FBI Probes Newly Discovered Hillary Clinton Emails and Reopens Investigation (telegraph.co.uk) 822
The FBI said Friday it is reviewing newly discovered emails related to Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server to determine whether she properly handled classified emails. The reopening of the investigation comes after the FBI recently "learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the Clinton investigation," FBI director James Comey said. Comey added, however, that "FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant." It is also unclear "how long it will take us to complete this additional work." FBI's announcement today is "certain" to become an issue in the final two weeks of the presidential campaign, however. Donald Trump is naturally pleased hearing the news, at New Hampshire, Trump said the new probe offered the FBI the chance to correct a "grave miscarriage of justice." He added, "We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office." Supporters responded with chants of "Lock her up!" Trump added that the email investigation is "bigger than Watergate."
Why are the Chinese involved?! (Score:4, Funny)
"how ling it will take us to complete this additional work."
Who is this Ling and why is there a Chinese agent working on this?!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"how ling it will take us to complete this additional work." Who is this Ling and why is there a Chinese agent working on this?!
I'm assuming it's short for Ling-Ling, the giant panda. She was born in China, but moved to the US when she was very young. In fact, she spent her entire adult life in Washington DC, so she's probably as qualified as anyone inside the beltway to head up this important task. Unfortunately, she's been dead for over two decades, so she certainly won't finish this investigation before election day.
Re:Why are the Chinese involved?! (Score:5, Funny)
* Despite being a male panda, Ling Ling's name meant "darling little girl" in Chinese.
And they wonder why we have trouble breeding them in captivity.
Alt title: FBI attempts to appease masses (Score:5, Insightful)
However, they do plan to take 5 years to analyze the data, then decide that despite being complete flagrant violations of Federal law, the information leaked is no longer a national security issue, so they will not recommend any charges.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Alt title: FBI attempts to appease masses (Score:5, Interesting)
More reasonable, IMO, is the intelligence agencies feel threatened politically post-snowden.
As such, they want dirt/leverage over who they consider will be the next president.
An open and ongoing investigation is powerful leverage to avoid cutting intelligence budgets, or revoking mandates.
Corrections and more (Score:5, Informative)
1. They did not say [cbsnews.com] that they are reopening the investigation. The memo itself makes that clear [twimg.com].
2. The emails are related to the server, but not from Clinton [twitter.com]
Pete Williams is reporting that the emails have A) nothing to do with Wikileaks, and B) were not withheld by Clinton.
Beyond that, we know very, very little right now. Actually it's rather bizarre that Comey would throw a bombshell like this 11 days before the election. But let's see where it goes.
Re:Corrections and more (Score:4, Interesting)
1. They did not say [cbsnews.com] that they are reopening the investigation. The memo itself makes that clear [twimg.com].
I'm not sure how you can make such a claim, since the memo you linked states "...and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation."
Furthermore, nothing else in that memo makes the point you pretend it does.
Re:Corrections and more (Score:4, Insightful)
"Actually it's rather bizarre that Comey would throw a bombshell like this 11 days before the election."
I know, right?
You'd figure $600k to Coney's wife's political campaign would have settled the issue once and for all, no?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
She & Bill have transferred almost 2 million dollars from accounts in the USA, to Dubai. Now why do that? Planning on fleeing the country on November the 9th if you lose?
When your political opponent is threatening to throw you in jail if they win, having a fallback may be prudent. Shit, I'd flee too if I thought Trump was going to win at this point.
Re: (Score:3)
Threatening to appoint a special prosecutor to actually look into all the crimes that have been uncovered in the Podesta emails is a far cry from simply throwing someone in jail. It probably won't matter, though--Obama can simply pardon her before leaving. If he's not willing to, that will tell you something right there. There's actually no love lost between the two, if you read the emails. They're already mad at Obama for not owning up to knowing about her private server usage. So he's hopefully too s
Re:NYTimes, Washingon Post etc (Score:4, Insightful)
When your political opponent is threatening to throw you in jail if they win
Are you actually that dumb, or just pretending you can't parse the words so you can pretend you're that dumb so you can fake being outraged so you can try to provide a corrupt Clinton some cover with what you hope is a low-information audience? Which is it?
She said she was glad someone like him wasn't in charge of law enforcement. And he said that if someone like him had been, she'd be in jail. And he's right. The only reason she wasn't indicted was because her political supporters run the only entity that gets a say in the matter. If a more objective, and less subservient-to-the-Clinton-machine DoJ had been making the call based on the evidence presented, she'd be in the same sort of legal jeopardy that other people have seen for doing far, far less.
