Boy, is the FBI going to be pissed at Obama!

[paulthompson]

I'm working on a comprehensive timeline about the Clinton e-mail scandal, which should be done soon. Here's what I have about the last time Obama made a public comment on the scandal. Note the bolded parts:

October 8, 2015: In a 60 Minutes interview, President Obama calls Clinton's use of a private e-mail server a "mistake." But he also says, "I don't think it posed a national security problem. ... This is not a situation in which America's national security was endangered." He adds that, "We don't get an impression that there was purposely efforts ... to hide something or to squirrel away information," However, several days later a White House spokesperson says Obama will wait for the Justice Department investigation's determination about that. Politico will later comment, "Agents and retired FBI personnel told journalists the comments were inappropriate given the fact that the FBI inquiry was ongoing." (The Associated Press, 10/13/2015)
http://www.dailyherald.com/article/2...ess/310139975/
(CNN, 10/13/2015)
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/13/politi...er-60-minutes/
(Politico, 3/9/2016)
-hillary-clinton-fbi-email-investigation-220500" target="_blank">http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-...igation-220500

October 13, 2015: The White House backtracks on President Obama's assertion that while Clinton's use of a private e-mail server was a "mistake," he doesn't "think it posed a national security problem." White House press secretary Josh Earnest says that Obama's comments were made "based on what we publicly know now." Earnest adds that those comments "certainly not an attempt, in any way, to undermine the importance or independence of the ongoing FBI investigation." (CNN, 10/13/2015)
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/13/politi...er-60-minutes/

October 16, 2015: The New York Times reports that FBI investigating Clinton's use of a private server are upset with President Obama's recent comments that he thinks Clinton made a mistake but didn't endanger national security. Although the White House backtracked later, "Those statements angered FBI agents who have been working for months to determine whether Mrs. Clinton's e-mail setup did in fact put any of the nation's secrets at risk, according to current and former law enforcement officials. Investigators have not reached any conclusions about whether the information on the server was compromised or whether to recommend charges, according to the law enforcement officials. But to investigators, it sounded as if Mr. Obama had already decided the answers to their questions and cleared anyone involved of wrongdoing." Ron Hosko, who was a senior FBI official until he retired in 2014, says, "Injecting politics into what is supposed to be a fact-finding inquiry leaves a foul taste in the FBI's mouth and makes them fear that no matter what they find, the Justice Department will take the president's signal and not bring a case." (The New York Times, 10/16/2015)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/17/us...i-inquiry.html
An unnamed upset FBI agent at the Washington Field Office, where the investigation is based, says, "We got the message. ... Obama's not subtle sometimes." (The New York Observer, 10/19/2015)
http://observer.com/2015/10/hillarys...far-from-over/


So the FBI is already upset at Obama for his comments from October. Then today he basically said the exact same thing, repeating that national security wasn't compromised. I'm sure the FBI is going to be even more pissed off!

Keep in mind that Obama is speculating. He hasn't been briefed about the FBI investigation a single time. And what he claims is fundamentally unknowable anyway, because you can't prove a negative. There are dozens of foreign intelligence agencies who would have the capability of intercepting Clinton's emails. If one agency got them and the US gained its own intelligence about that, then one could prove she did harm national security. But there's no way to prove that all of them did NOT get the emails unless there are high-level moles in every single decent foreign intelligence agency.

In fact, it's common knowledge that the working assumption within US intelligence is that foreign governments DID get all of Clinton's e-mails. A number of high ranking US officials have said as much, including heads of US intelligence agencies. That's why when Obama publicly says the opposite, it really pisses them off.

I wouldn't be surprised if this leads to more leaks from the investigation in the next week as a kind of push back.

Unfortunately, Obama has a history of making biased statements about on-going investigations. For instance, he did it with the similar David Petraeus case. And in that case, it turns out the FBI wanted to bring serious charges against Petraeus, because it was an open and shut case - Petraeus even confessed aboout leaking classified material because he was caught red handed. But the Justice Department cut a sweetheart plea deal with him, so he was only convicted of a misdemeanor and served no jail time.

I think history is repeating itself almost exactly. In fact, most of the FBI people leading the Clinton investigation were also involved with the Petraeus investigation, including James Comey. I keep reading in articles that they say what happened in the Petraeus case is hanging over the FBI in this case, with the fear of being betrayed by another lenient plea bargain.

But the difference is, if the FBI recommends indictment for Clinton and/or her top aides, that will sink her presidential campaign. And I don't see what the Justice Department and/or Obama can do about that. They can only react to the FBI's recommendations, they can't stop the FBI from making them.

[Hoyt]

1. Difference is Petraeus gave info to someone who could have harmed USA. Apparently, Clinton has not.

[paulthompson]

3. But how do you know that? How would Obama know that?

It's not just a matter of willingly giving the info, as in Clinton walking up to a Russian agent and handing that person a stack of secret documents. There are laws against "gross neligence" too.

