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Congress Opens Probe Into FBI's Handling of Clinton Email Investigation (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Two House committees announced Tuesday that they would conduct a joint probe into the FBI's handling of the Clinton e-mail investigation. The Clinton investigation concluded with no charges being levied against the former secretary of state who was running for president under the Democratic ticket. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said in a joint statement that they are unsatisfied with how the probe into Clinton's private e-mail server concluded. Among other things, the chairmen want to know why the bureau publicly said it was investigating Clinton while keeping silent that it was looking into President Donald Trump's campaign associates and their connections to Russia.

"Our justice system is represented by a blind-folded woman holding a set of scales. Those scales do not tip to the right or the left; they do not recognize wealth, power, or social status," Goodlatte and Gowdy said in a joint statement. "The impartiality of our justice system is the bedrock of our republic, and our fellow citizens must have confidence in its objectivity, independence, and evenhandedness. The law is the most equalizing force in this country. No entity or individual is exempt from oversight."

8 of 390 comments (clear)

  1. what a load by cmdr_klarg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The impartiality of our justice system is the bedrock of our republic, and our fellow citizens must have confidence in its objectivity, independence, and evenhandedness. The law is the most equalizing force in this country. No entity or individual is exempt from oversight.

    LOL
    *snort*

    That ranks up there as one of the biggest piles of unadulterated bullshit I've ever seen. I don't care which tribe you subscribe to, everyone should realize that our justice system is anything but evenhanded or impartial.

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    THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
  2. Re:I visit slashdot to escape this political bs by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Holy fuck, can we stop with the pissing an moaning about politics on slashdot? That ship sailed a long, long time ago. Get over it or move the fuck on. It's not like this site is loaded with content in the first place.

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    Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
  3. Impartial as granite by Archtech · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Those scales do not tip to the right or the left; they do not recognize wealth, power, or social status".

    Ha ha, very funny. Of course they don't! The rich, powerful, and politically connected always get EXACTLY the same treatment as the poor from the justice system.

    Being on good social term with the judge, the DA, or the Attorney General could never do an accused person the slightest good. And the prosecution would be just as likely to frame up a wealthy, influential political donor as the lowest miscreant.

    Yes, folks, thank goodness it's a government of laws, not persons!

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    I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
  4. Re:The USA is a joke by hey! · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah, it sounds crazy when you put it that way: "free stuff".

    Maybe not so crazy when you specify what the stuff is. Education, for example. Health care. In both these cases insufficient access has an impact on society wider than the directly affected people. Stuff you end up paying for. Because when people have no money, they can still cost the rest of us.

    A lot of people would be willing to pay more for the consequences of squalor than to risk someone getting something "for free". It's a principled position, you see. I'm more of a pragmatist, myself.

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    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  5. Re:I don't care. by HornWumpus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Every embassy, owned by every country on the planet has spooks operating out of it. Mostly as 'Military attaches'.

    It is SOP.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  6. Previous investigation a whitewash by steveha · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A common meme is: "The Republicans already tried to look into this and couldn't make anything stick. So clearly Hillary Clinton was innocent and the Republicans are just digging for dirt and hoping to find something." Variations on this have already been posted in this discussion.

    What's extraordinary here is that the Director of the FBI intervened personally on Hillary Clinton's behalf. He wrote a draft of his speech exonerating her before the FBI ever interviewed her. Her aides were given broad immunity, which is usually used to compel people to talk[1], but then they were allowed to just say things like "I don't remember". Hillary Clinton, or someone working for her, wiped her email server after a subpoena was issued requiring her to hand it over to Congress, and there were absolutely no consequences from that. A usual FBI investigation would collect as much evidence as possible as early as possible, but that wasn't done in this case... the Anthony Weiner/Huma Abedin copies of Hillary Clinton emails were found during an investigation of Weiner, but they should have been found earlier. When the FBI is actually investigating they are thorough about collecting evidence. They should have grabbed every computer Hillary ever touched, and as Huma Abedin was an aide to Hillary, every computer Huma ever touched. (They could have copied the hard disks and given the computers back right away.)

    Most extraordinary of all: the Director of the FBI claimed that "no reasonable prosecutor" would prosecute Hillary Clinton as no proof of ill intent was found, yet the laws she broke do not require intent but only require proof of mishandling of data.

    ...prosecutors are not required to prove motive. [...] Clinton could have been prosecuted either for willfully mishandling classified information or for doing so through gross negligence.

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/447209/hillary-clinton-e-mail-investigation-grand-jury-subpoenas

    Consider what happened to David Petraeus. He was guilty, but what he did wasn't even a tenth as serious as what Hillary Clinton did. But the Director of the FBI didn't whitewash the investigation for him, so his career was over. (By the way, he didn't go to prison, so he still got better treatment than the "little people" would get. Consider the case of Bryan H. Nishimura. I would say that what Nishimura did wasn't even a thousandth as serious as what Hillary Clinton did, but he was treated much more harshly than she was. Note that he wasn't charged with any "intent", just the mishandling of data.)

    I'm pretty sure that if a member of the Trump administration mishandles classified data, he or she won't get the special treatment that Hillary Clinton got. But the Democrats will get a President elected again sometime in the future and I would like to get a precedent established that the laws apply to Democrats as much as to Trump and his staff. I know that the law is not enforced perfectly even-handedly in this country (or any country in the real world) but I am appalled at the epic whitewashing done on behalf of Hillary Clinton to protect

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    lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
  7. Re:"I could stand on fifth avenue and shoot someon by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Funny

    GP: trump says his voters are morons.

    YOU: Trump tells the truth. BUT HILLARY!!!111oneeleven!111

    Me: well, you certainly proved Trump correct.

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    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  8. Re:Where are the Niger hearings? by eaglesrule · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What does the Niger incident have to do with this, other than to serve as yet another 'whataboutism'.

    You're complaining about a double standard, for a probe investigating a double standard, i.e. the unusual activities of the DOJ and the FBI in relation to Clinton. This kind of corruption spanning multiple branches of government can't be just brushed aside just because the parties involved were able to run out the clock. There needs to be answers, there needs to be accountability.

    It happens to be democrats on the receiving end this time, and hopefully with republicans too there can be transparency and accountability with the public. I say a pox on both their houses, it is in the public interest to know the truth.