I’m firmly in the camp that says Hillary Clinton will skate on the espionage and corruption issues hanging over her head. That’s right, I said espionage. The very act of setting up this secret e-mail system puts that into the discussion simply because there are only a few reasons to be spiriting away classified data and all of them are against the law.
Allowing unauthorized people access to this server, which has been established, means she violated the Espionage Act. 18 U.S. Code & 793 subsection f reads:
“Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.”
That’s the technical aspect, but there is the question no one is willing to ask and that is why she was removing classified data and storing it off-site? Why was she working with a civilian, Sydney Blumenthal, on national security matters? The most obvious answer is he was a street agent, arranging contributions to the Clinton slush fund in exchange for useful information culled from the American security services. Bubba would show up and give a speech, so it looked like the money was for the speech.
That’s my hunch. Talk to people familiar with these types of investigations and they will say the same thing. A standard scheme in public corruption is to disguise kickbacks as something else. A pol may have a company hire a relative or friend in exchange for getting a contract. Maybe the company arranges for the pol to make a killing on a real estate deal or perhaps a futures contract.
This is all very serious and in a better age Clinton would be in leg irons waiting for the hangman. Of course, in a better age she never would have gained access to the position. The Clintons should never have made it out of Arkansas. In our current age, nothing will come of it other than a drag on her quest for the White House. Civilian justice is for chumps, not managerial class types. The beautiful people handle their issues internally.
I was talking with someone the other day that used to work at Justice in the Public Integrity Section. I think he was also with the FBI, based on some things he said, but I did not ask. He’s “retired” now, working for a government contractor, but I got the impression he worked a lot of these sorts of cases.
He said something interesting that I’ve been mulling over ever since. “The FBI has 150 agents working this case and they have expanded this to be a public corruption case. That means they found much more than just mishandling of classified information. At some point, she will have to suspend her campaign and the party will be forced to find someone else.”
While I remain skeptical about this, it’s not out of the question. Even if she avoids prosecution, the steady drip of bad news seems to be dragging her campaign down to the point where even a clown like Bernie Sanders can beat her. I feel pretty confident that the Democratic Party will not let Sanders win the nomination by default. They will find someone respectable to try to salvage some dignity. Bernie Sanders makes Jeremy Corbyn look like a sober realist so he cannot be allowed to win.
Thinking about it further, I can’t think of a plausible alternative. Joe Biden is the only guy who comes close to being respectable. Fake Indian is not giving up her safe Senate seat to run. There’s no one in the Senate that is famous enough to make it work, unless someone is willing to run just to help the party avoid embarrassment.
That leaves governors and there are a few who could be thrown to the wolves as they are nearing the end of their careers. Mark Dayton from Minnesota comes to mind. He hates Americans and has nothing else going on. Jerry Brown would be entertaining, but he’s basically Bernie Sanders with an interesting life. There are no good options so they may be stuck with some old fool like Brown.
All the attention has been on the Republicans due to Trump, but also for their buffoonery and corruption. Most of the chattering classes are snickering at how they have staggered around trying to find an alternative to Trump. The result is no one is paying much attention to the collapse of the other party. Look at their elected members and it is all geezers and wackos who are marginally less crazy than Bernie Sanders. Their one “fresh” face is Lizzy Warren and she’s a year away from a pension.
The way it is shaping up, the Democrats may not have a choice but to run with Hillary, even if she has to run her campaign from the penitentiary.
well let me scare the bejesus out of you right now… sometime in April or May Hillary will fold her pantsuits and go home, and Michelle Obama will come parading to the rescue of a decrepit Democratic party and will utilize the resources of the taxpayers to engineer another Obama term. You heard it here first, from my cave in the mountains
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Efrem Zimbalist jr. left the FIB building long ago. It would however be interesting to know the inside politics of exactly why and who it was that permitted 150 agents so choice a bone to chew. This can’t have happened without Obama’s stooges at Justice giving the nod.
As the FBI closes in, by circumventing the DOJ, I suspect Ms. Clinton will “unexpectedly” want to spend more time with her family, and continue with the demands of “her” philanthropic administration pursuits, perhaps citing the overwhelming stress of fighting the neverending Vast Right Wing Conspiracy,
and limited resources against “domestic operatives” that the IRS failed to ensnare.
