Secretary Hillary Clinton checking her emails lattices.com |
Today is Wednesday, which means it is time for Blogger Candidate Forum. First in the Forum are "Those Emails." Unless you have been living cave, you heard that the Federal Bureau of Investigation declined to recommend criminal charges against presumptive Democratic nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. That is not the same as her being exonerated of all charges, it simply means that there was insufficient evidence to go forward with an indictment. For those of still off the grid, allow yours truly to refresh your memory.
The emails in question are the ones that Madame Secretary sent on a private server. Some of those emails were official documents, marked classified, sent and received on an unsecured server. The State Department Inspector General issued its report at the end of May which condemned her email practices, essentially saying that using a private server for public business was inappropriate. Further, her email and documents preservation practices failed to comply with department policy. Specifically, the report said that Madame Secretary should have printed and turned over all emails, sent and received, during her tenure as Secretary of State. Madame Secretary did eventually comply, turning them over in December 2014. Were her actions careless? Absolutely. Was it criminal? Probably not. Now the FBI has issued its report.
FBI Director James Comey patch.com |
In essence, Director Comey called Madame Secretary "extremely careless" over her her use of a private email address and server. He raised concerns her judgement, contradicted her statements about her practices, raised the specter of her server being hacked, "...and declared the a person still employed by the government." (http://www.nytimes.com; date accessed July 6, 2016) Director Comey went on to say, "To warrant a criminal charge...there had to be evidence that Mrs. Clinton intentionally transmitted or willfully mishandled classified information." (Ibid) The FBI found no evidence to support neither. Director Comey specifically said,
...our judgement is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. (Ibid)
HRC email screen shot businessinsider.com |
In the process of the investigation, FBI discovered a cache of several thousand emails that were not part of the original 30,000 correspondence submitted by Madame Secretary. Three of those emails contained information that was determined as classified. However, Director Comey does not believe that Madame Secretary willfully deleted or withheld them from the investigator. Further, Director Comey raised the possibility that Madame Secretary's private account was compromised by "hostile foreign governments" (Ibid) Finally, Madame Secretary used multiple servers, some which were decommissioned, making the task more complicated. (Ibid) You can read Director Comey's full statement at http://www.fbi.gov Case closed, end of story, right? Please.
United States Attorney General Loretta Lynch politico.com |
Former President Bill Clinton politico.com |
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisc) en.wikipedia.org |
Yours truly understands that you all might have questions about how Director Comey could issue such a scathing statement and not recommend criminal charges against Madame Secretary. However, Is it really that important to waste more of the taxpayers's time and money over a result you all are not happy with? Ask yourselves, given more pressing issues, how important is this? Yours truly is not implying that the House should let the matter go but what Yours Truly is saying is take up the matter after you have had a chance to fully read and analyze the report. If there are still issues that need clarity, then hold hearing but not before then.
Where does this leave the Clinton campaign? Secretary Hillary Clinton was hoping for a clean vindication but did not get it. Yes, the matter is officially closed but for Donald Trump and the Republican party, it is the gift the will continue to give all the way through the elections. This will give Mr. Trump the opportunity to raise questions about her judgement and transparency. For her part, Madame Secretary's credibility took a direct hit. Questions about her judgement and transparency will continue to cast a pall over her campaign, especially as it moves into the final phases. Can she recover from it? Yes, but it will take time and the willingness to answer all the uncomfortable questions the American public has for her.
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