Hillary's E-Mails

I tend to watch these debates for the legal issues and I was most struck by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s discussion of the email scandal. First, she declared that she will never be indicted — a statement that may irritate federal investigations looking into possible crimes. She certainly has defenses and the odds may indeed favor her. However, defense attorneys usually discourage such statements from potential targets which can enrage prosecutors as presumptuous or suggesting some level of immunity.

  Jonathan Turley

Seriously? Isn't it obvious she's above all that? American royalty does not need to fear American law.

Second, she insisted that her “predecessors did the same thing” that she did on emails — a statement that is demonstrably untrue but again was left unchallenged by the journalists.

She has said that before, and in none of the articles where I read that did a journalist take issue. I, therefore, assumed she was correct. I should know better by now.

We previously discussed the controversy of the White House stating that the investigation was not moving toward any criminal charges — a statement would indicate either a sweeping assumption or an improper degree of consultation between the White House and the Justice Department on an ongoing investigation. [...] While the odds may be in her favor, it would be obviously absurd to say that no indictment is possible. It depends on the evidence, which remains largely unknown.

Yeah, I don't know. I'd like to see more evidence that our laws really do apply to the people at the top of the heap before going that far.

There is of course no way for Clinton to know about what will happen with the indictment.

Yeah, I don't know about that, either.

As I have previously noted, the best case for Clinton is the conviction of retired four-star general and CIA director David H. Petraeus for mishandling classified information. The deal given to Petraeus by the Justice Department was absurd [$100,000 and two years of probation] and rightfully led to objections that powerful figures like Petraeus and Clinton are treated differently from average people.

Exactly. And she is far above Petraeus in the powerful person category.

Then there was the late Samuel “Sandy” Berger, a former White House national security adviser to Bill Clinton, who faced that same charge after he intentionally removed and destroyed copies of a classified document (putting some material in his socks to sneak them out). Berger was trying to protect Clinton in the reviewing of potentially negative classified information. Not only that but Berger then lied to investigators — a separate crime regularly prosecuted by the Justice Department. Yet, no one called for his long incarceration. Instead, he was allowed to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor with no jail time.

And again, Berger was way down the list of powerful people. And both his and Petraeus' punishments were negligible. Seems very likely to me that Hillary can be very comfortable in asserting she won't be indicted.

There is clearly a huge investigation at the FBI, including the recent granting of immunity to a prior aide of Clinton. To dismiss any notion that those investigators or prosecutors could indict her, Clinton risks fueling any internal debates over political pressures on the investigation or the need to show that no one is above the law. It can be taken as taunting or, even worse, threatening that no one would dare bring such a charge. In fairness to Clinton, I do not believe that is how she meant it. I think she was making a legal point that there are no grounds for an indictment but there is a reason why attorneys prevent clients from making such dismissive statements.

[...]

At the March 9th debate, Clinton said “It wasn’t the best choice. I made a mistake. It was not prohibited. It was not in any way disallowed, and as I’ve said and now has come out, my predecessors did the same thing, and many other people in the government.”

That is clearly not true. Only a few of Clinton’s predecessors even had email. Of those four secretaries, none had a private server in their home.

Clearly, the truth is not a concern for Ms. Clinton. It doesn't need to be.

What Clinton did was incredibly reckless in the use of a private server that was more vulnerable to foreign interception.

Much more reckless than hubby Bill's "non-sex" with Ms. Lewinsky, but for that, he was impeached. If Hillary becomes president, will her impeachment proceedings be immediate? Will that interfere with her abilities to perform her duties? If the Republicans think they'd have a better chance against Bernie (and I don't think they would), they should be spreading the word that they'd do just that.

If Clinton means that a couple of predecessors sent personal emails, that is clearly true but that is obviously not at issue.

That may be what she can say she meant, but that's not what she meant us to believe.

Moreover the repeated reference to former secretary Colin Powell is obviously misleading. Powell was found to have sent a few emails now deemed classified. Clinton sent over 100. [...] Moreover, the investigators have reportedly concluded that a good number of these classified emails were clearly classified at the time that they were sent.

[...]

The biggest problem however remains the failure of media to challenge the Clinton statement that she did nothing wrong if the information was not marked classified. That is clearly wrong and does not reflect the legal standard. [...] As I discussed earlier, virtually anything coming out of the office of the Secretary of State would be considered classified as a matter of course. [...] This is the whole reason that Clinton and others were told to use the protected email system run by the State Department. We have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to secure such systems.

[...]

It is bizarre that the media does not address the glaring disconnect between what Clinton is saying and what the law actually demands.

Only if you don't think the media are part of the system of which Hillary is the presumptive queen.

Yet she has been asked this question dozens of times and has given the same answer with virtually no reporter raising the actual language of the federal law or the practical implications of what she is suggesting about the scope of classification laws.

A royal subject never would.

I have rarely seen a major legal issue in a presidential campaign that is being discussed with so little connection to the actual laws or legal standards. I understand that politics can be a fluid and rather superficial field. However, law is based on actual statutes and standards.

This is true. But, as we all know, it is not applied to every citizen equally.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.