Does this mean... (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder if the FBI, in their 'unrelated investigation' found evidence of 'intent'?
Re: (Score:3)
No, the first investigation cleared her, and the FBI director, who was in-the-loop but not part of the investigation, said those nasty things about her.
Will the recently arrested NSA "leaker" be let off (Score:5, Insightful)
The first investigation found that she was grossly negligent and irresponsible in her handling of classified material - what they didn't find was 'intent'.
Will the recently arrested NSA "leaker" be let off like her? After all the FBI seems to be saying that so far there was no intent to distribute the classified materials he had at home. So he too is merely guilty of have classified material on a personal computer without permission.
Re:Does this mean... (Score:5, Informative)
No, they did find intent - they just refused to say that they found intent.
I've posted this before, but I guess that I'll have to keep reposting it every time someone claims there was no proof of intent.
Transcript of Gowdy questioning Comey. Lots of context, but note the bolded section:
Gowdy: Secretary Clinton said "I did not e-mail any classified information to anyone on my e-mail there was no classified material." That is true?
Comey: There was classified information emailed.
Gowdy: Secretary Clinton used one device, was that true?
Comey: She used multiple devices during the four years of her term as Secretary of State.
Gowdy: Secretary Clinton said all work related emails were returned to the State Department. Was that true?
Comey: No. We found work related email, thousands, that were not returned.
Gowdy: Secretary Clinton said neither she or anyone else deleted work related emails from her personal account.
Comey: That's a harder one to answer. We found traces of work related emails in — on devices or in space. Whether they were deleted or when a server was changed out something happened to them, there's no doubt that the work related emails that were removed electronically from the email system.
Gowdy: Secretary Clinton said her lawyers read every one of the emails and were overly inclusive. Did her lawyers read the email content individually?
Comey: No.
Gowdy: Well, in the interest of time and because I have a plane to catch tomorrow afternoon, I'm not going to go through any more of the false statements but I am going to ask you to put on your old hat. False exculpatory statements are used for what?
Comey: Well, either for a substantive prosecution or evidence of intent in a criminal prosecution.
Gowdy: Exactly. Intent and consciousness of guilt, right?
Comey: That is right?
Gowdy: Consciousness of guilt and intent? In your old job you would prove intent as you referenced by showing the jury evidence of a complex scheme that was designed for the very purpose of concealing the public record and you would be arguing in addition to concealment the destruction that you and i just talked about or certainly the failure to preserve. You would argue all of that under the heading of content. You would also — intent. You would also be arguing the pervasiveness of the scheme when it started, when it ended and the number of emails whether They were originally classified or of classified under the heading of intent. You would also, probably, under common scheme or plan, argue the burn bags of daily calendar entries or the missing daily calendar entries as a common scheme or plan to conceal.
Two days ago, Director, you said a reasonable person in her position should have known a private email was no place to send and receive classified information. You're right. An average person does know not to do that.
This is no average person. This is a former First Lady, a former United States senator, and a former Secretary of State that the president now contends is the most competent, qualified person to be president since Jefferson. He didn't say that in '08 but says it now.
She affirmatively rejected efforts to give her a state.gov account, kept the private emails for almost two years and only turned them over to Congress because we found out she had a private email account.
So you have a rogue email system set up before she took the oath of office, thousands of what we now know to be classified emails, some of which were classified at the time. One of her more frequent email comrades was hacked and you don't know whether or not she was.
And this scheme took place over a long period of time and resulted in the destruction of public records and yet you say there is insufficient evidence of
The FBI is not reopening the case. (Score:5, Informative)
Correction: the FBI is not reopening the case, they're assessing some emails that they found in a different investigation to see if they are relevant. If they are relevant to Clinton, and if they contain classified information, then it's possible in the future that they might reopen the case. But that's not what the FBI said - that's all speculation by politicians looking for a "hook" to keep attacking Clinton.
Re:The FBI is not reopening the case. (Score:4, Insightful)
For all intents and purposes it's a re-open of the case. Technically it's a new investigation, but it's in regards to more emails from the same server.
Re: (Score:3)
Is Comey still in charge of the investigation? (Score:3, Interesting)
I hope that this time round they made damn sure that Comey or anyone else that has shared business interests with the Clintons can't have anything to do with the new investigation.
