{"id":256294,"date":"2016-07-16T14:50:58","date_gmt":"2016-07-16T14:50:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=256294"},"modified":"2016-07-16T14:50:58","modified_gmt":"2016-07-16T14:50:58","slug":"hillary-clintons-email-case-still-not-closed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/hillary-clintons-email-case-still-not-closed\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Hillary Clinton’s Email Case Is Still Not Closed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Normally, when the head of the FBI under one President says something like\u00a0\u201cno reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case\u201d<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0as the FBI reported regarding Hillary Clinton’s emails, that would be the end of the matter; but Clinton actually still isn\u2019t off the prosecutorial hook of this criminal case, unless and until she becomes President herself.<\/span><\/p>\n

The decision as to whether or not to prosecute her on this matter is not made by the FBI Director, but by the Attorney General. The current one, Loretta Lynch, was appointed by (and holds her job at the discretion of) the man who has endorsed Ms. Clinton to become his own successor: the current U.S. President, Barack Obama. If Clinton doesn\u2019t become the next President, the next Attorney General won\u2019t be appointed by Clinton, and that person will then be making any decision as to whether or not to present the Clinton emails-case to a grand jury; and, if an indictment results, then to present it to a trial jury.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even the Obama appointee to be the FBI\u2019s chief, Mr. Comey, introduced his statement there, by acknowledging that \u201cthere is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information.\u201d As regards his opinion that \u201cno reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case,\u201d reasonable prosecutors already have<\/i> brought<\/i> such cases, and they have won convictions on<\/i> these cases. So, just based on that record, Mr. Comey clearly lied there.<\/span><\/p>\n

The independent journalist who goes by the pseudonym \u201cTyler Durden\u201d headlined, only a day after Mr. Comey on July 5th exonerated Ms. Clinton,\u00a0“Meet Bryan Nishimura, Found Guilty For ‘Removal And Retention Of Classified Materials\u2019,\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and that conviction was won on the same statute for which Comey as Clinton’s would-be policeman, jury, and judge, has peremptorily exonerated her (exonerated his own next boss<\/i> if she becomes President). \u201cDurden,\u201d at his famous \u201cZero Hedge\u201d site, noted: “Here is the FBI itself, less than a year ago, charging one Bryan H. Nishimura, 50, of Folsom [California], who\u00a0pleaded guilty to ‘unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials\u2019 without malicious\u00a0intent, in other words precisely what the FBI alleges Hillary did (h\/t@DavidSirota).\u201d He linked to\u00a0this case<\/span><\/a>. If that\u2019s not the spitting-image of what Clinton was investigated by the FBI for, then nothing is \u2014 but Nishimura did far less of that crime than Clinton did \u2014 and yet he was sentenced “to two years of probation, a $7,500 fine, and forfeiture of personal media containing classified\u00a0materials. Nishimura was further ordered to surrender any currently held security clearance and\u00a0to never again seek such a clearance.\u201d As America\u2019s President, Ms. Clinton wouldn\u2019t even qualify to receive the CIA\u2019s daily national security brief. But, according to Mr. Comey,\u00a0\u201cno reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.\u201d He simply lied.<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, even before<\/i> Comey had announced Clinton\u2019s exoneration, Josh Gersten at Politico had already headlined on 27 May 2016,\u00a0“Sub sailor’s photo case draws comparisons to Clinton emails\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and he reported that, “A Navy sailor entered a guilty plea Friday in a classified information mishandling case that critics charge\u00a0illustrates a double standard between the treatment of low-ranking government employees and top\u00a0officials like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and ex-CIA Director David Petraeus. \u2026 To some, the comparison to Clinton\u2019s case may appear strained. Clinton has said none of the\u00a0information on her server was marked classified at the time. In many cases, it was marked as\u00a0unclassified when sent to her by people in the State Department more familiar with the issues\u00a0involved.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

