cross post LONG analysis of email prosecution
The writer is a lefy. Not a right-wing source.
http://www.ninaillingworth.com/2016/06/01/the-foggy-bottom-of-clintons-muddy-waters
a portion:
Unfortunately, the FBI’s recommendation to indict would not be binding or a matter of public record, which brings us back to square one in theory – hoping that President Obama does the right thing when presented with evidence of Clinton’s criminal behavior, lies and repeated failure to cooperate with investigators; despite the fact that it would be disastrous for his party. Except, someone (hint either the FBI itself or the GOP from an FBI source) leaked information to a number of conservative websites and commentators that Comey (and possibly additional agents) would be prepared to resign in protest and/or leak details of the case if the administration chose it ignore his recommendation or stall the indictment until after the election. Furthermore, despite the less than credible sources involved there’s actually a pretty damn good chance Comey’s resignation threat is real – in 2004, Comey and a number of officials in the Bush Justice Department threatened to resign over the President’s executive order allowing NSA wiretaps that weren’t even close to legal at the goddamn time; an act President Obama actually praised him for when announcing his appointment as head of the FBI. This experience actually adds even further to the FBI director’s leverage against potential attempts to block or delay an indictment by the administration because Comey was acting as Deputy Attorney General at the time and would presumably have a fairly intimate understanding of current AG Loretta Lynch’s duties and responsibilities; although I should probably mention that James signed off on mutherfucking waterboarding at the time – even if only to remind readers who should be arrested for human rights violations and/or war crimes once America is no longer run by criminals, murders and liars.
Even this threat however, was probably not enough to force the President’s hand; after all the FBI and by extension Comey are currently suffering from what could be politely described as a massive credibility problem. Additionally someone (read people inside the administration loyal to Clinton) tried to throw water on the growing fire by counter-leaking that the Bureau was about to wrap up it’s “review” and had found no criminal wrongdoing; something that certainly doesn’t jibe with Comey’s steadfast insistence that the Bureau is conducting an official investigation of Clinton only a few days later and his frequent statements that there is no established deadline for concluding that investigation. These numerous scandals added incentive for Comey to delay the FBI investigation process because early on (especially during the expensive and embarrassing San Bernardino terrorism/I Phone debacle) there was a non-zero percent chance that the American public would respond to his resignation threat with a hearty “don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out James!” Stalling the investigation however would not only give the Bureau more time to expand it’s case against Clinton, but increase Comey’s political capital for a potential fight with Obama over if and when Lynch will indict Hillary and numerous assistants still close to her this day.
Friendly Fire
Which of course, brings us all the way back to the beginning and the State Department Inspector General’s report – I swear we’re not going in circles here folks, just bear with me a little longer. The OIG report is extremely important in this case for three reasons besides the fact that it basically called Clinton a liar, told the entire world that she never had permission from the State Department to use a private server and confirmed that there were at least some hacking attempts made on said server; once again in complete contradiction to Hillary Clinton’s many, extremely public claims otherwise:
Assuming previous statements by James Comey and the White House Press Secretary are true, the OIG report represents President Obama’s first chance to study what kind of case the FBI will be able to make against Clinton. Since keeping the President in the dark was clearly part of Comey’s strategy, there’s a pretty good chance Obama’s opinion of the case was entirely formed by combining the initial portions of the State Department’s email probe, developing information from Linick and quite frankly – Hillary goddamn Clinton’s solemn but apparently worthless promise that she’d done nothing seriously wrong. How happy was the President when he found out Hillary was lying to him about virtually everything, including the “personal” nature of at least some of the 30,000 emails she deleted? I really couldn’t say definitively, but I somehow doubt tersely ending a press conference in Japan in response to a question about the email server scandal in the wake of the OIG report, while adding “I think these (questions) are better directed to the campaign,” is a particularly good sign for Clinton; especially coming from the normally calm, deliberate and calculating Obama. Furthermore, I feel it’s fairly reasonable to assume that the President could have, if he had so desired, exerted considerable control over the tone, language and detail level of the report. Clearly, he did not as Linick lays into Clinton like she fucking stole something repeatedly and at considerable length.
The OIG report also represents the absolute first time that Clinton’s actions, excuses and obfuscation have been actively called out by an official body that isn’t at least nominally Republican; the server was discovered by the GOP controlled Benghazi Commission and the current investigation is being run by the Republican head of the FBI. Owing entirely to the GOP’s shameful politics and behavior during Obama’s Presidency; virtually any accusation levied against Clinton by tendrils of the Republican Party will immediately be perceived as a partisan smear job and largely ignored by seriously people – the President included. The fact that such a damning report has now come out of Obama’s own State Department; despite the presence of one of the most powerful and decidedly mainstream figures in the Party (John Kerry) is an extremely strong signal that all is most certainly not fucking well in Camelot. Clearly, the Hillary Clinton email server scandal can no longer be described as a “vast, right wing conspiracy” to get the former Secretary of State because she’s now being harshly criticized by powerful Democrats; which knocks out another key aspect of Clinton’s defense.
Finally, the report revealed that numerous high-level members of Clinton’s staff were absolutely aware of the potential legal problems and department rules violations involved with Clinton’s private server; again directly contradicting numerous public claims otherwise by Hillary herself. In one case an Information Resources Management staffer told superiors that Hillary’s emails could contain Federal records that needed to be preserved to satisfy record keeping rules, only to be told the server had already been approved by the legal staff and that “the matter was not to be discussed any further.” Another staffer reports that after raising questions about the server, the director of the department told the entire staff “never to speak of the Secretary’s personal email system again.” Additionally, even Clinton’s chief of staff Cheryl Mills is implicated in the report when she suggested that a separate stand-alone computer could be used to keep Clinton’s insecure Blackberry out of secure areas; an idea the OIG report claims was never acted on despite the approval of another senior official. This is of course telling because it proves Clinton was aware that the Blackberry she was normally receiving emails on wasn’t considered secure enough for the kind of emails she was clearly exchanging and frankly just didn’t give a shit – which is a very goddamn serious blow to her claims that she was unaware she was doing anything wrong. Actually, the OIG report even lays out a clear motive for Clinton’s behavior when it reveals that her right hand woman, deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin directly suggested that Clinton should either get on the State email system or give the department her email address. Clinton replied “let’s get separate address or device but I don’t want any risk of the personal being accessible,” a clear indication that the former Secretary of State acted with both intent and purpose to hide her emails from government record keeping.
Still unco
= new reply since forum marked as read
That certainly legitimizes it then!
Connected all the damn dots in an easily understood way.
Heavy stuff here.