Re:Is Comey still in charge of the investigation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? Comey - a Republican - is being criticized for Democrats for organizing an 11-days-before-the-election hit-and-run against her, and your argument is that he's biased toward her? And that's why he did this 11 days before the election, I take it?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently Anthony Weiner is under FBI investigati (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sorry (Score:4, Funny)
Everyone, before you judge me, please think back to when you made a bad call, and had a joke go a little too far.
Trump says the election is rigged, but he is too nice to tell you who did it. If Clinton gets subpoenaed, though, it's going to come out anyway. I don't want everyone to go off half-cocked, so I have decided to come forward now.
I made a bet with my brother. It started out as innocent fun. I said, "I bet I can make the Republicans lose the presidential election, by tricking them into nominating the very worst loser they possibly can." He said, "oh yeah? I can make the Democrats lose the election. Same strategy, different tactics." At stake, a single six-pack of IPA. It was a joke! At the time, we didn't intend it to get out-of-hand. But then, you know, you see little ways you can get your little virtual avatar a step foward, and not thinking it would really result in any real-world consequences, you go ahead. Or you're confident that you've got it, and next thing you know, he's taking Bernie off the board! (That was amazing; I didn't know my brother was smart enough to figure out how to do that.) Next thing I know, we're having heated arguments. "Nuh uh! You'll never get yours nominated! People aren't that stupid. They don't want their party to lose." "Yeah, huh!" We have played so many war games and simulations and such, they're all just abstractions to us. It was so easy to forget this one was more real, than say, Clash of Clans.
Needless to say, once the nominations happened, we realized the horror of it all, and the bet was off! We aren't pushing the players around anymore. We have already split the cost of the sixpack and drank it together. It's over. Well, over except the election itself. But we're not pulling the strings anymore, and if my old account (running on autopilot, I guess) wins, I can't legitimately lord that over my brother, or vice-versa.
Look, people, I know it looks ugly, but it actually isn't really all that bad. You don't have to vote for our people. Just vote against them. There are plenty of people running for president, and at least one of them is probably actually pretty close to your own politics. (Even with good candidates, you wouldn't expect those two parties to have matched very many people anyway; peoples' opinions have way more diversity than that!) You'll do fine. Just curse us for our little prank and vote against our avatars. We will bear the shame. You need not.
And yes, I'm sorry! I won't do it again. Promise.
Yanno (Score:4)
If the FBI didn't bother to bring charges the first time around with the evidence of mishandling classified information being as obvious as it can get, does anyone believe anything will come of a sequel ?
The only thing it would do is show the World a second time that the DOJ is either corrupt, incompetent or both.
That the rule of law is selectively applied depending on who you are, who your friends are and how big your bank account is.
At this point, there is no fucking way the establishment will allow all the work they've poured into their darling candidate to get undermined by any pesky laws designed for us lower class types.
This is the favored candidate. You will vote for her and you will like it. Everone else is a racist Russian sympathizer or a member of the HeMan-woman-haters-club.
Imagine the shit she'll get away with once she's in charge.
Crime doesn't pay my ass. . .
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, I'll see myself out now.
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:5, Funny)
Copies still exist. (Score:5, Interesting)
Afraid not, we have copies of a lot of damning stuff thanks to Podesta. And just for comedy, it's coming out that this new FBI investigation came about because they were investigating Democratic Rep. Anthony Wiener [wikipedia.org] (the infamous sexter [wikipedia.org]) who recently divorced Huma Abedin [wikipedia.org], one of Hillary's closest aids.
Source [wikileaks.org]
Source [wikileaks.org]
Source [fbi.gov] (n.b. this is from FBI, not Wikileaks).
The DKIM signatures also say the emails are unmodified and signed by hillaryclinton.com. Feel free to validate them yourselves.
Just for bonus points, here's Hillary talking about how they should've rigged the Palestinian elections. [observer.com]
Listen to Hillary talking about rigging those elections here. [soundcloud.com]
This is a tiny sample from a huge list of damaging emails [mostdamagi...ileaks.com], too.
There's never been a better time to vote 3rd party.
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:4, Insightful)
Mittens had "binders of women" to ensure that, should he win, he would be sure to have a large list of qualified women to appoint and hire. He didn't say he HAD them, he said that women's groups had DELIVERED "binders full of women" to him.
"I had the chance to pull together a cabinet, and all the applicants seemed to be men... I went to a number of women's groups and said, 'Can you help us find folks?' and they brought us whole binders full of women."
