived.)
Let’s also remember that in his July statement, FBI director Comey said that of Clinton’s State Department emails, “…110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. “
False. There’s nothing “highly unusual” about it. Not videotaping or audio taping FBI interviews has been the rule for decades. This rule was changed only as of July 11, 2014, and it was then changed only in connection with interviews conducted with arrested suspects. Other interviews are still not electronically recorded.
It would have been highly unusual for the FBI to have recorded their interview with Clinton—and an unwise departure from the norm—because Clinton’s political enemies would have immediately filed in court to have it pried out of the FBI’s hands for use as a political weapon. The FBI would then have become the GOP’s political tool. FBI Director James Comey was doing and continues to do everything in his power to keep his bureau from becoming politicized.