Imagine a person leaves some top secret files sitting on a cafe table and then walks away. The person comes back the next day and finds the files are still there. Simply leaving them out like that is a crime, and there are many cases like that where such a person lost their job or even did jail time simply for leaving classified information in a public place. It doesn't matter if you can prove someone read the files or not (although it's worse if you can).

We know that for the first three months of Clinton's time as secretary of state in early 2009, she didn't even have encryption on her BlackBerry, although she traveled to a dozen countries during that time. And yes, foreign intelligence agencies were doing all they could to snoop. For instance, at that very same time (April 2009), the British even went to the extent of making fake Internet cafes near an international conference in the hopes that attendees would use it and they'd be able to read their emails.

When Obama says Clinton didn't harm national security, he's talking about the end result. So he's saying she didn't do so either intentionally or untentionally. There's simply no way he could know that!

[Hoyt]

9. You have to know that for her to be guilty under the laws.

Besides, don't you think every Clinton detractor, including GOPers, are looking for proof, but they haven't found any.

[paulthompson]

20. There are different laws

There are laws with severe penalties if you can prove intent. But there are also laws with lesser penalties if you can merely prove "gross negligence." In my opinion, it's a no-brainer she's guilty of those laws. To not only have an unapproved private server (she was required to have securtiy officials check it out and approve it, which she didn't do), then use an unapproved unsecure BlackBerry with it (ditto, security officials needed to approve that too), then to not even have the most basic encryption on it and travel to a dozen countries during that time. Furthermore, she was sending and receiving emails with classified info on them at the time. How much more negligent could you be?!

Seriously, short of actually handing her BlackBerry to a Russian spy, it's hard to do worse than that.

And that's just one of many, many things she messed up about. Like I said, I'm making a timeline. It's 50,000 words long and growing. The evidence of her problems that could lead to convictions is staggering.

[Fawke Em]

29. 18 U.S. Code § 793 - Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793

[leveymg]

59. The penalty is 10 yrs even without intent or actual damage to Nat'l security.

That's enough to remove her from consideration as President, either way. Actually, there are multiple federal statutes named in her signed security oath she violated, but 793 (e) and ( f) are the best fit. 10 years imprisonment.

[JudyM]

74. Without intent?

[leveymg]

76. Without intent or actual harm. It's a draconian law, but it's the law.

Others have been prosecuted for it in recent years for far less.

[CoffeeCat]

101. Here's a law

Executive Order 13526 and 18 U.S.C Sec. 793(f) of the federal code make it unlawful to send or store classified information on personal email.

Executive order was issued by President Obama on Dec 29, 2009.

[Fawke Em]

10. He doesn't know.

He keeps making these grand pronouncements but doesn't provide any evidence.

Personally, I think the dude just doesn't understand cyber security.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

52. Something strange is going on. Obama claims not to be in communication with the FBI, but acts as if he has inside information.

hmmmm

[Fawke Em]

53. I was talking about the poster above Paul, not Obama.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

90. Too funny!... but applies to Obama as well!

[Bob41213]

30. My understanding is Petraeus gave the info to someone with top secret clearance.

[leveymg]

55. Here's the surprise. It's a crime regardless of intent or actual harm to Nat'l security.

This has been discussed at length here today. It really doesn't matter what Obama's take is on this today, she's still chargeable under this terribly draconian law. But it is the law, and even if she is going to be pardoned in the end , she can't be the party's nominee.

[Hoyt]

58. If she took the info and gave it to someone not entitled to it. That didn't happen. You settled it

in your mind, and a bunch of Sanders' supporters who think it's their best way to nomination decided the same. But, that's not the law, Good luck.

[leveymg]

60. NO. HRC violated 793 (e) and (f) just by putting classified info at risk, doesn't matter

if she had bad intent or if the material actually ended up being in the wrong hands. The mishandling is the crime.

[Hoyt]

61. That is not what it says. Putting it at risk by giving it to someone, might qualify.

[leveymg]

62. Yes it is. Go back and read the law to understand it and come back.

You have to explain your position not just say I'm wrong. That doesn't work any more.

[Hoyt]

63. I read it. It doesn't say what you think.

[leveymg]

66. You refuse to explain so we can move on. You have nothing to add.

I wish you could provide a reasoned argument. On this one, I wish I were wrong. Who wants a brokered convention and election? Not me.

[Hoyt]

70. Read it. Merely having emails sent to her server is not a violation.

[leveymg]

73. You don't understand the details . It was classified info she sent as well as classified info she

received but didn't report. Both are violations of her security oath that reference Sec. 793.

She had a duty on both that she failed. Recall her instruction to her aide to strip off the classification header and "send unsecure" that was a violation, as was her response to Blumenthal to "keep 'em coming" when she received what was obviously classified information that turned out to have been Top Secret-SAP material pulled off an NSA system just hours earlier. This isn't just bad judgement, it's criminal.

[Hoyt]

82. That is what DOJ will decide. I don't think they will interpret law as you have.

We'll know soon enough.

