There was a time, not too long ago, when it was a foundational public expectation that we were a nation of laws, and that at the end of the day, no citizen was above the law.
President Nixon and Watergate remains a defining example.
But no more.
Yesterday, in just 15 minutes, FBI Director James Comey disgraced the FBI and extinguished the expectation of a devoted cohort of Americans that even if imperfect, justice in America ultimately gets it right.
If Donald Trump is elected president in November, James Comey’s 15 minutes may be the final catalyst that made it possible.
Sadly, it is not that Comey and his FBI didn’t do their job. The FBI’s evidence of Hillary Clinton’s felonious conduct as Secretary of State was as appalling as it was serial and obvious.
Rather, it was the transparently cowardly decision not to press for an indictment that is at issue; a decision that serves as a powerful symbolic confirmation, widely discussed in this year’s political debates, that Washington, DC is utterly corrupt and beyond redemption. That if you are rich and connected, the law does not apply to you.
Comey’s entire legal construct in declining to press charges relies on a word – “intent.”
From Comey’s press conference:
“Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of the classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information….Prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before deciding whether to bring charges. There are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent, responsible decisions, and to also consider the context of a person’s actions and how similar situations have been handled in the past.”
The utterly inconvenient problem for the FBI is that “intent” is not part of the relevant statutes.
18 USC Section 793(f): Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense,
(1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or
(2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer— Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
18 USC Section 798: (a) Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information—
(3) concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government; or
(4) obtained by the processes of communication intelligence from the communications of any foreign government, knowing the same to have been obtained by such processes—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
18 USC Section 2071: (a) Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.
Mrs. Clinton is Guilty of Perjury: In an August 8, 2015 court filling Mrs. Clinton said, “I, Hillary Rodham Clinton, declare, under penalty of perjury that the following is true and correct…I have directed all my emails on clintonmail.com in my custody that were or potentially were federal records be provided to the Department of State, and on information and belief, this had been done.”
The evidence is abundant and conclusive.
Although Comey gave Clinton a “Stay Out of Jail” card regarding her criminal conduct, the FBI helpfully shattered over a year of outright lies that Clinton and her campaign have been peddling since the email scandal broke in March 2015.
Yes, Mrs. Clinton did indeed send and receive classified emails on an unsecured, non-government server, including information at the highest security clearance.
Yes, Mrs. Clinton’s home-brew server, containing the most sensitive secrets of the US government, was likely hacked by forces hostile to the US, as her associates on the server were hacked, and Mrs. Clinton and her aides used the home-brew server outside the United States when she would be a target of penetration for foreign intelligence.
There is nothing Vladimir Putin does not know. In addition to everything else, Mrs. Clinton is now effectively “blackmail bait” for a foreign government, that knows what was in those remaining 20,000 emails.
Mrs. Clinton’s other whopper, that her email set up was “approved” and her actions were no different from those of previous secretaries of State was blown up in May by a scathing State Department IG report which found no such approval was ever granted, and that no previous Secretary ever established a private, unsecured server for their official communications; a violation of a number of regulations including and presidential Executive Order.
Comey concluded his remarks by saying:
“What I can assure the American people is that this investigation was done honestly, confidently, and independently. No outside influences of any kind was brought to bear….because we did our investigation the right way, only facts matter…And the FBI found those [facts] here in an entirely apolitical and professional way. I couldn’t be prouder to be a part of this organization.”
I don’t believe him.
Not a single word.
The comprehensive and damning evidence does not support the conclusion he has drawn. His conclusion is a dereliction of his duty and violation of his office.
James Comey didn’t simply render judgement on Mrs. Clinton and her reckless email practices, which endangered the national security of the United States. He proved beyond a reasonable doubt to average Americans that there is a double standard in American jurisprudence; that if you are rich, powerful and the presumptive nominee of a political party, you are essentially “too big to charge.”
Comey has confirmed that political expedience is more important than justice. His is now the most notorious, but only the latest in a string of contrived decisions that started with John Roberts and Obamacare.
In attempting to augment legal legitimacy, these government officials have instead undermined it.
The reverberations will echo to November and beyond.
None of it will be good.