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FBI Agreed To Destroy Laptops of Clinton Aides With Immunity Deal, Sources Say (foxnews.com)
An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes a report from Fox News: Immunity deals for two top Hillary Clinton aides included a side arrangement obliging the FBI to destroy their laptops after reviewing the devices, House Judiciary Committee sources told Fox News on Monday. Sources said the arrangement with former Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills and ex-campaign staffer Heather Samuelson also limited the search to no later than Jan. 31, 2015. This meant investigators could not review documents for the period after the email server became public -- in turn preventing the bureau from discovering if there was any evidence of obstruction of justice, sources said. The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee fired off a letter Monday to Attorney General Loretta Lynch asking why the DOJ and FBI agreed to the restrictive terms, including that the FBI would destroy the laptops after finishing the search. The immunity deals for Mills and Samuelson, made as part of the FBI's probe into Clinton's use of a private email server when she served as secretary of state, apparently included a series of "side agreements" that were negotiated by Samuelson and Mills' attorney Beth Wilkinson. The side deals were agreed to on June 10, less than a month before FBI Director James Comey announced that the agency would recommend no charges be brought against Clinton or her staff. Judiciary Committee aids told FoxNews.com that the destruction of the laptops is particularly troubling as it means that the computers could not be used as evidence in future legal proceedings, should new information or circumstances arise.
Call in the A-Team.
stop all of the conspiracy garbage since there's no more evidence.
At first the immunity deal for Combetta was for destruction, to get him to talk to the FBI after using BleachBit on the server. This is unusual, because he could already have been prosecuted for this since an order was issued which doesn't allow for this. Clinton and her people asked him to do this, which means they could also be prosecuted. Furthermore, I'm genuinely confused why the other 4 immunity deals were offered. Were the 4 others granted immunity because they had a hand in the private server, or were they offered because the DOJ was looking out for them? I'm also confused why they fucking include a provision to destroy laptops (that apparently weren't subpoenaed or seized via warrant like in every other case) as intense scrutiny of this case is going on and Congress is attempting to force further investigation even though the DOJ and FBI are trying to stonewall it.
There's just too much smoke here for anyone to claim that there isn't a fire.
Geez, you'd think destroying a laptop was like drowning a puppy from the way people react here.
How the f do I block stories with 'politics' as a tag because I'm sick and tired of one bullshit story after the next.
Bye!
#LaptopLivesMatter
What America desperately needs is to start throwing politicians in jail. Right now we are on a path of ever-increasing corruption at high levels of government, and until we get back to the "everyone equal under the law" this situation will continue to get worse.
Well, Americans should care. Both parties need to crumble and we should look at the smaller parties for options. We're really picking between these two? No, there are others, and the complains I've heard against them are laughable compared to the major issues I've heard about Trump and Clinton.
We have one, it's called the Libertarian Party. They are polling in the double digits and are on the ballot in all 50 states. Hardly a fringe protest vote this time around when they have more support than Perot did in '92 and far more than Nader ever did. Johnson and Weld are running on a fiscally conservative and socially liberal platform.
It's only an "empty protest candidate" vote when you buy the herd mentality bullshit that voting for a 3rd party is a "wasted vote" and people let the debate commission get away with shunning them and moving the goalposts.
The only difference between an "empty protest candidate" and a serious 3rd party is polling numbers and the financing that brings. If you want another party, STFU and start voting and contributing to one.
Clinton is the "stay the course" candidate, and Trump is the "make changes" candidate.
A bit over half of Americans are on the brink of poverty, so a lot of people are looking for things to change.
The other slightly-less-than-half people think things are going pretty well, and don't want anything to change.
Add to this the fact that corporations don't want changes that benefit the American people because of the expense, a media that feeds on emotional investment (for advertizing clicks), and a political party that uses emotional involvement and guilt to gain support (refugees, illegal immigrants, and so on) and you have the situation of today.
Half the nation is hurting badly with no end in sight, the other half thinks that any change whatsoever would be bad for their personal selves.
Even though the Clintons are complete crooks and disgusting people, Trump is even worse. We need to stop this witchhunt. President Chelsea Clinton will get to the bottom of it when she is elected.
The problem with this statement is that it's hollow - there's nothing to back it up. Trump isn't worse, at best he's an unknown.
