Friday, July 24, 2015

Federal Criminal Probe Into Hillary Clinton Email Scandal?

by JASmius



Don't count on it.  But at least these two inspectors-general did their part in making the sure-to-be-ignored request:

Two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation “into whether Hillary Rodham Clinton mishandled sensitive government information on a private email account she used as secretary of state,” senior government officials said Thursday.

The request follows an assessment in a June 29th memo by the inspectors-general for the State Department and the intelligence agencies that Mrs. Clinton’s private account contained “hundreds of potentially classified emails.” The memo was written to Patrick F. Kennedy, the under secretary of state for management. …

Aaaaaaand long-time Clintonoid, the man responsible for security decisions in Benghazi, but whom the so-called Accountability Review Board never bothered to question about it, just so everyone is on the same page.

In the course of the email review, State Department officials determined that some information in the messages should be retroactively classified. In the three thousand pages that were released, for example, portions of two dozen emails were redacted because they were upgraded to “classified status.” But none of those were marked as classified at the time Mrs. Clinton handled them.

So Mrs. Clinton didn't classify classified information in order to cover her own ass for leaking classified information.  Gee, I guess Donald Trump was right - she is capable, isn't she?

In a second memo to Mr. Kennedy, sent on July 17th, the inspectors-general said that at least one email made public by the State Department contained classified information. The inspectors general did not identify the email or reveal its substance.

Oops, guess Her Nib missed one.

Meanwhile, the federal courts are starting to get fed up with flagrant, relentless State Commissariat stonewalling:

On Monday, a federal judge sharply questioned State Department lawyers at a hearing in Washington about why they had not responded to Freedom of Information Act requests from the Associated Press, some of which were four years old.

“I want to find out what’s been going on over there — I should say, what’s not been going on over there,” said Judge Richard J. Leon [Bush43 appointee] of United States District Court, according to a transcript obtained by Politico. The judge said that “for reasons known only to itself,” the State Department “has been, to say the least, recalcitrant in responding.” [emphasis added]

Isn't it obvious, Judge Leon?  They don't want to tell you or anybody else, because they have unilaterally decided that we don't need to know that information.  Dictators get to make those decisions.  Didn't you get the memo?:

Inspectors general will have to get permission from the agencies they scrutinize to gain access to wiretaps, grand jury, and credit information under new rules introduced by the Obama administration, according to the Washington Post.

The fifty-eight-page ruling was issued by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, according to the Post.

The inspector general for the Justice Department said the ruling will undermine his ability to carry out his responsibilities for pursuing fraud and corruption within the government.

"Without such access, our office's ability to conduct its work will be significantly impaired, and it will be more difficult for us to detect and deter waste, fraud, and abuse, and to protect taxpayer dollars," Inspector General Michael Horowitz said in a statement, according to the Post.

Precisely.  It couldn't be any more, well, transparent, now could it?

As to Mrs. Clinton and Emailgate, nothing is going to happen to her.  There will be no consequences.  She and her minions are already out there today obfuscating and denying and attacking the propaganda organ of the Democrat Party for "inaccurate reporting," per La Clinton Nostra SOP:
View image on Twitter


View image on Twitter

Here is full statement Clinton made on the email story:

But this comes not out of any fear of legal repercussions, as she knows there will never be any.  But political repercussions?  That's another story.  How bad is it?  Even Chuck Todd (NBC News) is openly scoffing at her perambulations:

No, I think they blew it when they didn’t turn over the server immediately. I mean, I think this one of those things that they could have, they could have — instead of saying, ‘Well, the State Department, it’s up to the State Department to release the e-mails’ and all that, I think that they lost any high ground they could have had by being pro-active in, ‘Okay, here’s the server, Congress you can have it, take a look,’ giving off the perception ‘nothing to hide here,’ instead of sort of, while technically following the law and this and technically doing what they’re supposed to be — giving it to the State and let State do this.

They could have been more out front on this, particularly with that server. I don’t know if there’s anything they could do now to get out in front of it. I think now they’ve just got to hope nothing is found.



Even in his scoffing, it's clear that Todd is coming from a mindset of sympathy - not unlike Seahawk fans to this day keep lamenting why Darrell Bevel didn't give the ball to Marshawn Lynch one more time instead of throwing that infamous slant pattern at the goal line in Glendale, Arizona six months ago.

But let's let Captain Ed state the obvious for a change:

Let’s play this out along a couple of lines of assumption. First, we’ll assume that the e-mail server issue is entirely innocent. We’d have to believe that the Clintons — one of the most politically astute teams in modern American history — fumbled such an easy call by opting for stonewalling over transparency when transparency would have acquitted Hillary. After twenty-three years in Washington, DC, and more than a decade prior to that in Arkansas politics at the highest levels, does anyone believe that the Clintons would have made that kind of mistake — especially with the presidency on the line?

That leaves us with the obvious conclusion that Hillary and her team had good reason not to provide that kind of transparency. We can assume that transparency would have done her even more political damage than their decision not to turn over the server — or disclose the fact of its existence until it was discovered independently. In that case, Hillary didn’t blow it by keeping the server secret — and the bet was always that nothing would be found. That’s why Hillary and her team wiped the server clean and still won’t turn it over.

There are good liars and bad liars.  Good liars are distinguished by their ability to put over their lies and get the public to believe them.  Bad liars lie in such a way as to make that functionally impossible, and are always exposed, but if they structure them well enough, that exposure can be delayed long enough to limit the resulting political damage.  And, if all else fails, bad liars should have some ace in the hole, like skin color, behind which to hide and with which to change the subject.

Hillary Clinton has none of those things.  She's a bad liar who told lies that were more or less guaranteed to blow up in her face in the short term, during her one last shot at her lifelong dream of returning to the White House in her own right.  And her polling numbers are already in freefall.  This latest expose just reinforces among the top reasons why Americans of whatever ideological or political stripe don't like or trust her: They can't believe a word she says.  She is literally a walking turd.



That's a "stain" that isn't going to go away.


UPDATE: You know, usually my "See, I told you so's" get at least a few days to marinate first:

Attorney General Loretta Lynch's Justice Department has been asked by two inspectors general to launch a probe of Hillary Clinton's handling of classified government information while using a private email account while she was secretary of state.

The New York Times, which was the first to report the development, cited unnamed sources saying that the request was criminal in nature.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that a Justice Department official initially confirmed that a criminal investigation had been requested, but later reversed its position without comment.

"The department has received a referral related to the potential compromise of classified information. It is not a criminal referral," said an official.

Meaning it is and DOJ is simply lying about it, as such a referral couldn't not be criminal in nature, as distributing classified information via private email communication is unequivocally against federal law.  But this is a clear indication that there will be no criminal investigation of Mrs. Clinton.

Besides which, DOJ has enough on its plate getting ready for all the criminal investigations they'll be hurling at the incoming Walker Administration to bother with actual criminality from the woman he will have soundly defeated.

No comments: