Two questions arise, of course:
1. What next, and
2. When?
First, if any charges do pend, against anybody, they will be civil, unless somebody lied under oath and wasn't given a chance to amend their statements.
Second, will FBI Director James Comey, if he wants to go full speed ahead, will he face Department of Justice roadblocks, even with AG Loretta Lynch pulling her hands off the process?
Third, can he prove intent, along with at-the-time knowledge that allegedly classified emails were that? Per Vox, sounds tough.
I say Comey probably wants to go 70-80 percent full speed, and that he's got backdoor trap doors to undermine possible DOJ roadbocks. At the same time, he's a tea-leaf reading bureaucrat. And, his independence — I hope it includes independence from RWNJ shit-stirrers like Matthew Whitaker, mentioned in The Hill's take. (Gotta "love" Beltway punditocracy calling his Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust a "watchdog group." It's a wingnut group, and fellow lefty bloggers, as this issue plays out, Google names of individuals and orgs if you have ANY questions or doubts; this will be spun 6 ways from Sunday. The other figure in the piece didn't draw such a hit when I Googled, but, going by Bradley Moss' Twitter account, I'm not quite sure what to think.)
Back to the main angle, though.
I'm no Nate Silver — neither that arrogant nor strangely occasionally clueless — so no percentages.
As general odds, though?
No indictments until after Election Day, if there are any. Per the Vox link above, if Comey doesn't have enough goods at hand by the Democratic Convention, things likely go on ice. That gives less than a month.
No criminal indictments.
No indictments of any sort of Clinton herself.
(Update, 10:30 a.m. Central July 5: And, I was right. Comey just said he saw no "intentional misconduct." He's referred the matter to Justice, but that should make clear that not only will there be no criminal charges, there probably won't even be civil ones. Per my Googling of names above, it's back to the drawing board for right-wing nut jobs. Here's the full FBI statement.)
Brains has more. He's a bit more cynical about Comey than am I; see comments below.
And, most people getting a likely indictment wrong were RWNJs. More here.
That said, if Gen. Betrayus only got a slap-on-the-hand misdemeanor for worse conduct with classified info, IMO, what did you expect from Comey? Blame the system, not a conspiracy.)
That said, the drip, drip, drip will continue, undercutting the claims of Dem surrogates from Dear Leader on down that she's trustworthy.
(Update 2, 1 p.m. Central, July 7. Indeed, that drip, drip, drip will continue. The FBI's head cheese has been "invited" to Capitol Hill to become a grilled Comey sammich.)
She's not. She hasn't been since her killing in Arkansas cattle futures, if not before that.
Not your favorite people but the law seems to be clear as to intent.
ReplyDeleteOh, I don't totally hate that site, either. That particular story is interesting, though. That said, it originally appeared at Zero Hedge, about which:
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Hedge
As for no charges, I assume Comey himself was he leaker last week, or else somebody close to him.
And, even this guy got only a slap on the wrist. And, I'd argue that what Nishimura did was worse than what Clinton did. She didn't take a jump drive of emails to A-stan, let alone ones that were military and already clearly classified.
ReplyDeleteIt's no surprise that almost all media attention has been focused on Clinton's total disregard of security procedures (#WarOnTerra zeitgeist 4theWin 4evah! #SheSoWonky-Not!). However to me this has seemed all along to be ignoring the real elephant -- Hillary's clear intent, and actions, to circumvent FOIA laws and any other pesky transparency. I don't know how prosecutable that is, but it's clear as a bell that she's guilty, guilty, guilty. Like most of her ilk, she and Bill think they are above the law. Sadly, they're right.
ReplyDelete