Trump has been called a narcissist, which is probably fair, but a narcissist is exactly who would make the best president. The one thing that matters most to Trump is his brand.
Trump wants to be the best president in the last 100 years, and if possible the best one ever.
Everything about him points to that one aspect: he wants to win, he wants to be the best at everything.
He's stated in so many words that he wants to change things for the betterment of the people.
Clinton just wants to stay the course.
No, they're both rock bottom. There is not one better than the other. They're both completely unworthy.
So, which candidate is more likely to get this person their meds?
Maybe that's more important than who cheats more on emails/taxes.
Table-ized A.I.
I just hope that enough citizens will realize that the Founding Fathers came up with this whole "elections every 2-6 years" notion for a reason. Would YOU please help me in voting against every sorry ass criminal holding office currently or formerly? There shouldn't be more than mebbe a small handful of incumbents remaining come 2017, and they'd better have a damned solid history of exposing and opposing the big $ corruption taking over OUR lives.
When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law he tore his robes.2Kings22:11
That makes the FBI complicit in Clinton's crimes. Destruction of evidence is a felony.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
And please describe how the Democratic party is not due for a breakup after being caught throwing the election wholesale to a committee chosen candidate? Funny how no on caught on earlier when the Dem debates stated with only 2 viable candidates, no?
Apart from all the simple-minded stupidity that Libertarian beliefs entail, are you really going to vote for someone who doesn't know or can't remember what Aleppo is, nor name any foreign leader?
Whatever your beliefs on Libertarianism, Johnson isn't credible as a presidential candidate.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Hillary said he ALREADY pays zero tax.
Then she said he wants to lower it.
Is Hillary stupid? No, she's just can't help lying.
I had considered Johnson as a third party even though I'm not really a libertarian but he is so clueless on international matters and the practical side of the POTUS I just can't do it.
People with immunity are generally held in contempt if they plead the 5th.
Combetta pled the 5th while under immunity protection. No contempt of court was issued.
So in this case, immunity turned out to be a protection against testifying rather than an inducement to reveal facts. Combetta got to have his cake and eat it too. So did Hillary and all of the others that could be implicated by his testimony in this ridiculous farce.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
I'll take the evil that will not be given a pass on anything vs the evil that will be given a free pass. Only one candidate will bind both sides of congress working together to stop them, and that could be a good thing for us all.
I can forgive a brainfart on Aleppo. He at least caught on after a few seconds. I doubt you could even point out Syria or Aleppo on an unlabeled map without a quick Google search first. The only reason Clinton can point it out is because is one of many of her foreign policy failures. The only reason Trump can point it out is because it's good ammo against Hillary. The other big "Libertarian blunder" was the fact he couldn't name a leader he admired. I can't name any that have been in power that I look up to either.
For someone that prides himself on being human and doesn't have an army of paid media jockeys to prepare material to spoonfeed people, he's actually doing a pretty admirable job. I actually prefer a candidate who's down to Earth versus paid shills lying through their teeth parroting canned responses prepared by an army of political science graduates and soap opera writers.
So yeah, I still consider Gary Johnson more credible and CERTAINLY more GENUINE than either mainstream candidate running.
He's a dumb asshole, she's demonstrably evil and (once again) you're an idiot.
The guy who couldn't name one that HE ADMIRED. Yeah, him. And tell me you've never had a brainfart during an interview. He recovered quickly from that in spite of the guy turning around and being a complete douche to him as soon as the phrase came out of his mouth.
There's many instances of both Clintons, Trump, GW Bush screwing up just as badly on live TV or just spitting out incomprehensible bullshit that "sounded smart" to dodge the question.
He's already apologized for not being as talented a bullshitter on the spot as other candidates..... time to move on.
Naming a foreign leader wasn't the issue, see some of my other responses. It was naming one he admired. "What is Aleppo" was an honest brainfart.
Gary might not be quick on his feet but compared to some of the bullshit Gee-Dubya Bush was famous for spouting, he's a fucking genius.
I've heard that a vote for Gary Johnson is a vote for Trump, from the Clinton camp. I've heard that a vote for Gary Johnson is a vote for Clinton, from the Trump camp. And a vote for Gary Johnson is a vote for Gary Johnson. It's the best deal on the market, three votes for one!
