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DOJ Will Not File Charges Against Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (politico.com)

An anonymous reader writes: After FBI Director James Comey recommended not to indict Hillary Clinton for her email misconduct yesterday, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on Wednesday that the Justice Department has decided not to pursue charges against Hillary Clinton or her aids and that the department will close the investigation into her use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state. "Late this afternoon, I met with FBI Director James Comey and career prosecutors and agents who conducted the investigation of Secretary Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email system during her time as Secretary of State," Lynch said in a statement on Wednesday. "I received and accepted their unanimous recommendation that the thorough, year-long investigation be closed and that no charges be brought against any individuals within the scope of the investigation."

10 of 801 comments (clear)

  1. Re:BREAKING: Romanian hacker Guccifer found dead! by msauve · · Score: 5, Informative
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    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  2. Re:Not surprising by slew · · Score: 4, Informative

    But it does lay clear that there are two classes in the US: the ruling class, who won't be charged for clear violations because they might be able to get off, and the rest of us. Who will be charged for anything and everything they can think of.

    Surprisingly, Mr Comey, actually admitted this in his statement...

    To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.

    Why can't people like Mr Comey run for public office?

  3. Top secret and special access by raymorris · · Score: 4, Informative

    > but we haven't been told if it's just classified, secret, top secret, or higher...

    The FBI director announced that several emails contained documents which were already marked "top secret". Other emails included information classified "special access", which is higher than top secret.

  4. Re:I would daresay... by sumdumass · · Score: 4, Informative

    Hillary is one of the smartest people in the room / world.

    Look at all the scandals she has been involved with and escaped rather easily because of how she structured it. Her entire public life has been a double dutch Irish sandwich or whatever it was called (Apple's tax avoidance schemes ) that has legally violated the law for her own gain.

  5. Re:I wonder if they'll cancel Petraeus's sentence by ooloorie · · Score: 4, Informative

    Clinton did not lie.

    Clinton lied about not having classified information on her server. She lied about only deleting personal E-mails, and she destroyed evidence.

  6. James Comey laid it on thick. by arthurh3535 · · Score: 4, Informative

    He was very, very careful in his phrasing (and then large on hyperbole) with what he stated. He claimed two emails carried 'confidential markings' (which was only sorta true) and then switched gears on confidential emails (which is, in fact different). There are maybe 30-40 emails that were sent that had confidential or higher (most were just confidential). So about .006% error rate on humans using email and sent something through email they shouldn't have.

    One of the confidential emails... was to a lawyer and "confidential" in the sense that lawyer-client privileges applied. There were a couple of (C) markings in a few emails, but the top actually didn't have the markings for Confidential/Secret or whatnot. An incredibly huge percentage of emails were marked confidential expo-facto (and by other agencies that tend to try and classify _everything_, including public knowledge of the weather at times).

    James Comey just did a public hatchet job of "selling" that Hillary should have been indicted, then basically admitted he didn't have a case that any competent prosecutor would attempt to take before a judge. Congrats, partisan hack, you pulled the wool over most of the viewers and readers.

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  7. Re:FBI director announced she IS guilty, won't pro by hsthompson69 · · Score: 5, Informative

    18 U.S. Code 793 (f)

    https://www.law.cornell.edu/us...

    (f) 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.

    She flatly violated a statute that only requires gross negligence (aka, "extreme carelessness"), but Comey dodged and said he wouldn't recommend prosecution because he could not prove intent - even though intent is not required by the statute.

    Now, you can argue 18 U.S. Code 793 (a), which requires intent, could not be prosecuted, but 18 U.S. Code 793 (f) clearly was violated.

    Hillary is a criminal who the FBI declined to recommend prosecution for.

  8. Re: Sanders has an option by KenHansen · · Score: 4, Informative
    How flipping stupid: Colin Powell did the same thing.

    Citation? Last I saw An exhaustive review of all senior members of his department turned up a couple dozen work-related emails that various members of his team sent to/from private email account... Hillary withheld 100% of every work-related email from her time in office outside the reach of FOIA requests for her entire term PLUS two years, turning them over only after her lawyers reviewed each and every one of them. That is not 'the same thing' - not even close.

  9. Re: Sanders has an option by dwillden · · Score: 4, Informative

    Putting classified information on an unclassified network is a real crime. Doing it 110 times is 110 crimes, each of which is a felony worth up to 10 years in prison.

    Putting information in an email that someone decides well after the fact should be classified (what Powell did twice, and Rice did about a dozen times) is not a crime..

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  10. Re: Yawn by acoustix · · Score: 4, Informative

    18 USC 793. This statute explicitly states that whoever, “entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any documentthrough gross negligence permits the same to removed from its proper place of custodyor having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody.shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.” Comey called her “extremely careless.” That was highly charitable. But even by that standard, Hillary was grossly negligent with classified material. Comey says Hillary had no intent to transmit information to foreign powers. But that’s not what the statute requires.

    18 USC 1924. This statute states that any employee of the United States who “knowingly removes [classified] documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.” Hillary set up a private server explicitly to do this.

    18 USC 798. This statute states that anyone who “uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United Statesany classified informationshall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.” Hillary transmitted classified information in a manner that harmed the United States; Comey says she may have been hacked.

    18 USC 2071. This statute says that anyone who has custody of classified material and “willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years.” Clearly, Hillary meant to remove classified materials from government control.

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