[CoffeeCat]

104. I think Obama is going to extremely great lengths

to appear as if he is on Hillary's side. An interview on Fox News when she is set to be interrogated any day now, by the FBI. Really?

Say what you want about Obama's politics. I agree that the TPP sucks and that he didn't try hard enough to get single payer at the table. He's a centrist. However, he's also a very honest man. He has integrity. Same with Biden. I may not agree with all of his policies, but I know in my gut that Joe is honest and decent. Hillary...not so much.

I think something is going on here. Lots of behind the scenes stuff.

How in the world do you think Obama felt when he discovered that one of his cabinet members was running all State business on a private, unsecured email server of which he was unaware? She was also communicating with Sid Blumenthal about Libya. When Hillary asked that Blumenthal be brought on as one of her advisers, Obama rejected the idea. He doesn't like the guy. But they were discussing Libya in great detail. In fact, Blumenthal was working for (and being paid by the Clinton Foundation) during this time and he was working on behalf of business interests who stood to profit from chaos in the Middle East.

Hillary talked Obama into supporting the ousting of Qaddafi. There are released emails in which her aids congratulate her on getting Obama on board. What if Obama was brought on board under false pretenses? Obama never knew that she was consulting with and passing information to Blumenthal until the information was made public about her having a private server.

What a tangled web! Who knows what is really going on.

I find it out of character for Obama to be appearing to "help" her--considering all of these machinations.

[roguevalley]

91. they extradited that hacker from Romania because he read her shit for six to

seven hours at a time. That raises the stakes but Greg Palast said someone is sitting on this. It can only be Obama.

[paulthompson]

2. a bit more

I want to emphasize that Obama simply doesn't know what he's talking about. For instance, in the interview today when he downplayed some of Clinton's emails being top secret by saying there's top secret and then there's top secret.

There are two possibilities. One, Obama is merely speculating, in which case he's creating the false impression that he knows what's in those top secret emails when he doesn't. (Note that he never actually claimed to know any specifics.) Or two, he does know what's in those emails, in which case he's commentng on his knowledge about the FBI investigation, something which he says later in the interview that is absolutely not happening and he would never do.

So Obama messed up in a big way no matter how you look at it. He simply should never had made those comments. The fact that he did, especially after getting chastized for saying nearly the exact same thing back in October (almost word for word with some of his comments!) reflects very badly on him.

[JudyM]

4. He's a sharp lawyer. The fact that he made these comments suggests to me he is under intense

pressure by Clinton/DNC to provide cover for her before this ultra-important phase of the primary season.

[paulthompson]

5. Yes, but...

Yes, but it may backfire. Like I said, I would be surprised if this does not lead to more leaks in the very near future.

Imagine if you were an FBI agent working on a murder case and you heard the mayor/governor/presidet go on TV and say the suspect you think clearly did it is innocent. Wouldn't you be mad as hell and tempted to leak something to refute that?

[JudyM]

13. Yes. I hope you are right. I am also concerned about either a cover-up or DOJ deeming it unworthy

of prosecution.

One fact in favor of your idea is the number of FBI agents working on it. Makes it tougher to trace the source of a leak.

[paulthompson]

27. True

It's actually been a fairly leaky investigation so far. I could point to dozens of stories that have to be based on leaks. A few have even been supportive of Clinton. For instance there was one a few weeks ago that said none of the security logs on Clinton's server showed evidence of hacking. But the vast majority of leaks suggest she's in deep trouble.

[leveymg]

64. Here's the deal. She has to reach the magic number of delegates to lock before th

hammer comes down and she's forced to release or turn over her delegates. That's the way this has to work.

[Samantha]

79. That is what I think .... (eom)

[noretreatnosurrender]

14. Thank you

for this op. I was not aware that he made similar comments prior to the ones he made today. I was shocked that he made comments about an ongoing FBI investigation today. Now I find out he's done it before and was called on it at the time. Wow. And after that he doubled down and did it again. WTF.

Earnest adds that those comments "certainly not an attempt, in any way, to undermine the importance or independence of the ongoing FBI investigation." (CNN, 10/13/2015)

It sure looks that way to me Josh.

[pdsimdars]

114. People who have seen them say that the highest level of security is "Top Secret"

and there are 4 levels in top secret and some of the emails she had on her NON SECURE private server were of the HIGHEST LEVEL of top secret.

[riderinthestorm]

6. !!!!

[RobertEarl]

7. Had thought Obama was too smart

Damn, I am wrong again!!

Of course his overriding concern is to ensure H gets elected, and I was thinking he was above politics and more of a patriot.

[840high]

44. He should have stayed out of this mess.

[SharonClark]

8. The FBI is going to pissed at Obama?

They've been pissed off at him since he was elected. Because he was elected.

[Kentonio]

95. You're throwing the FBI under the bus now?

[pdsimdars]

115. Give it a rest, for f*ck sake!

[Trenzalore]

11. Let's just say that every Trump and Bernie Supporter's wet dream is true

If it comes out, Hillary gives her delegates to Biden and Bernie still isn't the nominee.

