Hillary Let Off the Hook

The long investigation into Hillary Clinton’s home-based e-mail system has come to its finish, and with it the last bits of hope that justice would finally be served. James Comey, the Director of the FBI, in a press conference today announced today that his office won’t recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton. Mr. Comey spent much of his time sharing details of the investigation which by all accounts should have been the evidence used to convey a Grand Jury. He provided facts that were previously unknown and made statements that seemed contradictory to the final decision of his office. He was in fact telegraphing the fact that the evidence was enough, however he was told to give Mrs. Clinton a free pass. With the recent string of events, all fingers point to President Obama as being the one who gave him the order to stand down.

In his speech today Director Comey highlighted multiple things that came to light during the investigation. He stated that the FBI found 110 e-mails that were classified at the time they were sent or received on Hillary’s server. Remember that Mrs. Clinton made repeated claims to the media that she never sent or received an e-mail which was classified at the time on her system. Classified correspondence is clearly marked as such and there would be zero grey area. Instead, Director Comey was forced to say that Mrs. Clinton and her aides were “careless” in how they handled classified information. He did get his real point across when he said, “Any reasonable person should have known that an unclassified system was no place,” for sensitive information. He took his shot and scored a direct hit by calling out Mrs. Clinton and her inside group who ran the State Department as incompetent.

Even though he only spoke for about 15 minutes, Director Comey said many things that will certainly be looked into further by her political opponents. He seemed to plant the seeds of doubt on every part of the story she stuck to throughout the investigation. Director Comey revealed that she had multiple private e-mail servers and used multiple devices to retrieve her messages; destroying the narrative she tried to drive about only wanting to use a single device. He also brought up the fact that staffers who had access to her system to sort e-mails never really read them. He also made sure to leave plenty of “what if” information on the table as well. He couldn’t say if her server was hacked, he couldn’t say if there were e-mails unaccounted for, and he wouldn’t take any questions to clarify these statements. They were just left like juicy nuggets for the media to twist and bend as they chose to.

Director Comey also made sure he let the media know that Mrs. Clinton did not turn over all work-related e-mails when requested to do so. He made mention of several thousand that were not in the group she returned. In examining her many devices, the FBI was able to find traces of messages and by cross-checking other government employees were able to find more. Even more were found on a decommissioned server she had used in the past. In that batch were three classified pieces of information. He also noted that the overall security of the system was weak and that her staff didn’t do much to protect it. He was clearly venting his frustration by being silenced and his department neutered from doing their job.

He used the phrase “no charges are appropriate” in this case, yet he also said that “Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statues regarding the handling of classified information, our judgement is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.” He quickly pivoted to the narrative that any wrongdoing was clearly unintentional and showed no indications of disloyalty to the United States or an effort to obstruct. He then said that in a similar circumstance a person who engaged in this activity could be punished. What he was really trying to say is that a regular American would certainly be imprisoned for these crimes, but a Washington insider, especially one of Hillary’s tenure, gets to walk away unscathed. He so eloquently demonstrates, with a slap in the face to everyone, that our system of laws only applies to the little people. Mrs. Clinton clearly broke the law, but because of who she is, she shouldn’t be punished.

The chain of events leading up to today’s action, have been nothing short of soap-operatic. Several weeks ago, most of her key staff was interviewed by the FBI, all using the same lawyers of course. The IT specialist who set up and maintained her system was given immunity, which would lead most people to believe there was something valuable and damning in his testimony. Former President Bill Clinton just happens to be in the same location as Attorney General Loretta Lynch and they have a secret meeting on an airplane with no chance of any press coverage; or so they thought. Mrs. Clinton is interviewed by the FBI. A short time after, Mrs. Clinton makes a public statement that she wants to keep AG Lynch on if she is elected. Today the events culminate with the FBI director giving her a free pass despite the obvious fact that she mishandled classified information.

Instead of following the law and applying punishments accordingly, this administration has further reduced our system into one based on feelings instead of facts. The Liberalization of the law and its application will only continue unless someone stands up and demands that justice is once again treated as blind. Director Comey’s actions will certainly ignite not only the Republican base, but also other American’s who are tired of the special treatment given to politicians. Many are already stating the FBI credibility is now hovering around that of the IRS. There are demands that the entire transcripts of the investigation be released as a way to prove the investigation were truly unbiased; but that’s a longshot at best. Expect to see the Director’s comments made into attack ads as early as tomorrow showing Hillary as untrustworthy, incompetent, and more.