“Prosecutorial Discretion,” Emailgate, and Polygamy – Part 1
Former President Bill Clinton had a secret meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Hillary Clinton was given a careful “investigative interview” in the “emailgate” scandal. Lynch’s subordinate FBI Director James Comey recommended no charges for the crimes that he otherwise said he did find Hillary Clinton to have been “extremely careless” in committing. And then Attorney General Loretta Lynch (Comey’s boss) used her “Prosecutorial Discretion” to close the case, letting Hillary Clinton off all charges. From June 27 to July 6, 2016, all of that happened in less than ten days.
This is the first part of a series of posts pertaining to the tyranny of “Prosecutorial Discretion.” This tyranny protects Hillary Clinton from facing charges for proven crimes while it also prevents non-criminals’ fight for freedom in the “Sister Wives” polygamy case. If the former outrages you, the latter will terrify you even more.
At this initial point, you might be asking, how does the “Sister Wives” polygamy case (Brown v. Buhman) have anything to do with what has happened in the “emailgate” scandal case against Secretary of State, Democrat Presidential Candidate, and Bill Clinton’s wife, Hillary Clinton? You might even be asking, why should you care?
The singular answer to both questions is simple. Whether or not you support polygamy or support Clinton, the current states of both cases reflect and reveal the latest form of a repeated tyranny. This tyranny affects all of us – including you. Your, my, indeed our very liberty, is utterly threatened by this tyranny. It is the tyranny of “prosecutorial discretion.”
To provide an initial understanding of how this tyranny works, this exposition will detail the final events of Hillary Clinton’s “emailgate” scandal “investigation.” Therewith, this will expose how “prosecutorial discretion” protected her from facing charges and jailtime.
Naturally, when this news broke two days later on June 29, 2016, the overt conflict of interest of her meeting with Bill Clinton ignited a rational firestorm. Yet, instead of recusing herself from the case, Lynch cleverly said that she would defer to and accept the FBI’s recommendation in the case. (Remember, she is their boss!)
On Saturday, July 2, 2016, the FBI formally interviewed Hillary Clinton for the first time in this would-be “investigation.” As the NY Times then explained what most of the public believed at that point, “It could take weeks or longer to reach a decision.”
It only took 3 days.
On July 5, 2016, Loretta Lynch’s underling, FBI Director James Comey, held a press conference to publicly “conclude” that “no charges are appropriate,” despite his simultaneously declaring that Hillary Clinton was “extremely careless” with national and classified secrecy with her private email servers. Director Comey rationalized the following.
In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.
In the above quote, I added the emphasis to the words, on these facts, as it might be the most relevant part of the statement. I even tweeted this point.
— National Polygamy (@MHenkelPolygamy) July 5, 2016
Those three cleverly parsed words “subtly indicate” what they don’t directly say: the actual facts that were otherwise necessary to be obtained were not made available. When Clinton had her private email servers “wiped,” such evidence was removed before it could be seen.
But worse, Director Comey’s assessment effectively re-writes the law that was being broken. The law is clear, as seen in 18 USC 793(f).
(f) 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.
Nothing in that specific part of the law suggests that “intent” has anything to do with determining guilt of breaking it. I made this point in another tweet.
Giuliani makes that case that when it comes to laws surrounding handling classified data, intent is irrelevant. “The definition of gross negligence under the law is extreme carelessness,” he said. The FBI “clearly found a direct violation of 18 United States code section 793 which does not require intent — it requires only gross negligence in the handling of anything relating to the national defense.”
“It’s the first definition that comes up in the law dictionary,” he said. “It’s the definition the judges give to juries when they charge injuries on gross negligence. Negligence equals carelessness. Gross negligence equals extreme carelessness. So that is a clear absolutely unassailable violation of 18 United States Code, section 793, which is not a minor statute, it carries ten years in prison.”
But the issue is clearly not over. A Congressional probe is being called to further investigate FBI Director Comey and the issue. After all, Comey actually listed out what is a crime and then decided that no prosecutorial discretion would prosecute.
REASON.TV put together this excellent mashup of what Hillary Clinton asserted and what Director Comey listed out as lies and crimes.
Senator Rand Paul, who was the only Senator who, in 2013, had voted against Approving James Comey as FBI Director, put together a profoundly accurate and articulate response to the whole matter in the following video.
Herein lies the greatest tyranny of this “prosecutorial discretion.” Namely, Hillary Clinton is shown to have committed crime, but the chief prosecutor, Attorney General Loretta Lynch (and who is actually FBI Director James Comey’s boss), is using her “prosecutorial discretion” to choose not to prosecute Hillary Clinton. At the same time, to anyone else who might ever commit the same crime, the following warning was declared in the formal Statement by FBI Director James B. Comey on the Investigation of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s Use of a Personal E-Mail System:
To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences.
Therewith do we see the exposition of how and why “prosecutorial discretion” is undeniably-outright tyranny. Prosecution of the law will not be applied to Hillary Clinton, but it will apply to anyone else who does the very same thing. Hence, “prosecutorial discretion” is the tool of selective prosecution – unconstitutional tyranny.
This is but one example of this specific form of tyranny, though. Not only is “prosecutorial discretion” the tool used by government prosecutors to protect government political elites like Hillary Clinton, but it is also used to prevent everyday US non-criminal citizens from being allowed to legally fight for our rights when truly-unconstitutional laws infringe the rights of individuals.
I will elucidate that overarching point in the upcoming post in this series. Are you outraged at the tyranny of “prosecutorial discretion” allowing Hillary Clinton to get away with crimes that no one else would equally be so treated under the law? If so, then you should find yourself even more outraged by the profound threat to Individual Liberty that this same tyranny of “prosecutorial discretion” has been applied in the “Sister Wives” polygamy case known as Brown v. Buhman.
