Madame “Extremely Careless” President

Do you want an extremely careless president?  How about one who’s actions do not rise to the level of even a reasonable person?  Well, that’s what you will get if Hillary Clinton is elected! 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (the “FBI”) has thoroughly investigated Hillary Clinton’s use of personal, instead of secure State Department, e-mails and servers during her tenure as Secretary of State (“SOS”), according to FBI Director James B. Comey in a press conference this morning.  He will provide the Department of Justice (the “DOJ”) and Secretary Loretta Lynch (his boss) the results of the FBI investigation and his recommendations on potential action.

You can read the full text of Director Comey’s remarks here, and we’ll discuss them below.  Or, for those who like lists, here is the short version:

1. Hillary Clinton and her colleagues acted in an extremely careless manner in their use and handling of top secret and classified State Department e-mails through a personal server and account.
2. Many of her e-mails were classified at the TopSecret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received.
3. The FBI found thousands of additional e-mails sent by or to Hillary Clinton, which she did not provide or disclose.
4. Any reasonable person should have known that an unclassified system was no place for her State Department electronic conversations.
5. Clinton used several different servers and server administrators during her four years at the State Department, as well as numerous mobile devices to send and receive e-mail.  Not just one.
6. The FBI found that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people Clinton communicated with and that “it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account” because she used it so often overseas, in territories of sophisticated adversaries.
7. In spite of all this, the FBI will recommend that no charges be filed against Hillary Clinton because “no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”
8. Even though the FBI recommends no charges against Clinton, that does not mean that charges would not be appropriate against a different person doing the same things.
9. While Clinton may not face criminal charges, her actions were extremely careless and beyond what a reasonable person would have considered appropriate.

The results of the FBI investigation are that Hillary Clinton and her colleagues were extremely careless in their electronic communications:

“Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.  None of these e-mails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these e-mails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at Departments and Agencies of the U.S. Government—or even with a commercial service like Gmail.”

Another finding was that Hillary Clinton and her colleagues did not turn over all of the e-mails she sent and received while serving as SOS, as she has so firmly stated on many occasions:

“The FBI also discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not in the group of 30,000 that were returned by Secretary Clinton to State in 2014. We found those additional e-mails in a variety of ways. Some had been deleted over the years and we found traces of them on devices that supported or were connected to the private e-mail domain. Others we found by reviewing the archived government e-mail accounts of people who had been government employees at the same time as Secretary Clinton, including high-ranking officials at other agencies, people with whom a Secretary of State might naturally correspond.”

Okay, so Hillary Clinton used her own e-mail server for State Department e-mails – it was secure in its own right, so (in Hillary Clinton’s own words, very apropos in this setting) – What difference does it make?  Why does any of this matter?  It is all just about how Clinton sent and received e-mails, right?  Wrong!  So wrong.

“With respect to potential computer intrusion by hostile actors, we did not find direct evidence that Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail domain, in its various configurations since 2009, was successfully hacked. But, given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, we assess that we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence. We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account. We also assess that Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account.”

But, apparently, in spite of all their hard work and findings, the FBI has determined and recommended that “no charges are appropriate at this time.”  As announced by Director Comey:

“Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”

What?  The bureau charged with enforcing and investigating violations of federal law is now making decisions for the Department of Justice prosecutors, suggesting that if their interpretation of the facts differs from that of the FBI, the DOJ prosecutors would be “unreasonable.”  That is not their decision to make.  Ever!

But, alas, Bill Clinton’s secret runway visit with Lynch ensured that she and her department would accept her police department’s (FBI) recommendation, so as to avoid accusations of conflict of interest.  (By the way, did you see the news that Clinton is considering retaining Lynch as Attorney General?)

But, lest you think Clinton’s actions are okay and you, too, will avoid any criminal investigation for committing similar criminal acts, take note that Director Comey was very clear that his decision applies only to Hillary Clinton and that others, even in the same circumstances, might not be so lucky:

To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.

What?  This finding applies only to Hillary Clinton, candidate for President of the United States.  No reasonable prosecutor would bring charges against her, states Comey, but that sounds as thought that same prosecutor might suddenly become reasonable if prosecuting someone other that Hillary Clinton?  Comey says that Hillary is not guilty but you might be.  Wow.

So, Hillary Clinton is free to move about the country, seeking your vote for president.  Will you give it to her?

FOR ALL OF YOU THINKING OF VOTING FOR HILLARY CLINTON, DO YOU REALLY WANT TO ELECT AS PRESIDENT A PERSON WHO IS AT MINIMUM EXTREMELY CARELESS AND UNREASONABLE WITH MATTERS OF NATIONAL SECURITY?  IS THIS THE PERSON YOU WANT TO ELECT?