However, even Mr. Comey noted in his statement of exoneration of Ms. Clinton, that, among the tens of thousands of Clinton\u2019s emails that were able to be recovered after she had tried to destroy them all, were the following: \u201cEight of those <\/i>[email] chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were\u00a0sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential\u00a0information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000\u00a0additional e-mails were ‘up-classified\u2019 <\/i>[by the State Department during its reconstruction of her email record] to make them Confidential; the information in those\u00a0had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent.\u201d<\/i> Some of the emails that Clinton had tried to destroy had, in fact, been marked \u201cConfidential,\u201d \u201cSecret,\u201d and even \u201cTop Secret.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Consequently, when Politico\u2019s reporter, Mr. Gersten, exonerated Clinton by saying (and leaving it at that), “Clinton has said none of the\u00a0information on her server was marked classified at the time. In many cases, it was marked as\u00a0unclassified when sent to her by people in the State Department more familiar with the issues\u00a0involved,\u201d<\/i> he was quoting (without even challenging<\/i>) a liar. That standard (Hillary\u2019s having been sending and receiving information that was classified at the time) was reported by Mr. Comey to have actually been met<\/i>, for her prosecution \u2014 Comey simply chose to deny that reality, by then saying,\u00a0\u201cno reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.\u201d He undeniably lied.<\/span><\/p>\n

On July 6th (the same day as the report from \u201cTyler Durden\u201d), the Hillary Clinton propaganda-site Slate headlined, from their Fred Kaplan,\u00a0“The Hillary Clinton Email Scandal Was Totally Overblown<\/span><\/a>: We learned nothing new from the investigation or James Comey\u2019s statement.\u201d He wrote: “Did she commit a crime? Would anyone else \u2014 a lower-ranking official, someone who\u2019s not a\u00a0presidential candidate, someone who\u2019s not named Clinton \u2014 have been charged with a crime?\u00a0Absolutely not.\u00a0And Comey said as much. ‘Our judgment,’ he said, ‘is that no reasonable\u00a0prosecutor would bring such a case.\u2019 In the annals of the Justice Department\u2019s history, he went on, ‘we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts\u2019.\u201d That type of \u2018reporting\u2019 is called stenographic \u2018journalism\u2019: it\u2019s exactly what America\u2019s press did with regard to \u2018Saddam\u2019s WMD,\u2019 for which fabricated reason we invaded Iraq in 2003. Stenographic \u2018journalism\u2019 is still<\/i> the U.S. norm. The American press hasn\u2019t changed since then.<\/span><\/p>\n

On July 9th, Salon bannered\u00a0“DOJ veterans weigh in on FBI Director James Comey\u2019s handling of Clinton email probe\u201d<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0and reported many serious irregularities \u2014 and false assertions by Comey \u2014 in the FBI Director\u2019s handling of this matter.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the huge scandal of the FBI\u2019s handling of this matter goes far deeper than any of this, because the real mega-scandal here is that the FBI were extremely selective in regards to what federal criminal laws they would investigate her for having possibly broken. There are at least six federal criminal laws which accurately and unquestionably describe even what Ms. Clinton has now publicly admitted having done by her privatized email system, and intent isn\u2019t even mentioned in most of them nor necessary in order for her to be convicted \u2014 the actions themselves<\/i> convict her, and the only relevance that intent<\/i> might have, regarding any of these laws, would be in determining how long her prison sentence would be.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have already presented <\/b>the texts of these six laws<\/b><\/span><\/a> (and you can see the sentences for each one, right there), and any reader can easily recognize that each one of them describes, without any doubt, what she now admits<\/i> having done.<\/b> Most of these crimes don\u2019t require any intent in order to convict (and the ones that do require intent are only \u201cknowingly \u2026 conceals,\u201d or else \u201cwith the intent to impair the object\u2019s \u2026 use in an official proceeding,\u201d both of which \u201cintents\u201d would be easy to prove on the basis of what has already been made public \u2014 but others of these laws don\u2019t require even that); and none of them requires any classified information to have been involved, at all. It\u2019s just not an issue in these laws. Thus, conviction under them is far easier. If a prosecutor is really seeking to convict someone, he\u2019ll be aiming to get indictments on the easiest-to-prove charges, first. That also presents for the prosecutor the strongest position in the event of an eventual plea-bargain. As Alan Dershowitz said<\/span><\/a>, commenting on one famous prosecution: \u201cThey\u00a0also wanted a slam-dunk case. They wanted the strongest possible case.\u201d Comey didn\u2019t. His presentation was simply a brazen hoax by him. That\u2019s all.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the real scandal, and nobody (other than I) has been writing about it as what it is \u2014 a hoax. But what it shows is that maybe the only way that Clinton will be able to avoid going to prison is by her going to the White House. Either she gets a term in the White House, or else she gets a (much longer) term in prison \u2014 or else our government is so thoroughly corrupt that she remains free as a private citizen and still above the law, even though not<\/i> serving as a federal official.<\/span><\/p>\n