This is Romney being sure that he couldn't be accused of being sexist, being sure that the "war on women" thing wouldn't apply to him, by working with people on both sides to avoid even the APPEARANCE of sexism.
It became, of course, "proof" of his sexism, with predictable media slant.
The message was clear: any Republican, whether or not they are sexist, will be painted as sexist by the media, the painting will be fully effective.
ALL this accomplished was the removal of "is not a sexist" from the list of requirements for Republican presidential candidates- after all, you'll be considered a sexist just for having (R) by your name, no matter your history, intentions, or statements.
I wonder if that had any effect? Now that you've opened up the pool of Republican presidential candidates to sexists, what would be the end result of that? Hrm....
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, Comey should drop out of the investigation, and someone else at the FBI should take over from him. He is either stupid, or compromised, or both.
And Trump is in no position to drive this or any other thing. Only people who can is the Obama administration. Yeah, WikiLeaks has been exposing all this, but they already have the standard template response of Putin pulling their strings, so why are they so worried?
Wouldn't matter (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, Comey should drop out of the investigation, and someone else at the FBI should take over from him. He is either stupid, or compromised, or both.
Wouldn't matter [foxnews.com]. Apparently everyone on the investigation *except* Comey wanted her indicted:
The decision to let Hillary Clinton off the hook for mishandling classified information has roiled the FBI and Department of Justice, with one person closely involved claiming that career agents and attorneys on the case unanimously believed the Democratic presidential nominee should have been charged.
“No trial level attorney agreed, no agent working the case agreed, with the decision not to prosecute — it was a top-down decision,” said the source, whose identity and role in the case has been verified by FoxNews.com.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:5, Interesting)
I am not a Trump supporter, but I do not want the FBI and the AG to drop this investigation. It's clear that Hillary is guilty of breaking multiple laws, but because her party has power in the executive branch, she's not being held accountable to the degree that anyone else in the country would be.
My solution for the whole thing is to not put up Trump signs, but to put up "Hillary for Prison 2016" signs. She'll make a terrible president. Trump will make a terrible president. What I'm secretly hoping for is that McMullin [fivethirtyeight.com] figures out how to sneak in, people take Kotlikoff [kotlikoff2016.com] seriously as a write-in candidate, or that something terrible happens to Trump/Clinton when they win and the VP has to take over.
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, I'll bite... which laws has she broken?
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.law.cornell.edu/us... [cornell.edu]
Note, intent is not required for a violation of section (f), merely "extreme carelessness" aka "gross negligence".
Re:How McMullin? (Score:4, Insightful)
But if we have a hung result, why would the GOP vote in McMullin as the president elect instead of Trump, who has been their democratically elected nominee?
Two fairly obvious reasons:
- The GOP establishment hates Trump. Sure, they're backing him now because they have to oppose the Democrats' nominee, but if they had another option they might take it.
- Trump's support among the people has slipped pretty dramatically since he won the nomination. I'd bet that if we got a do-over on the primaries, that he'd lose pretty convincingly. That could give the leadership the justification they need to switch to someone else.
It would probably still be a long shot, but I could see it happening. (Assuming for the moment that it was realistic that we could end up with neither major-party candidate getting a majority of the electoral vote.)
Re:How McMullin? (Score:4, Insightful)
Trump's support has not slipped, it's grown. Difference is that during the primaries, people were looking at just the GOP electorate, and Trump's support levels among them, and there, he was always hovering about 30-40%. Just assuming that the GOP voters were 50% of the electorate, that would make his total support 15-20%. Today, it's somewhere around 40% of the total population.
Also, since Trump won, there are Congressmen and Senators who were happy to back him. Yeah, some of them panicked a few weeks ago when the hot mike videos came out, but once the election is over and it's just up to them, they'd support who their voters supported. So I don't see them electing McMullin either. In fact, considering that no major UT official has supported Trump, McMullin should be carrying his home state and Trump should be getting 0% there, but that's not happening: in fact, Trump is still the leader, albeit a plurality rather than a majority.
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think 99.9% of Trump supporters have a problem with a female president. They have a problem with THIS female as president. If she supported their positions on things and wasn't horrible corruption incarnate, they would be more than happy to vote for her.