From a law enforcement perspective, Obama pardons Clinton the day after the election.

Either way, Bernie still is not the democratic nominee.

[restorefreedom]

15. its not gonna be biden. he didn't run

if hillary is out it will have to go to bernie or else bye bye dem party. its that simple

[Trenzalore]

17. Nope

Hillary will still have the most pledged and super delegates and if she can't run she is free to release them. I highly doubt they are going to Camp Bernie.

[restorefreedom]

18. then prepare for pres trump or cruz

as well as major downticket losses.

if dws thinks bernies supporters will vote for a puppet installed candidate, she is out of her mind.

[Trenzalore]

19. The Republicans have their own convention problems which are much more likely

and why should the second place winner...the loser...be the nominee when they clearly didn't have the political acumen to win in the primary contest.

[restorefreedom]

23. why should it be a puppet installed who didn't even run? nt

[Trenzalore]

24. Because the other guy was rejected by the majority nt.

[restorefreedom]

26. thhe other guy will have nearly half the delgates

but yes, lets stick someone in who the people didn't even have a chance to vote for

[nichomachus]

45. Yup

If that's the case, Hillary, in a hissy fit, will give us Trump or Cruz. As always, it's all about her -- not the country.

[restorefreedom]

47. oh, always. the country, as are all things, is just a tool. nt

[paulthompson]

22. One thing you forget...

What if something very damning about this comes out before the primaries are over? Who will still vote for Clinton then? It's likely Sanders would win in landslides, with bigger landslides the worse the info that comes out. There are over 800 delegates at stake on June 7 alone. A lot could come out between now and June 7. If something very damning were to come out, it's hard to see how Sanders wouldn't win a majority of pledged delegates, and probably by a good margin.

So how the heck would Biden sweep in at that point?

Now, if something damning were to come out between June 7 and the convention, that could be the case. (Although that still would be extremely unlikely - you'd have to have close to 100% of Clinton's delegates vote for Biden.) But remember that nearly half the voters have yet to vote in the primaries.

[pdsimdars]

116. Hey, Hillary supporters don't seem to care about anything else, just like Trump supporters

why would they care about an indictment? They'll just laugh and say,"that old thing."

[SoLeftIAmRight]

89. lol

welcome - not that we need any more comedians

[leveymg]

75. Warren. She's the only one who can pull this back together again.

All the King's horses . . .

[restorefreedom]

86. even warren can't fix humpty dumpty

she had her chance and chose not to run. too late now.

[Contrary1]

35. Why not give her delegates to Bill, as long as you're fantasizing?

It would still be two for one.

[Trenzalore]

36. Thats just silly

Bill can't be President again. If he could we would have never had W.

[Contrary1]

40. Yeah that was silly...I meant to type Chelsea. n/t

That would be a three for one.

[TBF]

119. Right - and then you lose the general by epic proportions

because the progressives of this party have had it. I have voted for the democratic nominee for president every election since 1992. I volunteered actively (and served as co-precinct captain locally) in 2008. The DNC has insisted on running a very flawed candidate (probably under a lot of pressure from Bill Clinton) and now here we are. We're not going down with you. We will form our own progressive party if we have to and move forward for 2020.

[DanTex]

12. LOL.

[itsrobert]

16. I'm glad you have a hobby.

What else would you do with all the free time?

[riderinthestorm]

21. I see you don't know who Paul Thompson is...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terror_Timeline

I suspect this is his next book.

[Fawke Em]

31. Thanks!

[frylock]

33. Deeerp

[amborin]

25. isn't he essentially overriding their investigative results, in advance?

[FlatBaroque]

28. I believe he is signaling the FBI director and his AG

as to where he wants this to go. He is risking a lot, IMO. But I believe his handlers, who have funded him from Day 1, have put forth the edict that Hillary is their preferred choice to continue the kleptocracy.

[paulthompson]

34. Except...

Except I don't think FBI Director Comey is going to play ball. Are you aware of the Ashcroft hospital incident in 2004? Basically, Comey (and others) threatened to resign in protest if Bush didn't immediately cancel a surveillance program that had lost its legal authority. Bush had no choice to back down.

Comey's a Republican. If he stood up to a Republican president, why wouldn't he stand up to a Democratic president? And it's not just that incident. He's had a long history of defying political pressure. For instance, he recommended indictment on many harsh charges in the David Petraeus case (only to have the Justice Department cut a ridiculously lenient plea bargain).

As for Attorney General Lynch, what she does doesn't matter much as far as the election goes. If the FBI recommends indictment, how the heck could Clinton's presidential campaign survive that?

[840high]

46. Agree.

Comey is a very decent guy.

[Contrary1]

37. What do you think he would be risking? n/t

[FlatBaroque]

42. I would say that if Clinton is found to have broken multiple

national security laws and protocols, whether by accident or with forethought, Obama would take a serious hit to his legacy. And I do believe that is what is going to transpire. The same people who own Obama also own Hillary (Goldman Sachs). There is no reason to believe that his handlers have not made clear the direction they would like him to take, given what is at stake in their desperate desire to appoint Hillary to the Presidency.

