Gregg Jarrett: Sad and infuriating – FBI director’s tortured interpretation of the law
For those in chronic pain community… these are TWO OF THE GENERALS.. in the war on pts/prescribers… and apparently they will do just about anything to help assure that they keep their jobs.. and their help in leading the war on pts/prescribers. How is your quality of life… compared to EIGHT YEARS AGO ? How will it be in another FOUR to EIGHT YEARS…. if you are still alive and have not invoked the FINAL SOLUTION to end your pain.
As evidence mounts that the Director of the FBI subverted justice, damaged the reputation of the Bureau and squandered the support of his agents, calls for his resignation will surely escalate.
Can there be any confidence in his future judgments and decisions, as long as he continues to preside over the once-venerated Federal Bureau of Investigation?
That is the plight James Comey now faces in light of the exclusive story published by foxnews.com in which a person closely involved in the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails revealed that career FBI agents and attorneys who dedicated themselves to the year-long probe unanimously believed she should have been criminally charged.
More than 100 agents and analysts were assigned to the case. They all thought Clinton committed crimes. And maybe Comey believed it, too. But he chose to ignore both the evidence and the law. It is sad and confounding and infuriating, all at the same time.
The FBI, as the nation’s most prominent law enforcement agency, is badly damaged. Its reputation tarnished. Its image corrupted.
A second source, a high-ranking FBI official, confirmed the crux of his colleague’s stunning revelation. He said that while it may not have been a unanimous belief, the vast majority felt Clinton should be prosecuted. Stripping her of her security clearance was unanimous, he explained.
But none of that appears to have mattered to Comey. He didn’t care what his lawyers told him. It didn’t matter that his skilled agents painstakingly uncovered overwhelming evidence that Clinton mishandled classified documents in clear violation of federal statutes.
In my column on July 5th, the day Comey announced he would not recommend to the Attorney General that Clinton be criminally prosecuted, I argued that Comey’s decision made no legal sense. I recited the language of the relevant statute… and compared it to Comey’s own words describing Clinton’s conduct. They were nearly identical.
I wrote then how Comey exhibited an astonishing ignorance of the law. He laid out a case of gross negligence constituting a crime, defined it with the words “extremely careless” and then promptly proceeded to ignore the law.
Now, some 3 months later, we learn that just about everyone who worked on the case agreed with that assessment. “We were floored while listening to the FBI briefing because Comey laid it all out and then said ‘but we are doing nothing,’ which made no sense to us,” said the source. It still makes no sense. His decision defies common sense and makes a mockery of legal sense.
So why would Comey do it? Was he influenced by the Obama White House? Did he get his “marching orders” from Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who was already ethically compromised when she met privately with Bill Clinton just days before Comey’s announcement?
The Fox News source offers this explanation: staffers at both the Department of Justice and the FBI believe Comey and Lynch were motivated by ambition, not justice. In other words, they wanted to keep their jobs.
The FBI, as the nation’s most prominent law enforcement agency, is badly damaged. Its reputation tarnished. Its image corrupted.
James Comey is to blame for that. It will serve as an indelible, ugly stain on his legacy.
Gregg Jarrett is a Fox News Anchor and former defense attorney.
Filed under: General Problems
I hate getting into political debates with my fellow chronic painers because we all must stand together so that our voices are not drowned out by those involved in the war on pain patients, but I can’t stay quiet any longer about this entire Hillary and her e-mail controversy. She and her entire office were told it wasn’t a good idea to use private email service. She and her colleagues who continued using their Blackberries after she was told it would pose a security risk during her tenure. She traded e-mails, discussing the 2012 Benghazi attack (classified info) with someone who did not have security clearance (Sidney Blumenthal). She refused to hand over 31,000 e-mails to the attorneys for the State Dept. (All of us would have been fired just for that). (Somehow over 30,000 e-mails went “missing.” This suggests that someone wiped her server clean. This is known as obstruction of justice). She broke the State Dept’s own policies implemented under the Federal Records Act. (Again, we would have been fired). 65 e-mails – “Secret” .. 20 e-mails – “Top Secret.” Just one of these “top secret” e-mails sent through unsecured servers could have (or still could) put our country and our troops at risk. Heck, Comey, himself, states that she was “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.” Regardless of whether those e-mails were marked as classified, she knew (and signed) a non-disclosure agreement (stating that classified material may be “marked or not marked”).
Former President Bill Clinton (her own husband) kept his former CIA director, John Deutch, from being prosecuted by pardoning him for having classified materials on his laptops and relabeling them as unclassified.
