The Drip Drip Drip...

[Bicycle Bill]

I see ... it's that inscrutable British 'humor'.
'Nuff said.

-"BB"-

[Lord Jim]

I wouldn't say that a fellow with a nappy on his head and a pencil shoved up each nostril really qualifies as "inscrutable humor"...

[Lord Jim]

Attorney General Lynch Will Accept Whatever FBI Recommends in Clinton Email Probe, Official Says

Attorney General Loretta Lynch is expected to announce later today in Aspen, Colorado, that she will follow and accept whatever recommendation the FBI and career prosecutors and investigators make regarding whether to bring charges in the Hillary Clinton email probe, a Justice Department official told ABC News.

Lynch has decided that she will green light whatever recommendation comes from the FBI and senior career lawyers in the Justice Department, after a months-long investigation tied to Clinton's use of a private email server.

This comes just days after the revelation that Lynch met privately with former president Bill Clinton during a chance encounter on the tarmac at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix earlier this week.

Both Lynch and Bill Clinton have insisted the meeting was completely "social," focusing on grandchildren, golf, travel, the Brexit vote, “and things like that," as Lynch put it.[Of course Bill never mentioned the email investigation. If there's one thing we know about Bill Clinton, it's that he would never do anything inappropriate...]

The FBI is in the final stages of its email-related investigation, looking at how Hillary Clinton and her aides handled classified information when she was secretary of state.

"The Attorney General expects to receive and accept the determination and findings of the Department's career prosecutors and investigators, as well as the FBI director," the Justice Department official said today.

"Determinations as to whether to charge any individual, as well as the findings of the investigation, will be made by career prosecutors and investigators who have handled this matter since its inception," and then those determinations and findings will be "reviewed" by senior career lawyers in the Justice Department and FBI Director James Comey, who will then brief the findings to Lynch, the official said.

As for the impromptu meeting between Lynch and Bill Clinton Monday night, it lasted about 30 minutes.

"As I was landing, he was headed out," Lynch said at a news conference Wednesday. "He did come over and say hello and speak to my husband and myself."[Actually, he didn't just wander over and say "howdy". He boarded her plane for a 30 minute private meeting. Unbelievably bad optics, and very bad judgement on the AG's part considering the situation.]

"There was no discussion on any matter pending before the department or any matter pending with any other body. There was no discussion of Benghazi, no discussion of State Department emails," Lynch said at another news conference Tuesday.

Asked Wednesday whether it was appropriate to meet with the former president while the Justice Department and FBI continue their investigation into Democratic presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton, Lynch insisted the meeting would have no impact on the federal probe.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/attorney ... d=40272091

[Big RR]

Lynch insisted the meeting would have no impact on the federal probe

Even assuming this was correct, the private meeting was stupid and will only set up any ultimate decision for more criticism.

[rubato]

turned to a meaningless drizzle. Fog condensing on redwood needles.

Nothing.

Like the endless and expensive Benghazi hearings turned out to be ... nothing.

yrs,
rubato

[Long Run]

The FBI is in the final stages of its email-related investigation, looking at how Hillary Clinton and her aides handled classified information when she was secretary of state.

"The Attorney General expects to receive and accept the determination and findings of the Department's career prosecutors and investigators, as well as the FBI director," the Justice Department official said today.

Call me a cynic, but doesn't this mean that there will not be an indictment? Lynch gets to take the principled stand that she will accept the conclusion of the career professionals, but because the investigation is in the final stages, she knows which direction the wind is blowing (i.e., no indictment).

[Sue U]

Everyone (even Politico, ferchrissakes) has known for months that there was never going to be an indictment, but the deranged nutball wing of the GOP just can't let go of a cherished fantasy, and the media is happy to play along as long as it lets them keep saying "scandal":

Waiting for a Clinton indictment? Don’t hold your breath

04/11/16 04:19 PM
By Steve Benen

Among many Republican, it’s simply an article faith: Hillary Clinton will, any day now, face a criminal indictment. As the argument goes, her email server management issues aren’t just a scandal, they’ll actually lead to her arrest.

Even some of the Democrat’s critics on the left buy into the idea that such a scenario is plausible. If my Twitter mentions are any indication, there are more than a few Bernie Sanders supporters who genuinely seem to believe Democratic voters might as well support the Vermont senator now, since his rival for the nomination is bound to end up in handcuffs.

The fact remains, however, that such a scenario is pretty far-fetched. Politico’s Josh Gerstein took a closer look today at the legal circumstances, and the reasons Clinton’s foes shouldn’t hold their breaths.

The examination, which included cases spanning the past two decades, found some with parallels to Clinton’s use of a private server for her emails, but – in nearly all instances that were prosecuted – aggravating circumstances that don’t appear to be present in Clinton’s case.

The relatively few cases that drew prosecution almost always involved a deliberate intent to violate classification rules as well as some add-on element: An FBI agent who took home highly sensitive agency records while having an affair with a Chinese agent; a Boeing engineer who brought home 2000 classified documents and whose travel to Israel raised suspicions; a National Security Agency official who removed boxes of classified documents and also lied on a job application form.