[jfern]

32. It's Obama's scandal too. It was his administration, and he knew Hillary had her own server.

So of course he's trying to cover his own ass.

[paulthompson]

38. Yes

Yes, that's a problem. Actually, no evidence has emerged that he or anyone else in the White House knew that she had a private server. Even the vast majority of people in the State Department didn't know (as the released emails have shown).

However, Obama did certainly know she used a private e-mail address - because he emailed her sometimes. And people forget, but in 2007 and 2008 there was a big scandal about Republican politicians using private e-mail accounts to keep secrets. Karl Rove and others did that, and then when Democrats wanted to investigate them for the US Attorney scandal, they found that millions of emails from Rove and others had permanently disappeared.

So for Obama to then let Clinton use a private email address in early 2009 is curious, to say the least.

[paulthompson]

39. More

Here's something I have in the timeline about it:

March 2007 - 2008: The Bush Administration gets embroiled in a private email scandal. A Congressional oversight committee investigates allegations that the White House fired US Attorneys for political reasons. The committee asks for Bush officials to turn over relevant emails, only to find that government work had been conducted on private email addresses. Millions of emails are deleted and permanently lost, preventing the committee from continuing their investigation. Bush officials use email accounts associated with a private gwb43.com server owned and controlled by the Republican National Committee, which is a private political entity not covered by government oversight laws.(The Washington Post, 3/27/2007)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/26/AR2007032601979.html
(Vox, 3/2/2015)
http://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8138203/clinton-emails-bush
In 2015, shortly after Clinton's use of a private email address will be revealed, Vox will comment, "That [Bush administration email] scandal unfolded well into the final year of Bush's presidency, then overlapped with another email secrecy scandal, over official emails that got improperly logged and then deleted, which itself dragged well into Obama's first year in office. There is simply no way that, when Clinton decided to use her personal email address as secretary of state, she was unaware of the national scandal that Bush officials had created by doing the same." Vox will also note, "Perhaps even more stunning is that the Obama White House, whose top officials were presumably exchanging frequent emails with Clinton, apparently did not insist she adopt an official email account." (Vox, 3/2/2015)
http://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8138203/clinton-emails-bush

[beedle]

48. Sounds like "where's there's a private email servers"

there's something to hide.

I guess the NSA is too busy with nude selfies to solve this one?


Keep up the good work, this is indeed interesting.

It's about time Washington's 'business as usual' had a looking at.

[Fawke Em]

41. I don't think he did know she had one, myself.

[jfern]

49. Presumably he noticed her e-mail address.

[Attorney in Texas]

43. There are a couple of federal judges who disagree that "there was purposely efforts ... to hide

something or to squirrel away information."

[paulthompson]

50. Robert Gates

By the way, compare Obama's belief that national security wasn't harmed with this comment by Robert Gates:

January 21, 2016: Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates believes foreign countries like Russia, China, and Iran hacked into Clinton's private email server. He says in an interview, "Given the fact that the Pentagon acknowledges that they get attacked about 100,000 times a day, I think the odds are pretty high." Gates was defense secretary from 2006 to 2001, under Presidents Bush and Obama. In 2015, Gates praised Clinton, saying, "She was a good secretary of state." (The Hill, 1/21/2016)
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/266674-former-defense-secretary-says-clinton-server-may-have-been-compromised


Obama is lying. If you thought there was even a small chance that her emails had been intercepted, wouldn't you have to try to figure out what information might have come out and take steps to limit the damage? If you're a US intelligence official, you have to operate on that assumption. (The same thing happened with the Valerie Plame leak, by the way - they had to assume the worst.) It would be foolish to act with total certainty that nothing got out.

[paulthompson]

51. Or...

Or look at this bit:

January 28, 2016: An unnamed former high-ranking Russian intelligence officer asserts that Russian intelligence must have gotten the contents of Clinton's emails. This officer says, "Of course the SVR got it all." (The SVR, Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, is the successor intelligence agency to the KGB.) He adds, "I don't know if we're as good as we were in my time, but even half-drunk, the SVR could get those emails. They probably couldn't believe how easy Hillary made it for them." (The New York Observer, 1/28/2016)
http://observer.com/2016/01/why-hillarys-emailgate-matters/

I could post so many more bits like this. The idea that national security wasn't damaged is absurd.

[onecaliberal]

57. Obama is definitely lying.

[chillfactor]

54. "....the FBI recommends indictment for Clinton and/or her top aides."

really or just your opinion? I have seen nothing anywhere that states what you allege.

