Hillary Clinton is surrounded in unfolding scandals. Will we ever see Hillary prosecuted? Or will she drop her campaign for president? The big question is: Will the American people watch once again as “elite immunity” is invoked to let America’s self-appointed royalty escape consequences?
Of course, this is not only about email. The scandal is about obstruction of justice. Hillary – who had worked in Congress on the impeachment of Richard Nixon – sought to avoid a repeat of Nixon’s tapes. The real point is what was in the 32,000 emails that Hillary admits she deleted. I am convinced that what was in those emails would have sent Bill and Hillary to jail and/or embarrassed Obama and the Clintons far worse than the scandal of their destruction.
Last week the Federal Bureau of Investigation finally seized Hillary Clinton’s private email server and thumb drive copies of her data from her long-time attorney, David Kendall. FBI Director James B. Comey is showing integrity and courage in the performance of his job. After two decades of fighting for integrity in government, I don’t know if I am more surprised when someone in government actually does his job or the usual sad experience when government officials don’t do their jobs.
The integrity of our current FBI director notwithstanding, the Obama Justice Department that will ultimately review the deleted emails from Hillary’s server also prosecuted Gen. David Petraeus for failing to safeguard classified information in his home. It also prosecuted Jeffrey Sterling for deleting just one single email, among other charges relating to leaking to New York Times reporter James Risen. It will be hard for the Obama Justice Department, which oversees the FBI, to excuse Hillary for mishandling classified information after convicting Petraeus for far less.
The FBI’s seizure of the server followed months of noisy foot-dragging by Rep. Trey Gowdy, charged with investigating the terrorist attacks in Benghazi. Freedom of Information Act lawsuits by the Associated Press and others brought pressure along with Freedom Watch’s racketeering (RICO) lawsuit. My March 24, 2015, lawsuit documented the pattern of the Clintons selling government action in exchange for bribes paid as speaking fees and donations to the Clinton Foundation. Freedom Watch’s lawsuit was dismissed for “standing” only hours before the FBI announced its seizure of Hillary’s computer server and thumb drives, but we are taking an expedited appeal.
On Thursday, the Honorable Emmet G. Sullivan issued his latest round of scathing criticisms of Hillary withholding documents. In a case brought by Judicial Watch, which I founded in 1994, Judge Sullivan, appointed by President Bill Clinton, ordered that the U.S. State Department must coordinate with the FBI to search on the seized server for documents Judicial Watch had requested. Now, Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch are both at the forefront of this fight. I wish we had more reinforcements on the battlefield. These lawsuits are just getting started.
In one of the biggest blows, Judge Sullivan openly declared that Hillary’s use of a private email server violated government policy. Hillary’s main defense has been that her practice was allowed. Sullivan announced in Thursday’s hearing that Hillary violated established regulations. I believe that years of warnings from both Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch have finally gotten at least one judge fed up with listening to lies from the bureaucracy and officials. When I led Judicial Watch, my nonpartisan lawsuit against Dick Cheney’s confidential energy task force was heard before Judge Sullivan.
Hillary concealed official records even from her own department while secretary of state. The State Department could not search those emails and attached documents for FOIA requests – or even to conduct its official business – because they were hidden away on Hillary’s private server. We now learn the server ended up in a consulting company’s office bathroom in New Jersey.
Both Judicial Watch and my current organization, Freedom Watch, have demanded documents from the State Department under dozens of FOIA requests. This includes Freedom Watch’s request for documents concerning Hillary waiving sanctions on companies doing business with Iran in exchange for bribes. Freedom Watch requested documents about Hillary’s leak to David Sanger of the New York Times about Israeli efforts to sabotage Iran’s development of nuclear weapons and anticipated air strikes. Hillary’s leak was to help Iran and prevent Israel from acting to destroy Iran’s efforts to build nuclear weapons. Litigation over dozens of FOIA requests will continue moving forward in the coming weeks.
It is astonishing that the Clintons have evaded prosecution for so long. As a former federal prosecutor, I have long called the Clintons the “Bonnie and Clyde” of modern America. And from my experience as a prosecutor, anyone less politically favored would have been wearing prison uniforms years ago.
Pursuant to 18 U.S. Code § 2071(b), “Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. …”
Hillary concealed government records from State Department control and access from January 2009 until March 2015. When exposed, Hillary deleted approximately 32,000 emails with attachments, then scrubbed the email server. Hillary is thus “disqualified from holding any office under the United States.”
Like the original Bonnie and Clyde, who evaded arrest for nearly two years in a nationally famous manhunt, the Clintons boast that critics have been making accusations against them for years. The problem is that those accusations happen to be true. In the late 1990s, I obtained a ruling while at Judicial Watch that Bill Clinton had committed a crime when he illegally released private White House files to smear a woman he had sexually assaulted in the Oval Office, Kathleen Willey. So there is some precedent of the criminality of the Clintons. It should not be surprising that eventually the law will fully catch up with the Bonnie and Clyde.. What is more than troubling is that they have gotten away with their crime spree for this long. But all “good things” must end. Bad times are ahead for the Clintons, for sure.
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