If Donald Trump doesn\u2019t soon start talking about each one of those six laws, then his supporters should be asking him whether he himself is hiding something, because those six laws make crystal-clear that Hillary Clinton committed serious crimes, such that, even if she is convicted only<\/i> on these six slam-dunk statutes (and on none other, including not on the ones that Comey was referring to), she could be sentenced to a maximum of 73 years in prison (73=5+5+20+20+3+10+10). Add on others she might also have committed (such as the ones that Comey was referring to, all of which pertain only to the handling of classified information), and her term in prison might be lengthier still.<\/span><\/p>\n

Motive is important in Ms. Clinton\u2019s email case, because motive tells us why she was trying to hide from historians and from the public her operations as the U.S. Secretary of State: was it because she didn\u2019t want them to know that she was selling to the Sauds and her other friends the U.S. State Department\u2019s policies in return for their million-dollar-plus donations to the Clinton Foundation<\/span><\/a>, and maybe even selling to them (and\/or their cronies) U.S. government contracts, or why? However, those are questions regarding other crimes that she might have been perpetrating while in public office, not the crimes of her privatized email operation itself; and those other crimes (whatever they might have been) would have been explored only after an indictment on the slam-dunks, and for further possible prosecutions, if President Obama\u2019s people were serious about investigating her. They weren\u2019t. Clearly, this is selective \u2018justice\u2019. <\/span><\/p>\n

So: the basic question here is: Is this a democracy<\/span><\/a>, at all? Or, are some people just\u00a0brazenly above the law?<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The character and content of this country are at stake here. This issue is important not only as substance, but as symbolism. Of course, that\u2019s also true with any<\/i> criminal conviction or refusal even to prosecute; but, in Clinton\u2019s email case, the symbolism is simply enormous: it\u2019s a bold statement, to the entire world, about today\u2019s America, and about whether this government\u2019s routine pontifications, regarding other<\/i> nations\u2019 not being \u201cdemocratic,\u201d are little \u2014 if at all \u2014 more than a very black pot deriding some kettle for not being sufficiently white. A crony-capitalist country<\/span><\/a> is in no moral position to dictate anything<\/i> to the rest of the world. Hiding what it is<\/span><\/a> (a foul oligarchy), only makes what it is, even worse<\/i>, and more dangerous. Its allies \u2014 in NATO, the EU, and elsewhere \u2014 are then members of an international gang, which has no justifiable reason even to exist, and which is incredibly harmful not only to their own people, but to all nations. And, if the next<\/i> U.S. President refuses to prosecute this case, then the continuation of hiding it, the continuation of that cover-up<\/i>, will not only be blatant; it will show, to the entire world, that nothing short of a revolution can rectify the situation in America. If this country is that crooked at the top, what can it be down below?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0 They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of<\/span> \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org Normally, when the head of the FBI under one President says something like\u00a0\u201cno reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case\u201d,\u00a0as the FBI reported regarding Hillary Clinton’s emails, that would be the end of the matter; but Clinton actually still isn\u2019t off the prosecutorial hook of this criminal case, unless […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":256295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[951,96,535,954,1023,524,754,523,49,76,40,1024],"class_list":{"0":"post-256294","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-clinton","9":"tag-cover-up","10":"tag-global-news","11":"tag-hillary","12":"tag-nuclear","13":"tag-russia","14":"tag-syria","15":"tag-ukraine","16":"tag-usa-news","17":"tag-warfare","18":"tag-white-house","19":"tag-ww3"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}