Justice Was Not Blind
I feel sad, helpless and angry. It is as if there were no truth, only political spin and talking points. The newspapers and TV networks do not report the news, most just advocate their party’s political views even if it means reporting something they know is an outright lie. President Nixon resigned after he was caught covering up the “fact” that members of his staff broke into the Democratic Party headquarters to plant listening devices (i.e., bugs).
President Nixon did not know his staff planned and executed the break in to listen to whatever the senior democrats were discussing BUT once he knew about the crime, he tried to cover-up and protect his staff members. He should have called the FBI and had them arrested. In any case, President Nixon resigned the Presidency and his staff members responsible for the break in went to prison. [Unlike Secretary Clinton’s escape from indictment and all her staff being granted immunity?]
That said, there is no comparison between President Nixon’s actions to cover-up the break-in (e.g., bugging---little to no impact) and Secretary Clinton’s illegal use of a personal computer server to avoid the Federal Records Act…she compromised the highest classifications of National Security information (i.e., Top Secret, Special Access Programs and Sensitive Compartmented Information). “…Secretary Clinton violated the Federal Records Act by failing to save her work-related emails to the State Department’s SMART system and by exclusively using a private BlackBerry” and a personal home email server (And deleting emails and destroying her Blackberry mobile device with a hammer).
Some of her private emails, released after being subpoenaed by the House Select Committee on Benghazi, are evidence she instructed her staff to strip the classification markings off documents and/or to paraphrase the content and to send the results to her as unclassified email. The FBI Director stated to Congress that Secretary Clinton was extremely careless but that he could find no “intent” to break the law and therefore he did not recommend she be indicted. It is obvious that “deciding” to use a personal email server instead of the required Department of State SMART system (server) is “intent.”
It is obvious that “instructing” her staff to “strip off” the classified information markings before sending her material as unclassified is “intent.” After receiving a court order to turn over to Congress all emails and documents related to Benghazi, Secretary Clinton’s staff destroyed her mobile devices with a hammer and used “Bleachbit” software to scrub all of the emails from her illegal personal email account server; those actions obviously indicate “intent.” Secretary Clinton’s “acts” mentioned above are evidence of intent, I am disappointed in the FBI Director’s lack of honesty and integrity…and depressed that we have now totally politicized our justice system…justice has not been done.
In the Department of Defense, there are two separate email systems. There is an unclassified email system referred to as the NIPRNET and a classified system, the SIPRNET. Military members and civilian employees have suffered serious career-ending consequences for exposing classified information to compromise by sending classified information over the NIPRNET rather than using the required SIPRNET…let alone using a commercial service (e.g., Gmail) or worse yet, a personal server in their home to process, handle and store classified information. Classified National Security information mishandling (e.g., like Secretary Clintons”) can and have cost the lives of brave military members and civilian employees like the Pakistani doctor who helped us find Bin Laden and was sentenced to 33 years in a Pakistani prison because his name was accidently released in a leak bragging how clever we were?
Since anyone can conduct an internet search and discover a description of the Department of Defense classified and unclassified email systems [NIPRNET & SIPRNET], it does not pass the common sense test that a Secretary of State could possibly be unaware of the importance of using the Department of State’s SMART systems for controlling, handling and storing classified information…this example is yet more “obvious” evidence of “intent.”
Shame on FBI Director Comey for not doing the right thing. He was probably under extreme political pressure but he should have recommended Secretary Clinton be indicted.