Re: (Score:3)
think the favorite female president of the Trump supporters would be Katrina Pearson or Judge Jeanene Pirro
Condoleezza Rice.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:5, Insightful)
whiny asshats that don't like Hillary because she's a woman
No. I would've supported a President Jill Stein. I believe she'd be a better choice than Donald Trump.
I cannot support Hillary because she is corrupt. The depth of her corruption is breathtaking and her blatant disregard for the rule of law is a danger to the republic.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The depth of Republicans spending three decades trying to convince Americans that she's corrupt is what's breathtaking. How many bloody investigations have they held into her? Now, how many times has she been convicted?
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:4, Insightful)
Stalin wasn't ever convicted of crimes against humanity either. Was he a good leader?
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:4, Funny)
Stalin wasn't ever convicted of crimes against humanity either. Was he a good leader?
Only in comparison to Trump.
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been hearing this naive and silly response a lot lately. Libs with agendas forget that it took that long to finally nail Al Capone. Hillary is the new Al Capone. Just because multiple investigations don't result in her direct prosecution doesn't mean she isn't guilty. In fact, in a number of investigations she was found guilty, there was just no real penalty (i.e. White House Travel Staff). Point in fact, Comey said she did violate laws related to handling classified material but that no prosecutor would attempt to prosecute the case so they recommended that the DOJ NOT press charges. But lying Hillary and others like yourself, run around saying that the FBI found her not guilty. False. They said she was guilty but that they thought it wasn't worth while. Meanwhile Bill Clinton is running interference with the DOJ on an airplane and the chief FBI investigator's wife is getting $800,000 in campaign donations from Hillary's "friends". It's no wonder Comey said it wasn't worth investigating. This is classic mafia-style tactics; racketeering. So remember, Al Capone murdered by the dozens for years but was never convicted of murder but he was never convicted of it. That doesn't mean he wasn't a murderer and likewise the lack of a conviction to date for Hillary doesn't mean she's not thoroughly corrupt.
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:5, Insightful)
So it was the Republicans who set up Clinton Foundation and traded favors and money like candy?
MSNBC reaction [youtube.com] to the latest Wikileaks Clinton Foundation leak. (for those not familiar with American news outlets; MSNBC is a left-leaning organization and normally a cheerleader for Democrats)
Now, how many times has she been convicted?
Lack of conviction can mean two things. 1) person is innocent, or 2) person is guilty but the accusers couldn't come up with enough evidence and/or the person is very good at dodging the legal system (perhaps because they're a trained lawyer)
It's pretty fucking clear by now that Clinton belongs in category 2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Right, after all he was never convicted of murder, conspiracy to murder, illegal alcohol sales, prostitution, illegal gambling, bribery, intimidation, etc.
Clean as a Clinton!
Re: (Score:3)
Now, how many times has she been convicted?
Do we apply a statistical correction for being Clinton, a power politician, and currently running for president? I'm going with 27. She's been convicted 27 times in normal people adjusted terms.
If a candidate drops out... (Score:5, Interesting)
Uh, no. If she were to drop out now, the ballots couldn't be undone, but Tim Kaine, as the surviving member of the ticket, would become president if the Dems win. Nobody would have to be written in. Similarly, had Trump dropped out or anything happened to him, Pence would become the president in the event of a GOP win
This is a point also made in 1998 during the impeachment hearings on Bill Clinton. Dems were at the time fighting tooth and nail to save him, but had they gone along w/ the GOP and impeached Clinton, Algore would have become president, and he would have had the liberty to hire someone more to his liking than Joe Lieberman.
That's not how it works (Score:3, Informative)
Uh, no. If she were to drop out now, the ballots couldn't be undone, but Tim Kaine, as the surviving member of the ticket, would become president if the Dems win.
That's not how it works.
If the candidate cannot finish the race for some reason (death or infirmity is the supposed scenario), the party chooses a new candidate. That's Democratic party rules.
In this particular situation, and so close to the election they would *probably* select Tim Kaine, but the party is not obliged to choose him.
Re:If a candidate drops out... (Score:5, Insightful)
That was kind of my thought a few months ago, how nice it would be if Trump and Clinton both dropped out and it was Pence vs Kaine.
I've thought for a while that it would be to the benefit of the country and both parties to form a pact that, regardless of who wins the election, congress will immediately impeach them.
Re:If a candidate drops out... (Score:5, Funny)
For the same reason we'd impeach Hillary. Because even a retarded chimpanzee could do a better job of being President than either one of them.
Re: (Score:3)
Because what the Republicans needed was TWO people who have no idea what they're talking about running on the same ballot.
