Two Problems with the Hillary/FBI RICO Story [View all]

[IdaBriggs]

Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, nothing truly goes away.

#1: The author, Frank Huguanard, is NOT a credentialed journalist. He also provides no source for the biggest part of his story, specifically detailing out what the FBI is actually going to do.

Hillary Clinton to be Indicted on Federal Racketeering Charges, May 29, 2016: https://archive.is/bERJ6#selection-1599.0-1623.205
<snip>
James Comey and The FBI will present a recommendation to Loretta Lynch, Attorney General of the Department of Justice, that includes a cogent argument that the Clinton Foundation is an ongoing criminal enterprise engaged in money laundering and soliciting bribes in exchange for political, policy and legislative favors to individuals, corporations and even governments both foreign and domestic.

“The New York Times examined Bill Clinton’s relationship with a Canadian mining financier, Frank Giustra, who has donated millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation and sits on its board. Clinton, the story suggests, helped Giustra’s company secure a lucrative uranium-mining deal in Kazakhstan and in return received “a flow of cash” to the Clinton Foundation, including previously undisclosed donations from the company’s chairman totaling $2.35 million.” -- Bloomberg Politics

Initially, Comey had indicated that the investigation into Hillary’s home brewed email server was to be concluded by October of 2015. However, as more and more evidence in the case has come to light, this initial date kept being pushed back as the criminal investigation has expanded well beyond violating State Department regulations to include questions about espionage, perjury and influence peddling.

Here’s what we do know. Tens of millions of dollars donated to the Clinton Foundation was funneled to the organization through a Canadian shell company which has made tracing the donors nearly impossible. Less than 10% of donations to the Foundation has actually been released to charitable organizations and $2M that has been traced back to long time Bill Clinton friend Julie McMahon (aka The Energizer). When the official investigation into Hillary’s email server began, she instructed her IT professional to delete over 30,000 emails and cloud backups of her emails older than 30 days at both Platte River Networks and Datto, Inc. The FBI has subsequently recovered the majority, if not all, of Hillary’s deleted emails and are putting together a strong case against her for attempting to cover up her illegal and illicit activities.
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Although many links are provided to "back up" his assertions (see below), "psychic intuition" is simply not a credible source for the portrayal of "insider knowledge" of what the Director of the FBI is going to do. At the end of the day, this is an opinion piece about what the author thinks will happen.

I did a little "Google" on the man, and he honestly seems nice enough. Like most of the people here on DU, he seems very interested in politics. He also apparently has a green thumb with heirloom tomatoes -- these plants are HUGE!

Https://vimeo.com/18401818

But he really isn't a credible source about the FBI or the DOJ activity beyond what is already being reported on the Internet.

#2: I had to look around to verify this guy wasn't credible, because I would not be surprised if the FBI does go for a RICO charge.

And that goes right to the heart of the problem with viewing Hillary Clinton as trustworthy. Between the never ending lies and deliberate attempts to confuse people (email accounts are not the same thing as private servers), and the fact the Clintons went from (per Hillary) "dead broke" to "mega rich" faster than his pension and her salary could reasonably account for, plus her laughably non-credible "inspirational speaking" career, she is not seen by a large percentage of voters as a person of integrity. I am hoping the FBI gives a nice press conference proclaiming her innocence of any form of wrong doing, but my own life experience does not find that scenario plausible.

And no, it's not "decades of right wing attacks" -- it is constant BAD JUDGMENT and cringeworthy STUPID lying. Why make a production of handing over 50,000 pages of printed emails unless you are trying to either be an ass or cover something up? Just put it on a stick, and let the recipient kill the trees, and maybe send an apology note for not having left the "work emails at work", too.

But she didn't, and now the entire Party is in an uproar because the best fundraisers we have are scandal magnets, and a large portion of the population would not be surprised at a criminal indictment.

The bar for acceptable behavior has officially been lowered.

And one of the worst things is how this election cycle is tainting the reputation of the rest of the party. I literally paused on his last two sentences --

"Perhaps the most interesting question here is whether or not the FBI’s investigation will be able to directly link The Clinton Foundation with The Hillary Victory Fund. If this happens, the DNC itself may be in jeopardy of accusations of either being an accomplice or of being complicit in racketeering."

Yes, that would be a reasonable plot twist. And that scares me!

Maybe politics has always been like this - back room deals with slush funds for one candidate, and questionable tactics employed to keep the voters in a frenzy of hope for promises that can't be kept. I don't want to be cynical, but this guy's theories don't sound as far fetched as they used to, once upon a time, before the Internet....

But I am going to continue to await the FBI report. Hillary's word is just not good enough





Links from Article NOTE: All mainstream.

Clinton Foundation Failed to Disclose 1,100 Foreign Donations, Bloomberg Politics, May 13, 2016: https://archive.is/rknnm

Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal, The New York Times, March 18, 2016: https://archive.is/crhPw

State Dept. watchdog: Clinton violated email rules, Politico, May 27, 2016: https://archive.is/nXWhW

Employee at Clinton's email hosting company feared cover-up, Politico, April 3, 2016: https://archive.is/Ahdqi

Unbeknownst to Clinton, IT firm had emails stored on cloud; now in FBI’s hands, McClatchy DC October 6, 2015 http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article37968711.html#storylink=cpy

18 U.S. Code § 1924 - Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material, Cornell University Law School, September 1, 2015: https://archive.is/pp4Mj

18 U.S. Code § 798 - Disclosure of classified information, Cornell University Law School, July 13, 2015: https://archive.is/S6c5J

Office of the Secretary: Evaluation of Email Records Management and Cybersecurity Requirements, Office of Inspector General, May 2016: http://static.politico.com/f3/9b/19d29ab14abeb4a30ca2975f1e6c/oig-report.pdf

What we know about the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, Politifact, May 12, 2016: https://archive.is/WYja6