[paulthompson]

65. reply

Right now, all people can do is speculate. Some experts say this, some experts say that. There have been some news reports claiming to be from inside sources that say Comey wants to indict. But those are from right wing sources, so take 'em with however big a grain of salt as you want. For instance, here's one from Fox News from a week ago:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/03/31/one-shot-at-queen-fbi-ag-intensify-focus-on-clinton-email-probe.htm.html

From what I've seen, it's not a question of IF the FBI will recommend indictments, but rather WHO they will recommend to indict. For instance, we know the Justice Department gave Bryan Pagliano, Clinton's IT expert, an immunity deal. We also know why: when he got a job in the State Department in 2009, he lied on a form saying that he had no other job when in fact he was still being paid by Clinton to work on her private server. So they had an open and shut case against him that if I recall carries a maximum five year sentence. Why would they turn down that easy convinction unless they thought they could use him to get bigger fish? That's standard procedure in cases like this, using little fish to get the big fish. Additionally, more leaks since then say that Pagliano has been a "devastating witness" about what he knows.

So the big question is who will be recommended for indictment. There are a bunch of Clinton aides who sent Clinton classified info, like Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, and Jake Sullivan. They're definitely in trouble (since sending that info is worse than receiving it), and they're going to be interviewed by the FBI soon. But what about Clinton herself, will they recommend her for indictment? That is still an open question. (And by the way, she sent 104 classified e-mails too.)

But note that Pagliano's testimony is more likely to involve her than her aides, since she hired him and he set up and ran the server directly for her for five years. I haven't seen anything to suggest that her other aides had anything to do with setting up or running the server.

Look, I'm a die-hard Democrat. I think my extensive past work criticizing the Bush administration shows that. I liked Clinton until fairly recently, when I started to find out about all her criminal behavior. Clinton fans who say this is a big "nothingburger" have their heads in the sand. I think there's a "boy who cried wolf" skepticism, and understandably so. But this is not like the Benghazi witch hunt.

Sometimes, Democrats can do bad things and go to jail. We can't bury our heads in the sand just because someone has a (D) after their name. In fact, it's our duty to weed those politicans out, because voting in someone like that will only lead to more trouble down the road. Look at a guy like Marion Berry being reelected after all his crack cocaine troubles came out. Or people still supporting Ron Ford in Canada after all his troubles came out. We can do better than electing people like that!

[leveymg]

80. Look at 793 (f)(2) - she failed a positive duty to report Blumenthal's clearly classified emails

that turned out to have been taken off an NSA classified system just a few hours earlier. Her response, "Keep 'em coming." Not just bad judgement, criminal, along with her instruction to Jake Sullivan to strip off the classification header and "send unsecure". Similar pattern and practice of criminal behavior evidenced by her order to Huma Abidin to "remove identifiers" from earlier Blumenthal email. She violated het her security oath on multiple occasions and that's what they're going to nail her for.

[snagglepuss]

83. Both Bill and Hill think rules are for lackeys. I believe both of them are obsessed

with playing people for fools. That is their thrill. They love putting one over on others.

[leveymg]

93. That would explain a great deal. Hmmm. nt

[notadmblnd]

56. Can you speak on this?

From reading this, I get the impression that she was let off the hook by Comey once before.

FBI Director Comey has a history with the Clintons
Comey’s first brush with them (Bill & Hillary Clinton) came when Bill Clinton was president. Looking to get back into government after a stint in private practice, Comey signed on as deputy special counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee. In 1996, after months of work, Comey came to some damning conclusions: Hillary Clinton was personally involved in mishandling documents and had ordered others to block investigators as they pursued their case. Worse, her behavior fit into a pattern of concealment: she and her husband had tried to hide their roles in two other matters under investigation by law enforcement. Taken together, the interference by White House officials, which included destruction of documents, amounted to “far more than just aggressive lawyering or political naiveté,” Comey and his fellow investigators concluded. It constituted “a highly improper pattern of deliberate misconduct.”

Comey parlayed the Whitewater job into top posts in Virginia and New York, returning to Manhattan in 2002 to be the top federal prosecutor there. One of his first cases as a line attorney in the same office 15 years earlier had been the successful prosecution of Marc Rich, a wealthy international financier, for tax evasion. But on his last day as President in 2001, Bill Clinton pardoned Rich. “I was stunned,” Comey later told Congress. As top U.S. prosecutor in New York in 2002, appointed by George W. Bush, Comey inherited the criminal probe into the Rich pardon and 175 others Clinton had made at the 11th hour.
http://time.com/4276988/jim-comey-hillary-clinton/

[paulthompson]

69. look again

In those bits you cite, it wasn't Comey letting anyone off the hook. In the Whitewater case, he was still lower ranked, so he didn't have the ultimate say. He and the other investigators wanted to press charges, but the higher ups didn't.

In the Marc Rich case, Bill Clinton pardoned Rich! Case over. There was nothing Comey could do about that.

[notadmblnd]

77. OK, that makes sense. Thanks.

I couldn't understand why she was not prosecuted in the past. Hopefully Comey is an another honest man.

[yodermon]

112. .... and given that history, Obama STILL appointed him FBI director.

I had no idea he was involved in Whitewater investigations. hmm.

[notadmblnd]

113. It makes more sense when you read the OPs reply to my question.

[Tarc]

67. "I'm working on a comprehensive timeline about the Clinton e-mail scandal"

I'm sure Reince Priebus is most grateful for your hard work.