Santorum doesn't even know the 9th Amendment exists and Trump thinks freedom of the press doesn't apply to anything he says.
Re: (Score:3)
I was hoping Trump would pick Gingrich as his VP candidate, imagine the sheer hilarity of a 2-nutjob ticket! XD
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:5, Insightful)
As the loser of a fixed race, are you sure he still feels that way?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Right, just like the GOP rigs it's internal game and always has; they just screwed up this time because none of the clowns the put up could yell as long or loud or bloviate as wildly at the Trumpster.
If you think the GOP is blameless at this game, go look into what happened in 1976 between Reagan and Ford. Political Brass knuckles is what happened: horse trading, double-crossing, and every power game you can think of and the Reagan (then the outsider) clique almost took the party away from the professionals
Re:FIXED!!! (Score:4, Informative)
While it's true that the GOP establishment wanted a different outcome, the difference was that Reince Priebus did not interfere in the process when it was a contest, except for a couple of occasions, like making all candidates sign the pledge, or asking them not to make the debate R-rated.
While Trump was right to an extent about the rigging in that there were some states where he got more votes than Cruz but ended up w/ less delegates, the process was still fair (even if the mechanism was weird). But the RNC did not interfere, even though the Congressional GOP tried to, by getting Nikki Haley to endorse Rubio and set up SC as a firewall against Trump, which didn't happen. Also, the support for Trump in the party was so overwhelming and crossed every faction of the party that even though the number of real candidates were down to 3 (and 2 after Rubio dropped out following his debacle in FL), it's not obvious that it would have worked either.
Re: (Score:3)
At the end of the day people vote. It doesn't matter if the party machinery is neutral or not; she won fair and square. It's not like the party machinery could count the votes for her twice and Bernie once.
That's not what they said in emails (Score:5, Informative)
In the leaked emails other Democrats were freaking out about Hillay's email. It is a huge problem and ignoring it is insane.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It won't be a huge problem, because it's just a mountain of evidence that Hillary is the most corrupt politician in US history. No one cares. The general acceptance that pay-for-play is "just how the government works now" makes everything a non-scandal.
Re:That's not what they said in emails (Score:5, Interesting)
Not that Comey isn't trying to fix that. Interesting tweetstorm from former DOJ spokesman Matthew Miller:
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It may be a stupid-ass canard, but can it work? I imagine right now every congressman and senator with an R after their name is leaning hard on every unofficial FBI contact they have to investigate hard any tiny infraction, just because it makes Hillary look bad - and if they investigate hard enough and from enough angles, eventually something has to stick. No person is entirely law-abiding.
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't understand it at all.
If Trump loses, the Republican party will have been dealt a terrible setback that will take years to recover from.
If Trump wins, the Republican party is over.
At this point, nobody should be pulling harder for Hillary than the Republican establishment.
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the Republican leadership might regard Trump as a manipulatable puppet. It is better to have an inept poser in the white house who will advance the positions the party advocates than a competent person who will actively fight against those positions. With any luck he'll just strut around, occasionally say something offensive, but mostly just carry out what is one of the main responsibilities of any modern president: Put on a big show and serve as a focal point for the public while congress and the network of commitees, subcommitees and appointees gets on with the task of actually running the country.
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:4, Insightful)
> Republican leadership might regard Trump as a manipulatable puppet
This guy is campaigning on a platform that includes congressional term limits, has promised to appoint a special prosecutor, and is openly calling on everyone to be aware of voter fraud and even election fraud, which calls the entire democratic process into question (reminder: the only reason our government is considered legitimate is because of the democratic process). Meanwhile, almost all of his scandals and problems come from him doing whatever the fuck he wants to anyone he wants, at any time he wants.
If anyone thinks that Trump is their puppet, they are fucking deluded. I seriously doubt the RNC thinks that for one second.
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:5, Informative)
Not to mention the fact that Commey and the FBI laid out every facet to convict, but stated that they didnt prosecute because they didnt think they could make a case that she intended to commit a crime. Intent is not a factor for conviction. An act (or lack of action) is a crime, or its not. Intent is a potential factor in sentencing, not in gaining a conviction. The FBI already laid out that she is unequivocally guilty. That ship has sailed.
It's strongly believed now that Commey (and Lynch and Obama) are being heavily pressured by whistleblowers within the FBI that there every criteria was already met to prosecute, and were going to come forward with the damning details if the FBI didnt reopen the case and treat it with equal justice under the law.