Nearly all of those things apply to Clinton as well. She too dodged taxes, offended nearly everyone, changed positions on e.g. TPP (not to real, of course, just to get elected). And then there are a number of more serious offenses (influence peddling, mishandling of classified info, lying to the FBI, to name just a few) for which any normal person would be in prison already.
Wait were those black lenovo laptops or white Mac ones? I have to know whether to riot & loot or make conspiracy theory
who prosecutes them? The people who signed off on that deal should be prosecuted.
Precisely!!! James Colmy sent Scooter Libby to jail for blowing the cover on Valerie Plame, even though the person actually responsible was Richard Armitage. While now looking the other way while Clinton gets away w/ far more. If Trump gets elected, Colmy should not only be fired, but tried and have his sorry ass tossed into jail. With Hilary if possible!
I am not aware of any circumstances under which evidence can be legally destroyed. Sure you can refuse to use it but I can not understand how it can legally be destroyed without being recorded and kept for future use, just in case, you know justice needs to be served. It all stinks of high heaven of the corrupt struggling to ensure another corrupt guaranteed not to prosecute high crimes criminal is elected. It seems everything after Carter was just a corrupt conspiracy to guarantee they could commit what ever crimes they wanted to and the next career criminal elected would not prosecute them. So Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Clinton all part of an extended long running con with guarantees of freedom from prosecution. Hidden for decades but now being exposed, that exposure a sure sign of it coming apart. If Trump were elected, you just know he would push for prosecutions against all those who attacked his family, it would all be quite amusing.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
As mentioned earlier, the complaints about him are laughable in comparison to the real issues regarding the two major candidates.
opinion...
No, Clinton isn't learning from her mistakes. She looks at the polls and says the public says this is a mistake, so I'll say it is a mistake to win their approval. She has shown zero interest in understanding why any of her so-called mistakes were mistakes.
Trump doesn't publicly admit to mistakes. I don't go out of my way to make my faults known. I learn about why mistakes are mistakes and move on. Actually I do too much revealing to others when I made a mistake that had nothing to do with them and see others doing it that I've coined a saying: "Just because you've done something stupid, doesn't mean that you have to tell everyone about it." Trump just doesn't let his mistakes affect his public image.
It's actually worse to destroy the laptop than to slaughter thousands of puppies, because puppies are cute meat-sacks while laptops are a record of government undertakings that people can go to to a limited extent to confirm or deny the reality of what people acting as the government actually did.
That totally mattered in most elections up to this one. Now the outcomes are equally bad, and that possibility to get a third party more than 1% of the vote (4 years ago) is more important than ever.
Except trump has committed no crimes and has not abused his power of being a public official for his own gain . Hillary has over and over . Not a big trump fan he is unpredictable but that is better than what we know Hillary will do . Lie cheat and steal
Clinton has dedicated her life to evil. Trump, on the other hand, is nearly amoral. Clinton is bitter and hateful, and will advance the regime of political repression that Obama started. Trump is very bad on free speech and property rights. Clinton is guilty of treason and murder, Trump is nowhere near that range of destruction.
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Hillary uses the slimy dishonesty of a trial lawyer, as befits her training. That she thinks is not a good thing, because her goal is death and destruction,
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The lower level aides got immunity. That's no excuse for destroying the evidence they provided, in fact that's contrary to the purpose of immunity.
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Well, I don't see Trump attempting to launch a second airline or steak company or university, so it's not like he's repeating his mistakes. Whereas, Clinton only acknowledges "mistakes" that are mistakes in the public eye, but continues the evasive behavior that were the hallmarks of the embassy and server mistakes. Her evasiveness is the most egregious mistake I think she continues to make.
There are no "tax-evading" skills here. When you have a capital loss, Form 1040 Schedule D allows you to carry it forward and use it against future capital gains. It's very common standard procedure, which nearly everyone who's had net stock market losses in a year has used. Not only are you permitted to do this, it would be dishonest and probably illegal to do otherwise, because you'd be perjuring yourself on an income tax form.
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You think Hillary the Warhawk is passive-aggressive?
Moderate drunk! It's more fun that way!
Passive? You should see the places she's bombed! Far from passive-aggressive.
Sadly Johnson is a dufus and can't even name one living president he likes. And earlier he didn't even know what Aleppo was.