[paulthompson]

78. No

Not if Democrats can wise up and choose someone else before the convention.

Look at the John Edwards sex scandal that happened while he was running for president. Were the people who revealed that doing a favor for Republicans? No. They were doing a favor for Democrats, because he was a flawed candidate and if that didn't come out during the primaries and he won the general election, it would have been much, much worse.

Can you imagine the disaster if Edwards was the nominee and that came out two months before the election? We would have had a Republican president for sure!

Democrats still have time to wise up and pick someone who isn't currently being investigated by the FBI. (I support Sanders, but heck I'd take Biden or anyone else over Clinton at this point.) It's much better this information gets widely known now, while Democrats still have a choice. The information won't simply go away if you bury your head in the sand.

[appal_jack]

108. Exactly.

Thanks for this exhaustive research, paulthompson. While the primaries continue, there is still the chance to choose a candidate not under investigation and very likely imminent indictment. Let's hope Democrats pay attention while there is still time.

k&,

-app

[Fawke Em]

81. I think you need to understand who Paul is...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terror_Timeline

He is most definitely a Democrat. The question is why do Hillary supporters continue to support her with all this damning evidence coming out? Just because someone has a "D" after his/her name doesn't mean they are pure as the driven snow.

[sadoldgirl]

68. Obama wants to protect her (and possibly himself)

I really think his main issue is the TPP. Once that has passed
Congress as well as POTUS have far less power than now.

[pantsonfire]

71. I just want them to wrap it up soon, they've had enough time....n/t

[Rosa Luxemburg]

72. Obama should stay out of it

if it is a FBI investigation he should not get involved

[grasswire]

84. several things don't make sense and are bugging me.

1. The NSA had to know about Hillary's emails fairly early on. HAD TO. Are we to assume that the NSA did not inform POTUS that classified info (in at least one horrifying instance, there was intelligence copied word-for-word from a top secret NSA briefing on Sudan!) was being passed on a private server hosted at clintonemail.com located in the basement of the home of the Secretary of State??

If Obama was NOT notified of this, what does that tell us about the relationship of the NSA to POTUS??

If Obama WAS notified, why was no action taken? And why did Obama not appoint an IG to the vacant post to oversee?

2. What is Obama's game here? Is he out to protect his legacy? Or out to twist her slowly in the wind?

That's a start. We have not yet touched the tip of this iceberg.

[grasswire]

85. There's more.

Lynch has history with the Clintons. She may intuit that if she does not indict, President Hillary will continue her as AG. Hillary AND Lynch would have the power to destroy the other. Hold your enemies close.

[paulthompson]

87. I'm not sure

I'm not sure about your point number one. I think there are strict rules against the NSA from even glancing at any communications from top politicians for fear that some politicians would use the NSA to spy on other politicians.

[riderinthestorm]

88. I believe the NSA is extra judicial and outside normal operating parameters

Their job as i see it is to protect and serve a shadow government of oligarchs, petro states and their financiers.

Rules don't apply to the NSA imo. Here we are in Snowden territory. ..

[leveymg]

94. The only thing that makes sense to me about her actions is

that she thought she had some sort of immunity from oversight. That could have been part of the deal she made with Obama attached to her appointment. But, he outright denies having authorized the server.

It could also have something to do with her relationship with Gen Petraeus who was close with then incumbent NSA Director Keith Alexander when Petraeus was brought in from Centcom as CIA Director. There may have been some sort of junta between the three that drove policy disastrously during the first Administration contrary to Obama's better instincts.

This is all just my own suspicions, of course.

[grasswire]

100. Her first email on the server was to Petraeus, IIRC nt

[leveymg]

102. That's one thing that suggests this scenario to me.

Here's some suggestive backstory on the Petraeus-HRC relationship: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2555464/She-make-tremendous-President-Former-CIA-director-David-Petraeus-seemingly-endorses-Hillary-Clinton-new-book.html

[grasswire]

103. do you know offhand if that email with Petraeus has been released? nt

[leveymg]

111. NotAFAIK. It has merely been described as "personnel matters." If so, why hasn't it been released?

The original story about the earlier emails was AP 09/25/15. I haven't seen anything since. Check the timeline?

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/f80adbe482e14366ad1cec38f597db86/officials-more-work-emails-clintons-private-account

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration has discovered a chain of emails that Hillary Rodham Clinton failed to turn over when she provided what she said was the full record of work-related correspondence as secretary of state, officials told The Associated Press Friday, adding to the growing questions related to the Democratic presidential front-runner's unusual usage of a private email account and server while in government.

The messages were exchanged with retired Gen. David Petraeus when he headed the military's U.S. Central Command, responsible for running the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They began before Clinton entered office and continued into her first days at the State Department. They largely pertained to personnel matters and don't appear to deal with highly classified material, officials said, but their existence challenges Clinton's claim that she has handed over the entirety of her work emails from the account.