And dont forget that the case was dropped the first time after Clinton's husband, a former US President, met in private with the sitting Secratary of Justice, Loretta Lynch. If there's evidence now that the conversation was not in fact specific to yoga, and their kid, then the scope of the investigation could (and should) increase to whether or not there was prosecutorial misconduct, obstruction of justice, and corruption within the Dept of Justice, ALL under Obama.
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, for most crimes and for most of our history, intent, or mens rea has been a vital component of criminal convictions. Only regulatory infractions don't require mens rea, or at least that was the case until recently. Congress has been creating "strict liability" crimes for some time now. This has been a big issue with civil libertarian types. I think it started with things like statutory rape and kiddie porn... but it has spread pretty far afield.
The irony is that in this particular case... in the case of the law that Comey was citing, mens rea is not a factor. It specifically excludes intent in the statute. A fact that has been pointed out repeatedly by partisans and legal pedants.
Re:Because you can re-open any investigation (Score:4, Interesting)
If people continue to find new, relevent emails from that period, then there's a pattern of ongoing deception to hide emails from a legal Congressional investigation. That's called obstruction.
Re: (Score:3)
How can you say it's been fully investigated when so much evidence was destroyed? They are still finding evidence.
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:4, Interesting)
On other facets you're flat our wrong. Here's a transcript of the exchange between Comey and Congressman Trey Gowdy during the Congressional hearing after the investigation was initially closed:
Gowdy: Good morning, Director Comey. Secretary Clinton said she never sent or received any classified information over her private e-mail, was that true?
Comey: Our investigation found that there was classified information sent, three seperate times in this exchange alone.
Gowdy: It was not true?
Comey: That's what I said.
Gowdy: OK. Well, I'm looking for a shorter answer so you and I are not here quite as long. Secretary Clinton said there was nothing marked classified on her e-mails sent or received. Was that true?
Comey: That's not true. There were a small number of portion markings on I think three of the documents.
Gowdy: Secretary Clinton said "I did not e-mail any classified information to anyone on my e-mail there was no classified material." That is true?
Comey: There was classified information emailed.
Gowdy: Secretary Clinton used one device, was that true?
Comey: She used multiple devices during the four years of her term as Secretary of State.
Gowdy: Secretary Clinton said all work related emails were returned to the State Department. Was that true?
Comey: No. We found work related email, thousands, that were not returned.
Gowdy: Secretary Clinton said neither she or anyone else deleted work related emails from her personal account.
Comey: That's a harder one to answer. We found traces of work related emails in — on devices or in space. Whether they were deleted or when a server was changed out something happened to them, there's no doubt that the work related emails that were removed electronically from the email system.
Gowdy: Secretary Clinton said her lawyers read every one of the emails and were overly inclusive. Did her lawyers read the email content individually?
Comey: No.
Gowdy: Well, in the interest of time and because I have a plane to catch tomorrow afternoon, I'm not going to go through any more of the false statements but I am going to ask you to put on your old hat. Faults exculpatory statements are used for what?
Comey: Well, either for a substantive prosecution or evidence of intent in a criminal prosecution.
Gowdy: Exactly. Intent and consciousness of guilt, right?
Comey: That is right?
Gowdy: Consciousness of guilt and intent? In your old job you would prove intent as you referenced by showing the jury evidence of a complex scheme that was designed for the very purpose of concealing the public record and you would be arguing in addition to concealment the destruction that you and i just talked about or certainly the failure to preserve.
You would argue all of that under the heading of content. You would also — intent. You would also be arguing the pervasiveness of the scheme when it started, when it ended and the number of emails whether
They were originally classified or of classified under the heading of intent. You would also, probably, under common scheme or plan, argue the burn bags of daily calendar entries or the missing daily calendar entries as a common scheme or plan to conceal.
Two days ago, Director, you said a reasonable person in her position should have known a private email was no place to send and receive classified information. You're right. An average person does know not to do that.
This is no average person. This is a former First Lady, a former United States senator, and a former Secretary of State tha
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:4, Insightful)
There's some pretty damning stuff about the Clinton Foundation in those emails (the crime Hillary was hiding by the felonies she committed with the server). No one cares, of course, because we're all struggling under the weight of corruption fatigue. The smoking gun that Hillary took millions to support the likes of Qatar (the last bastion of mass slavery in the modern world, with ISIS-funding government - very evil fuckers) is just a big "meh".
