Comey and FBI had - NO PROBABLE CAUSE - to search Abedin's computer!!! [View all]

[kpete]

Last edited Tue Dec 20, 2016, 06:32 PM - Edit history (8)

Comey Sent Letter Before Having a Warrant or Reading Content of Emails
http://schoenberg.com/Clinton/search%20warrant.pdf

The Subpoena That Rocked The Election Is Legal Garbage, Legal Experts Say
The warrant assumes that the mere existence of emails from or to Hillary Clinton is probable cause that a crime occurred.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-subpoena-that-rocked-the-election-is-legal-garbage-attorney-say_us_58597cd9e4b03904470b0633?nfwb6erkrmcth85mi




https://twitter.com/Amy_Siskind/status/811268873978867716?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/breaking-search-warrant-unsealed-that-was-used-to-obtain-clinton-emails-during-weiner-probe/


.....today the FBI released the search warrant (PDF) used to find irrelevant emails between Huma Abedin and Hillary Clinton. There are three things of note in the search warrant:

The search warrant is nothing more than a rehash of Comey’s July press conference. You can hear the animosity of than Clinton Cash-reading agents who dreamed of indicting and perp walking Hillary Clinton but didn’t get to because of you know, laws, between the lines of the indictment.

James Comey issued his outrageous letter to Congress, which tipped the election to Donald Trump, on October 28th,

The Warrant was filed on October 30th.

This means that Comey issued his letter, which cast aspersions and judgments on Secretary Clinton, before he knew what was contained in the emails. This is remarkably unprofessional. Also, by pre-preemptively releasing a letter about a warrant which was filed under seal, Comey showed that he didn’t trust rogue agents to follow the law they swear to uphold and remain silent about items which are under seal.

http://schoenberg.com/Clinton/search%20warrant.pdf
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/12/20/1613049/-Incompetent-Partisan-Hack-James-Comey-Sent-Letter-Before-Having-a-Warrant

MORE:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/20/fbi-warrant-gives-little-new-light-clinton-emails-comey-letter/95651778/
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/documents-related-clinton-emails-unsealed-today/story?id=44303519
http://www.newsweek.com/lawyer-says-no-probable-cause-clinton-search-warrant-534400

And THIS!

https://twitter.com/Amy_Siskind/status/810535759157624832
https://www.facebook.com/amy.siskind/posts/10211222942594508

E. Randol Schoenberg
Follow · 2 hrs ·

I see nothing at all in the search warrant application that would give rise to probable cause, nothing that would make anyone suspect that there was anything on the laptop beyond what the FBI had already searched and determined not to be evidence of a crime, nothing to suggest that there would be anything other than routine correspondence between Secretary Clinton and her longtime aide Huma Abedin.

You will have to ask Judge Fox, or the agent in charge (whose name has been redacted), or Director Comey, why they thought they might find evidence of a crime, why they felt it necessary to inform Congress, and why they even sought this search warrant.

I am appalled.

You can view the search warrant at
http://schoenberg.com/Clinton/search%20warrant.pdf
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154232284756270&set=a.37856836269.52112.718391269&type=3&theater

USA TODAY: Schoenberg said more information needs to be made public before the matter is put to rest. "The FBI agent’s name has not been disclosed, but I think that it may be appropriate to find out his/her name and determine what the motivations were,since it must have been obvious to the FBI that there was no real probable cause to believe they would find evidence of a crime," he said in a follow-up email. "It was very wrong for Director Comey to give that impression."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/20/fbi-warrant-gives-little-new-light-clinton-emails-comey-letter/95651778/

WAPO:
The FBI told a federal judge that it needed to search a computer to resume its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server because agents had found correspondence on the device between Clinton and top aide Huma Abedin — though they did not have any inkling what was being discussed, according to newly unsealed court documents.

The documents, made public Tuesday after a Los Angeles lawyer sued for their release, reinforce the impression that when the bureau revealed less than two weeks before the election that agents were again investigating Clinton, they had no new evidence of actual wrongdoing. The FBI’s revelation upended the presidential election, and to this day, Clinton and her supporters say it is at least partly to blame for her surprising loss to Donald Trump…

Brian Fallon, the Clinton campaign spokesman, said on Twitter there “was nothing in search warrant filing to controvert Comey’s statements from July and truly establish probable cause of a crime,” and that it was “salt in the wound to see FBI rationale was this flimsy.”

E. Randol Schoenberg, the lawyer who sued to have the warrant unsealed, said he saw “nothing at all in the search warrant application that would give rise to probable cause, nothing that would make anyone suspect that there was anything on the laptop beyond what the FBI had already searched and determined not to be evidence of a crime, nothing to suggest that there would be anything other than routine correspondence between Secretary Clinton and her longtime aide Huma Abedin.”

“I am appalled,” Schoenberg said.

https://www.balloon-juice.com/2016/12/20/nothingburgers-all-the-way-down/

TPM:
The following is from a former federal prosecutor with deep experience in public corruption investigations and prosecutions.

I've reviewed the redacted search warrant that the Court unsealed today.


It confirms what we assumed all along:
(1) prior to seeking the warrant and to Comey issuing his letter, the FBI had no idea whether these were new emails, or duplicates of emails they previously reviewed--all they could see was non-content header information (to and from);

(2) the FBI had no information to suggest that the emails were improperly withheld from them previously;

(3) the FBI had no facts to justify the urgency in seeking a review of the emails prior to the election. This latter point is key. Generally, DOJ policy commands that prosecutors and agents refrain from taking investigative steps (even non-public steps like seeking search warrants) within 60 days of an election in a politically sensitive matter.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/yep-comey-s-decision-was-just-as-bad-as-you-thought