Republicans have raised questions about thousands of emails that she has deleted on grounds that they were private in nature, as well as other messages that have surfaced independently of Clinton and the State Department. Speaking of her emails on CBS' "Face the Nation" this week, Clinton said, "We provided all of them." But the FBI and several congressional committees are investigating.

The State Department's record of Clinton emails begins on March 18, 2009 — almost two months after she entered office. Before then, Clinton has said she used an old AT&T Blackberry email account, the contents of which she no longer can access.

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

92. A kick and thank you for sharing this insight. nt

[Jitter65]

96. So what, they have been pissed at him since he entered the WH. nt

[Scuba]

97. The constitutional scholar doesn't seem to understand the concept of command influence.

Chelsea Manning case comes to mind.

"He broke the law."

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/21/bradley-manning-sentence-birgitta-jonsdottir



Unless it comes to Wall Street. Then it's different ...

I can’t, as President of the United States, comment on the decisions about particular prosecutions. That’s the job of the Justice Department, and we keep those separate so that there’s no political influence on decisions made by professional prosecutors.

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/president-obama-pt-2/

[2cannan]

106. Check out what he said about Snowden

Obama hits Snowden over NSA leaks
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/barack-obama-edward-snowden-nsa-leaks-102316

snip

“Given the fact of an open investigation, I’m not going to dwell on Mr. Snowden’s actions or motivations,” Obama said during a speech at the Justice Department. “Our nation’s defense depends in part on the fidelity of those entrusted with our nation’s secrets. If any individual who objects to government policy can take it in their own hands to publicly disclose classified information, then we will not be able to keep our people safe, or conduct foreign policy.”

Obama also complained that Snowden’s leaks revealed “methods to our adversaries that could impact our operations in ways that we may not fully understand for years to come.”

[Scuba]

118. Nope, that would be, shall we say, sanctimonious.

[Vinca]

98. The POTUS should have remained silent.

If Hillary is cleared, the new talking point will be "cover up." That would be a fair talking point given Obama's remarks.

[antigop]

99. kick nt

[CoffeeCat]

105. Paul, thank you for taking the time to work on

a timeline and for discussing this issue.

So many have absolutely no clue what is happening. I have faith that you will help them to understand. You are a very skilled writer and timelines are your forte.

I have spent maybe 4-5 hours total time (over several weeks) reading about Clinton's email scandal and the FBI investigation.

Once you understand the facts, it is impossible to draw the conclusion that she hasn't broke the law.

This is a complex, multifaceted situation though. If it can't be reduced to a soundbite or two--people don't have time for it. They don't get it yet.

I'm no expert. I'm not brilliant. However, I did spend some time reading. That's all it took to clearly understand that she broke laws.

Thanks again for working to break down this situation into a format that people can understand--and then judge for themselves.

[louis-t]

107. Why is the FBI pissed?

He's giving his opinion. He is not prejudicing the case. FBI should shut up and do their job.

[Tuesday_Morning]

109. Thanks Paul

I really appreciate the work you do.

[WhenTheLeveeBreaks]

110. Crimes have already been proven. The only question is indictment.

Hillary Clinton caused roughly 30,000 "personal" emails to be deleted/destroyed. We already know that some of those emails were work related and were not hers to delete. They were government property.

That's destruction of government property.

The act of destroying/deleting government property was obviously done to obstruct justice.

That's obstruction of justice.

Hillary has already stated that she did not personally sort through the emails to divide into "personal" and "work". She also was not the one who personally deleted the "personal" pile. That means she enlisted someone else to actually do the sorting and deleting. A second person = conspiracy.

That's conspiracy.

The argument needs to shift to how serious are these PROVEN crimes, how many OTHER crimes were committed, whether the Obama Justice Department will actually indict and what happens if they don't?

Remember, choosing not to indict does not prohibit the next President from indicting. A GOP administration would absolutely pick up this ball and see it through. An orange pants suit would absolutely be in Hillary's future. A pardon is the only way for Hillary to be in the clear. I cannot imagine Obama issuing a pardon without requiring her dropping out of the race and releasing her delegates. If he did, I think history would record that Obama may be the most corrupt person ever to hold the office. Is Obama willing to do that for Hillary? I think not.

I don't believe sitting on the ball and running out the clock is possible. The FBI would throw a very public fit and Obama's legacy would go down the toilet.

Regardless of delegates and primaries, I honestly don't think Hillary is going to be the Democratic nominee. My only questions are will it be Bernie or will they parachute someone else in and who would that be?

[pdsimdars]

117. One leak I heard was they the FBI were ready to indict and if the DOJ doesn't prosecute

they will put it out there and it will ruin her career anyway.

[TBF]

120. The sooner the better. nt

[antigop]

121. hey, folks, take a look at this video and see if you notice anything

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/scarborough-tears-into-obama-for-hillary-defense-a-criminal-investigation-is-being-rigged/

Maybe it's just me, but something about it seemed very strange.

Take a look.

[WhenTheLeveeBreaks]

122. I watched the video

The only thing I thought that looked a little strange is that Mika seems extremely concerned not only for Hillary but for Obama as well.