Had he been asked which US president he admired, you probably would have gotten a decent response. As far as Aleppo, honest screw-up, I can point to much worse from both elected presidents and candidates both now and years ago. He certainly knew who Assad was though. I could care less if he got a C in geography.
I'll take a likeable dufus with integrity who fosters non-partisan cooperation and strives to do the right thing over a tyrant any day. To consider Trump a serious candidate and discount a well-liked multiterm politician with actual experience is pretty silly.
Internalize theoretical qualification scenario, deflect on manufactured attack, ad hominem without making a point to just disagree with vitrol. Classic troll.
Of course it was.
In reality, no-one is truly qualified or "experienced" enough to be president. Once you are, your term limit is up and everyone thinks your an asshole unless you get assassinated and/or successfully get a moon shot funded. Johnson/Weld are the ticket with actual experience governing and running a state. Both were re-elected and both were able to gain cooperation on both sides of the isle in a non-partisan manner. IMHO, that makes them far more qualified to be promoted to the national stage than the other leading morons famous for "pivoting" and/or deflecting blame when the shit hits the fan and things don't work out.
It's not like these guys are dumbasses straight out of college, we are talking about experienced multi-term politicians here with a good track record. I can forgive the fact he probably got a C in world geography and had one bong hit too many that morning in high school. At least he doesn't have a huge track record of negative foreign policy failures like Clinton. Or zero governing experience and lots of daddy's money.
I honestly doubt Trump gives a shit about slashdot, so you'd have to explain better how it's relevant in any context. Furthermore, some AC posts are pretty good, and sometimes there are good reasons for regular users to post as AC. I recall one time a self confessed pedophile posted as AC to explain that even though he was attracted to children, he had never attempted to have sex with one, which if you ask me is a sane thing to do because it doesn't matter whether or not one abuses children, if they confess to even thinking about that then their life is pretty much over, and for no good reason.
Hell, I've posted as AC myself to make some decidedly un-PC jokes that I just don't want associated with my regular identity here. And you know what? There's nothing wrong with that. Sure, some twats get offended, but that's their problem, especially the times when those posts get modded +5 funny.
Watch the documentary Clinton Cash and then describe which one of the nominees is more ethical.
I don't think the deal ever went through.
Looks like it went through: "Mr. Combetta is one of at least two people who were given immunity by the Justice Department as part of the investigation." The NYT usually gets their facts right.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
For me, it's a protest vote because if he actually had a chance of winning, I wouldn't vote for him. The other two candidates both at least know enough about the world to name a current leader of a foreign country, unlike Gary Johnson.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
While this is theoretically true, in practice the american political system is currently such that all elections are decided between 2 parties.
(Source: wiki article on Duverger's law
There are ways of setting up the system so that it favors multiple parties, but this requires large-scale reform towards some variant of proportional representation. And herein lies the core of the issue: since the existing parties both clearly benefit from the status quo which essentially makes it impossible for them to lose power, there's de facto no change they will be interested in reforming the political system or funding for that matter.
As far as I can see (as a non-American) the only change the people have to change the system would be getting it done through local levels (ie. through for example article 5 convention).
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
Add to that, Clinton is a Washington insider, Trump is not. They're both going to try to do bad things, but the establishment hates Trump and will try to stop him. Clinton might actually succeed.
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be as it may, one of the two is going to be president.
But I would prefer that the one who wins gets something like 35% (Johnson has a good showing) or 27% (Johnson and Stein have a good showing) of the popular vote so it becomes clear that the majority of people don't want what the major parties are selling.
Time to offend someone
There is a very good reason that the Bush administration ran under different rules and that was THERE were DIFFERENT laws IN effect, LAWS were ADDED because OF issues WITH THE BUSH administration!!!!!
among green & libertarian. Green are just impractical wide eyed fools likely to cause the same sort of problems Chairmen Mao did with his great leap and Libertarians will just create a dystopian out of the power vacuum the Mega-corps rush in to fill when they tear down the gov't (ya know all those burdensome regulations got passed for a reason besides making libertarians mad, right?).
I wouldn't mind seeing a parliamentary system like Canada. But barring that I don't see any options. Keep in mind our system of constitutional gov't was designed to create stability for wealthy landowners so they working class wouldn't take their land and money away. The fundamentals (e.g. our constitution) are busted, but since you're taught to revere the constitution in grade school while you're mind is young and vulnerable you're pretty much stuck.
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