Politico’s examination seems to have only been able to find one person who sincerely believes Clinton will face prosecution: former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R), who was a prosecutor and a Justice Department official before his partisan antics made him something of a clownish joke.

Among more objective observers, the idea of Clinton facing an indictment seems, at best, implausible. This is very much in line with a recent American Prospect examination, which reached the same conclusion.

TPM’s Josh Marshall published a related piece in February, after speaking to a variety of law professors and former federal prosecutors about the Clinton story. “To a person,” Josh wrote, they agreed the idea of a Clinton indictment is “very far-fetched.”

So, why does such an unlikely scenario generate so much attention? I think there are probably a couple of things going on here.

The first is that Clinton has more than a few media critics, many of whom are a little too eager to embrace the idea of a new “scandal.”

The second, as Paul Waldman argued today, is that Republicans consider the idea of a Clinton indictment “too tantalizing,” even if they know it’s not going to happen.

For the most part, the Clinton email story has been a disappointment to Republicans. They were desperately hoping that the emails would reveal some kind of ghastly malfeasance on Clinton’s part, some smoking gun that would make all Americans realize that she should never be elected president. When that turned out not to be the case, they pinned their hopes on the idea that she would just have to be charged with a crime eventually. I have no doubt that people like George Will and Karl Rove now understand that that isn’t going to happen either.

But having gone this far, they need to keep up appearances, and they also know that just talking about her emails serves to convince people that something scandalous must have happened.

And when nothing ends up happening, will the right conclude that they shouldn’t have bought into baseless hype? Of course not. Instead they’ll argue that Clinton would have been indicted were it not for that rascally President Obama intervening to let her off the hook.

Because, as conservatives apparently see it, Clinton’s email server management issues are obviously criminal. If she’s indicted, they’re right, and if she’s not indicted, they’re still right.

[Long Run]

You are right that the R's misplayed this one (nothing new there) by immediately focusing on the criminal possibility and creating expectations that there would be an indictment. The smart play would have been to focus on the Inspector's review, which skewered her pretty well; and to focus on the inconsistencies between what she said and what that review found. Not sure there was ever going to be a big loss/win here, but certainly the R's could have gotten more mileage by making a smarter presentation of how this highlights Clinton's lack of trust and veracity -- and to puncture her one major selling point that she is a competent and seasoned leader.

[rubato]

You're right, they would not look like deranged nutbars if they admitted out front that there was nothing here. But they never cared about educated thoughtful voters anyway; those are all liberals.

And being deranged nutbars sells big to the GOP base. Just look at Trump.

I bet they keep doing the same thing forever.

yrs,
rubato

[wesw]

this thread has really suffered since jim s "principles" have led him to support HRC.

who woulda thunk it.....

[Lord Jim]

You're right, they would not look like deranged nutbars if they admitted out front that there was nothing here. But they never cared about educated thoughtful voters anyway; those are all liberals.

And being deranged nutbars sells big to the GOP base. Just look at Trump.

I bet they keep doing the same thing forever.

yrs,
rubato

This is a really good example of what I was talking about when I said that rube's brain simply can't recognize any factual information that contradicts his preconceived conclusions. He continues to insist that there's "nothing to this" and "only a handful of right-wing haters care about it" despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary presented on both points.

A genuinely clinical case....

I don't expect a Clinton indictment, (and with Trump as the GOP nominee, I certainly don't want one. As I said before, any imaginable replacement the Dems could come up with would be far weaker on national defense and national security.) but anyone who doesn't think there's a real chance it could happen, is completely deluding themselves.

Given the standard of "reckless negligence" in the applicable law,(it's not necessary to prove that classified material actually wound up in enemy hands to meet that standard) and just what's known in the public record, (like the email from Clinton to her aide instructing them to remove classified marking from a document and send it to her, and the email exchange where even after being told her server was being subjected to hack attacks she rebuffed the advice to switch to a government account on a government server, only expressing concern about her personal emails.) and the sheer volume of classified material she placed at risk, an indictment is a very real possibility. Certainly others (Deutsch, Petraeus, Berger) have been indicted (and received convictions) for much less.

I thought about reposting the voluminous amount of evidence on this but I figure that everyone here besides rube has probably been capable of retaining it, and if I reposted it his brain would only allow him to see a big blank spot or indecipherable gibberish on his monitor screen anyway...

One thing I'm sure of, is that even if an indictment is not forthcoming, the final report will be extremely damning of her conduct, and a complete rebuke of many of the lies she has told about it, just as the State Department IG report was. (Given just the publicly known facts, it would be impossible for the report to do otherwise)

The other thing I'm sure of is that if she dodges the bullet and isn't indicted, just as she did about the State Department report, she will shamelessly lie her butt off about it and claim that it's an "exoneration" and confirmation that everything she said has been true all along. (Such as her brazenly false claim that the rules regarding handling government emails were tightened after she left as SOS, when the SD IG report clearly shows the new rules were instituted in March of 2009, almost immediately at the time her tenure began.)

[Lord Jim]

Since the final piece of this is falling into place today, we should know what's going to happen one way or the other fairly soon:

EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Clinton Scheduled To Meet With FBI On Saturday

Former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton is scheduled to meet Saturday with the FBI, a source close to the investigation into her private email server tells The Daily Caller.