I could be wrong of course.
I dunno. Yeah, she’ll skate on the charges, but…. since that alone is rock solid proof (as if any more were needed) that we live under a government of men, not laws, why not simply roll with Hillary? It’s not as if Obama can’t convene a “blue ribbon commission” that finds, with great sadness, that while “mistakes were made,” nothing is technically actionable here, and so pardons all around. Maybe Huma Abedin gets a few years at the honor farm as a sop to the rubes.
The Dems are certainly contemptuous enough of their base to do it. And they’re right to be — remember Marion Berry? It’s not like the Lena Dunhams, the ghetto dwellers, and the long-deceased of this world are gonna suddenly start voting Republican. Plus, giving yet another tut-tutting speech about the dreaded curse of partisanship is like catnip to Obama. Throw in the certainty of being the Savior of the Party by absolving Hillary — who he hates, let’s remember; he’d love publicly salting her wounds — and you’ve got a legal-enough scenario to keep the whole caesarist farce going.
[N.b. I still think this is Fauxcahontas’s best shot, and she’d be a fool not to do it — Diversity Bingo is the only strategy they’ve got left, and “woman” is the only empty square. But a big Obama forgiveness speech, plus some huge media-created distraction, would be enough to get Hillary over the hump. If the media starts suddenly touting some bizarre lifestyle thing as the new civil rights crusade of the 21st century, you can bet they’re going to try to brazen it out with Hillary].
I threw up all over my keyboard at the mention of Mark Dayton. Ed Muskie not available?
Agree with the Biden comments. If he wants to be President, Hillary will be doing a perp-walk.
Her released emails have already been found to contain Chris Stevens’ travel and security plans. The nail in her political coffin will be when the FBI ties her carelessness and Blumenthal’s hacked email account directly to the coordinated attack that killed Stevens.
I see a Supreme Court departure of a liberal, with Biden as the only nominee who can get through the Senate.
Then Hillary goes in as VP, possibly even ascending to President when Obama departs early, and everybody pardons everybody.
Hillary then finishes last after Governor Gary Johnson the Libertarian, who is promoted aggressively by the MSM in order to split the Trump vote.
President Trump, with his AG Cruz and the Tea Party Congress, then carry out a historic restructuring, with elimination of entire departments and massive downsizings of regulatory agencies
Future historians will call the coming period The Trump Restoration. It is God’s way of making Progressives and Academia understand and appreciate Constitutional Restraint and the Rule of Law.
Joe Biden to the rescue. He has masterfully played the game of staying out of sight while setting up the move. Wait and see, candidate paperwork just happened to have been filed all along. He is also probably the only Dem who has a chance of going toe to toe with Trump or Cruz and coming out of it in one piece. He also will not need to sully himself with attendance at those awful Democrat party debates.
I think you’re right. There’s no way she’ll be held to account for this stuff. The people who allow such things to happen may not like her much, but she’s one of their own.
If she turned on them, sure. But fat chance of that; she’s a Democrat, after all.
She’s safe. She’ll be our next president.
They’ve done a black guy, now a woman. What’s next? Bruce Jenner?
“What’s next? Bruce Jenner?”
As a Republican.
That would be funnier if it weren’t a real possibility.
What about Martin O’Malley? Wouldn’t he get it by default?
As I’ve said all along, she will not be her party’s nominee. Her baggage has become an onerous burden on the Democratic Party. They are nervous, sweating, wringing hands. They know the winds have changed and are no longer in their favor. Maybe she will be indicted, maybe not. The stench of corruption grows stronger. She is not popular among any group except the die-hard Kool-aid drinkers. Everyone (Dems) else is either voting for The Bern, or hoping that Hilary will develop a brain tumor, rendering her incapable of carrying the Progressive banner. Enter Joe Biden.
Well, the stench doesn’t grow stronger, so much as it’s making its way into more noses.
Mark Dayton is a mental patient. Nobody is going to nominate him for President. What’s wrong with Jim Webb? Couldn’t he be resurrected ?
It’s either a geezer or a nutjob at this point.