Former CIA director David Petraeus failed to keep classified documents in secure facility required for handling classified material. His biographer (and mistress) got a hold of these documents. Patraeus pled guilty last year to a misdemeanor count of unlawful removal and retention of classified materials.
Sandy Berger, former Nat’l Security Advisor to former President Bill Clinton, stole classified documents from the National Archives, then later lied about it and destroyed the evidence (a crime itself) during the investigation. He pled guilty to one misdemeanor count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material.
Bryan Nishimura, a former Naval reservist (in Afghanistan 2007/2008) downloaded and stored classified info on his personal electronic devices. His attorney stated that he had no intention of breaking the law. He pled guilty to unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials.
Petty Officer First Class Kristian Saucier worked as a mechanic on the USS Alexandria (nuclear submarine) and recently used the camera on his cellphone to take photos in the classified engine room, then destroyed his laptop, camera and memory card after learning he was under investigation. (Sound familiar??). He was
indicted on one felony count of unlawful retention of national defense information and another felony count of obstruction of justice and pled guilty to the classified information charge (part of the Espionage Act). He never planned to disclose the photos to anyone outside the Navy. (Reminding you that the same DOJ dept. that decided to prosecute this officer for breaking the same laws as Hillary decided not to prosecute her).
Remember, this is the same Justice Dept. which stated “we cannot sanction or condone federal employees who knowingly and willfully disclose classified information to the media or others not entitled to receive such information” when asked about prosecuting whistleblowers who don’t follow the laws. How many times have we seen politicians (regardless of party) break the law and not be held responsible when the rest of us would most likely be subjected to prosecution? Too many times. I don’t care if it’s GWB, Chaney, Obama, Clinton, etc, if they broke the law (regardless of intent), they should have to suffer the same punishments we little peons would suffer if it was one of us who broke those laws. We little peons can’t use the excuse that we had no “malicious intent” on breaking the law or even use the excuse that we did not know it was against the law. If I were to get drunk then drive and cause an accident that kills someone, I had no “malicious intent” (and, in fact, no intent whatsoever) to kill someone, yet I would still be prosecuted for that death. If I am pulled over for speeding, I can’t use the excuse that I didn’t know that I didn’t know what the speed limit was. I would still (most likely) be forced to pay the fine (a ticket). Again, I had no “malicious intent” to break a traffic law (speeding) It’s time that we, the people, remind the government who they work for.
I think Edward Snowden said it best when he tweeted “Break classification rules for the public’s benefit, and you could be exiled. Do it for personal benefit, and you could be President.”
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/01/30/a-look-at-federal-cases-on-handling-classified-information.html
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/kristian-saucier-investigation-hillary-clinton-223646#ixzz4DZTWAYt1
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/jan/10/jake-tapper/cnns-tapper-obama-has-used-espionage-act-more-all-/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/24/AR2010052403795.html
http://usuncut.com/politics/clinton-email-secrecy-double-standard/
First of all a story that just end’s up just being reported on one news source (especially if it FOX news)I have major issue with it being complete and truthful. As far this email thing, the law is very specific as far what is a crime and what is not when it comes to intelligence. With something like this be viewed against the law and a crime there must be proof of intent In this case there is none. There were over 30,000 emails that went though her server over the course of the 4 year as Secretary of State. Out of those 30,000 Less then 100 of them had a classification rating of confidential or higher. Something like 67 of them were not rated until the investigation rated them, years after Clinton left office. Most of other’s were split where she received the email and sent it back to the person who wrote it to her or she forward the email someone who had originally sent it to her. None of the emails that she wrote first were classified.
The other issue is if what she had done was a punishable crime then you would have probably have at least 2 other Secretary of States facing the same. In fact if you look back to the last 20 to 25 years I would not be surprised if you ended up finding 10’s if not 100’s of other higher officials guilty of the exact same thing.
Both CNN and PBS had reported that Clinton requested help from the White House security and the NSA and was turned down and basically told Clinton to figure it out herself. Shortly after that she contacted Collins Powell on what he had done as far as setting up his email server so he could get them at his home.
I find that Clinton made a major mistake. I find the intelligence agencies who are responsible for setting the standards during this time period at fault since there appeared to be clear no set policies or requirements on how these email servers should have been set up for White House Cabinet positions and their assistants
But I find the biggest and worst crime of all was the $20,000,000.00 that was wasted on this investigation.