The source went on to suggest the interview may take place at her Washington, D.C. home.

The bureau’s interview with the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is believed to be the final step in its investigation into the potential mishandling of classified information on Clinton’s private email server.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/01/exclu ... z4DFoJm8l5

[Jarlaxle]

She won't be indicted...the fix is in.

[RayThom]

She won't be indicted...the fix is in.

Fix or no fix, I'm betting Drumpf is praying to his Lord Jesus Christ in the Mar-a-Lago Seaside Chapel that Hillary is NOT indicted.

Over the last few weeks he has become painfully aware that he's seeking an office that's not only way out of his league, but a job that will pay him in one year the same amount he can scam from his creditors in one day. That's so anti-art-of-the-deal that it will surely cause him a conniption or nervous breakdown.

I still maintain something illegal that has yet to bubble up to the surface is going to eliminate Drumpf from the running. Just a feeling, but a very strong one.

Here's the latest from the living dead, Sarah Palin, on the "Never Trump" movement.

[Lord Jim]

Extremely damning and scathing account of Clinton's actions by Comey...

But no indictment recommendation...

No doubt Clinton and her minions will now falsely claim that this report is some sort of verification that she did nothing wrong, and that everything she has said about it has been absolutely accurate...

But anyone who saw or reads what Comey said will know that is complete BS...

In fact while I wasn't expecting an indictment, as I was watching Comey, he was so condemnatory of Clinton and her aides, I was beginning to think he was leading up to an indictment announcement...

[Lord Jim]

Here's the standard Comey laid out:

Our investigation looked at whether there is evidence classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on that personal system, in violation of a federal statute making it a felony to mishandle classified information either intentionally or in a grossly negligent way, or a second statute making it a misdemeanor to knowingly remove classified information from appropriate systems or storage facilities.

Regarding Clinton's claim that emails that were sent weren't classified at the time:

From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were “up-classified” to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent.

Here's what he said they found:

Now let me tell you what we found:

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.

For example, 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 from others about the same matters.

There is evidence to support a conclusion that 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. In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on e-mail (that is, excluding the later “up-classified” e-mails).

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.

Separately, it is important to say something about the marking of classified information. Only a very small number of the e-mails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information. But even if information is not marked “classified” in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.

While not the focus of our investigation, we also developed evidence that the security culture of the State Department in general, and with respect to use of unclassified e-mail systems in particular, was generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government.

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.

You can read his whole statement here:

https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press ... ail-system

So it appears the decision not to recommend charges was made on the very thin distinction between being "grossly negligent" and "extremely careless"....

There is a treasure trove of stuff here that any intelligent GOP opponent could use to bring great disrepute to Hillary's honesty, competence, and sense of responsibility.

Fortunately for Hillary, she's running against an idiot, who is already trying to discredit the highly respected Comey with ridiculous claims that the decision was "rigged", rather than an opponent who would exploit these extremely damning findings in an intelligent way.

[Bicycle Bill]

There is a treasure trove of stuff here that any intelligent GOP opponent could use to bring great disrepute to Hillary's honesty, competence, and sense of responsibility.

As has been shown by the fact that Trump has emerged as the Republican candidate-apparent, Hillary could have faced as many intelligent opponents as the GOP had been able to muster.  It is the NON-intelligent voters of the GOP rank and file that has been swallowing Drumpf's swill and have elevated him to the level he currently occupies.

I will, however, wish you and the effort to free the delegates at the Republican convention in order to deny Trump the nomination the best of fortune, and remind you of this:

"Certainly, Gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents.  Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinions high respect; their business unremitted attention.  It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasure, his satisfactions, to theirs — and above all, ever and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own.

But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living.  These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the Constitution.  They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable.  Your representative owes you not his industry only but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion."
...... Edmund Burke, MP, 1774; emphasis mine

-"BB"-

[Lord Jim]

I'm waiting for rube's obligatory, "this shows that this was a big nothing" post...

This report is good for Hillary in the same sense that two broken legs are "good" when compared to a bullet in the head...

[rubato]

But will the GOP learn something from this and actually begin to govern after decades of pure partisan bullshit whining over minutia?


No. They will not even learn from the self-inflicted debacle of Trump.


This was a nothing. She didin't go to war based on a lie and spend trillions of dollars, create ISIS, cripple tens of thousands of US soldiers and weaken ourselves did she? She didn't create the most catastropic financial collapse in 80 years did she?

Those are colossal fuckups that shattered thousands of lives and if you don't hold your party accountable for them you will only look a fool whipping up hysteria about a nothing like this.


yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

It's not nothing. But Republicans long ago shot themselves in the foot on this one claiming that she should/was going to be indicted, that her behaviour was criminal, that she should be in prison, etc. Now that that has been shown not to be the case, what do they have left, except a choice between moving the goalposts WAY off the line that they have been pushing for years, and joining Trump in accusing, not just Comey, but every single FBI agent who had his/her fingers on this file of engaging in a cover up. Because that is the implication of any cover up accusation; in this case it's not just the top dogs who would be implicated.