We expect all the politicians to be corrupt. So Hillary is the most corrupt politician in US history? Exceeds expectations - let's promote her! Even the right has no fucks left to give at this point.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There's some pretty damning stuff about the Clinton Foundation in those emails (the crime Hillary was hiding by the felonies she committed with the server). No one cares, of course, because we're all struggling under the weight of corruption fatigue.
What's the damning stuff? The hint that big donations lead to influence with the candidate? That's completely standard politics, if you want to be sure you can meet with a politician donate a pile of cash to them, the only difference here is the donations went to a charity rather than the candidate's campaign fund.
Hell, it's standard practice for President's to give Ambassadorships to big donors. Are you going to claim that the possibility that Clinton gave extra access to charity donors is really so much w
Hillbullies (Score:3, Informative)
Even the other Democratic candidate considers it a non-issue, and has said so since the very beginning of the primaries campaign:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
This is nothing more than a stupid-ass canard that Trump and his alt-right goonsquad are clinging to in order to distract from the real issues and the fact that they have no answers and their entire campaign is built around racism, misogyny, and xenophobic isolationism.
Real issue, such as Clinton supporters being bullies [dilbert.com]?
There's not a one among you who can rub two words together without insulting someone [twitter.com].
Delete the insults from any pro-Clinton position and you have nothing left!
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:5, Interesting)
This is nothing more than a stupid-ass canard that Trump and his alt-right goonsquad are clinging to in order to distract from the real issues and the fact that they have no answers and their entire campaign is built around racism, misogyny, and xenophobic isolationism.
Well that's the problem, isn't it? Most enthusiastic Trump supporters obviously have their heads in the clouds but, with statements like that, obviously so do people like you.
misogyny
Every fence-sitter, Trump supporter and even many Hillary supporters I know realize that his campaign is not "built around" misogyny. That's fucking ridiculous and you know it. Don't mix up character criticism with policy criticism. In regards to policy, he's make some token anti-abortion remarks, very clumsily, because people were telling him that he had to work on his appeal to the base. That's it. In practice, everyone realizes he's most likely the least anti-abortion Republican we've seen in recent years.
racism
Blacks: He's supporting the cops 100% as a ploy more or less. Any right-thinking individual would prefer he take a more nuanced approach (but the mainstream BLM party line on this isn't any more nuanced; it's just biased in the other direction.) I don't think you can plausibly expand this to call it a racist platform. He's pro-police. He's never made it about race. And frankly, to combat police brutality (which is still a problem, obviously) you really should leave the race arguments at home. Whether it's true or not true, they bring very little to the table... they have nothing to do with effective solutions.
Latinos: I've very little patience for most of these arguments. First off, his criticism of the "Mexican" judge was dumb, not racist, but even his own party couldn't properly parse that one (he was arguing that the man was biased due to his own ethnic group. This is not a racist thing to allege unless you are saying that all Mexicans are biased against him, which given his other comments he very clearly was not saying.)
As far as the "rapes and murderers" thing, there is indeed a shitton of terrifying violence along the border of Mexico and some of it does spill over. Any reasonable person living in those states should be concerned about the deterioration over the past few years, even if the amount that's been spilling over has been fairly limited until now. Trump was of course sensationalist and dumb as usual in this area (and in particular, a physical wall would of course be irredeemably stupid), but if millions of people have managed to make it across the border then I would say that's a decent argument for better border control just about any way you look at it. (With the path to citizenship thing being a separate issue that we can all probably strongly disagree on.)
Very, very few countries have or tolerate massive illegal immigration on the scale we've seen. It's not a ugly, racist American thing to want that situation to change, and if you're not concerned about violence in Northern Mexico you're either ignorant or apathetic. (Of course, where I differ from Trump on this issue is I would immediately scale back the war on drugs as much as possible, which will ultimately dry up the revenue streams that support the gangs.)
xenophobic isolationism
Muslims! Ok now, look motherfucker, you have two easy choices here:
Easy option #1: We stay out of peoples' business, keep to ourselves and don't go looking for trouble. That last bit means we certainly don't import any significant number of immigrants from places like Syria (I said "immigrants" because it is wrong to blanketly call them all "refugees", because we've seen a mountain of evidence that many of them are obviously economic migrants. Many of them aren't even from Syria.) Why? Because terrorist attacks are disruptive in every way imaginable (includ
Re: (Score:3)
"crooked" