Corruption with a Capital C-linton

Corruption with a Capital C-linton

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

July 6, 2016

After the dog and pony show trotted out by FBI Director James Comey, Federal Bureau of Investigations can now officially be amended to Failed Basic Intelligence.

On the day after Independence Day there is no doubt the Founding Fathers are rolling over in their collective graves knowing that justice has been both perverted and subverted in the name of Clinton – both Hillary and Bill. Justice may not be blind, but it most certainly has been hoodwinked.

Once again, the rules don’t seem to apply to the Clintons. I initially began this column with the intent of calling for Attorney General Loretta Lynch to recuse herself from any continued investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s computer and e-mail peccadillos due to Lynch’s ex-parte communication with the former president on an airport tarmac at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. (This was no chance meeting.)

Clearly that is merely a symptom of the bigger disease of corruption involving the Clintons. There is little question that Lynch and Bill Clinton spent their half hour conversation discussing more than grandchildren and golf. Even if the subject of Hillary’s investigation was not broached, and I have a hard time believing that it wasn’t, the mere appearance of the two speaking with one another is completely inappropriate. Lynch didn’t earn her position of AG by being a doormat, thus she could have asked Mr. Clinton to excuse himself from her government plane. Then, days later, Mrs. Clinton announces she will consider keeping Lynch on as AG should Clinton ascend to the White House. (Assuming Lynch could pass muster before the Senate, whose job it is to advise and consent regarding cabinet nominations.)

Then comes the announcement by Comey, where he spent the first 10 minutes of a roughly 15 minute monologue reading a litany of Mrs. Clinton’s wrongdoings, if not actual offenses and crimes, only to pull her head out of the noose. “We cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts,” said Comey, after a buildup where all roads seemed to have Mrs. Clinton wearing an orange jumpsuit. Instead, she is free to don an orange pantsuit as she continues laughing her way down the campaign trail. “Cannot find a case?” You don’t have to look very far or very hard, Mr. Comey.

If this is not demonstrative of the fix being in, or as presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump continues to aver, that “the system is rigged,” there never will be such a case. This is yet another example of a corrupt system helping to drive the United States into Third World status. The people cannot have faith or put their trust in a system that has one set of rules for them, and another set of rules for the powerful – that leads to a totalitarian state – the very monarchy from which we the people declared our independence 240 years ago this week. A monarchy against which the American patriots fought a war (1775-83) and where more than 4,400 Americans died in battle for the cause of liberty and freedom. With Hillary Clinton and her career of scandals, lies, and corruption, the United States is taking a giant leap backwards.

During Comey’s speech he asserted how Mrs. Clinton’s behavior was “extremely careless” in using personal computer servers. The mere utilization of non-governmental servers lacks transparency, something on which the Obama administration claims to pride itself. “There is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,” said Comey, also calling for transparency.

Furthermore, Comey unearthed factual data that Mrs. Clinton lied under oath and lied to the American people when she said “I did not e-mail any classified material to anyone on my e-mail. There is no classified material…” on March 10, 2015 as well as in other words on numerous additional dates.

“Seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails,” said Comey.

For those who think this e-mail situation is much ado about nothing, this is really about national security and how someone who is running for the highest office in the land, to represent the United States on the global stage, to be Commander in Chief of the American armed forces it is unconscionable, yet sadly, not surprising how blithely Mrs. Clinton has treated this investigation. Perhaps she knew all along a recommendation to not prosecute or indict was coming down the pike. Her actions and lies are reprehensible. Clinton’s opponents this fall should use her words on the television screen alongside those of Comey to prove to the American people what a dishonest, disreputable individual she has been and continues to be.

Yet, Comey continued to lambaste Clinton on her irresponsible behavior. “Any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation,” stated Comey, making a grand assumption that Clinton is a reasonable person.

Perhaps it is Comey that lacks reasonableness. When it appeared Comey would seek indictment against the presumptive Democrat nominee for president, he concluded his remarks saying that “our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, also a former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York (1983-89), was flabbergasted by Comey’s remarks. “No reasonable prosecutor would not bring a case against” Hillary Clinton, said Giuliani, adding that Comey’s words “was almost an abdication of duty.”

Giuliani, among many others, noted that the words “extremely careless” are akin to “gross negligence,” the language used in 18 U.S.C. 793(f), which states:

Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer – Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

            

Indictment does not require intent, admitted Comey, which makes his statement about not prosecuting the case even more incomprehensible, barring a fix, a rigging, or a quid pro quo. (Comey, uncharacteristically, failed to answer questions following his announcement.)

Comey’s “tell” might have been in his preface by stating he had not discussed his remarks in advance with anyone, and that he had “no outside influence of any kind.” Less than three hours following Comey’s live broadcast of his remarks, Barack Obama appeared on the campaign trail for the first time with Clinton in Charlotte, NC. Obama had to know Comey was not recommending prosecution of Clinton otherwise he would not have made the trip. Imagine the visual of Obama singing Hillary’s praises just hours after it was recommended she be prosecuted for numerous violations of federal law. Which, according to the statute above, Clinton should be under indictment. But for Obama it is all about his image and his legacy.

While on the discussion of legacy, KT McFarland, a Fox News contributor who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs under President Ronald Reagan indicated that Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974 for lesser offenses. General David Petraeus stepped down as director of the CIA and ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information, yet for worse behavior, Clinton lives to lie another day.

What should also be disconcerting to all discerning American voters, is that once Clinton becomes the official nominee of the Democrats, she (as will her GOP opponent) will be provided full deep classified information as part of a national ticket, according to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI). Ryan, speaking with personal authority as the 2012 GOP vice presidential candidate, added that Mrs. Clinton should be denied such access for her clear and demonstrative recklessness with information related to national security.

Lack of the appropriate clearance should disqualify Clinton from serving as president, and perhaps such thoughts were on the mind of Comey. Were Comey to have called for the prosecution of Clinton it would have had a deleterious effect on the electoral process. But this investigation should be above politics and above reproach, for no candidate or elected official is above the law – just ask the ghost of Richard M. Nixon. But Comey put politics above the rule of law and for that; he should resign as director of the FBI.

Comey did say the result of this investigation is not an exoneration of Mrs. Clinton, however. But with no charges to be levied, and to borrow a phrase, what difference, at this point, does it make?

Hillary Clinton is free to continue lying to the government, and more importantly, lying to the American people. She can continue to huckster her way through the campaign smiling on the outside while having complete disregard for the American people – as was on full display in West Virginia. Clinton spoke with a coal miner who was frank with the Democratic hopeful about the dire straits he, his family, and many other coal miners are currently enmeshed. After baring his soul, Clinton’s response was so disconnected, basically telling the emotional miner that she knows earning his vote would be difficult while never addressing his concerns. She was disengaged, as though she was participating in an entirely different conversation.

Clinton, riddled with scandal and corruption for decades, both with her husband and on her own accord, will tell the people what they want to hear, a la Barack Obama, and taking a page from his playbook, Clinton has also learned at the knee of the master radical, Saul Alinsky.

Hillary Clinton is as corrupt as Eva Peron, when we need the statesman-like leadership of Margaret Thatcher.

The 2016 presidential election is perhaps the most pivotal since 1860. May G-d help us, and may G-d save the Union.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.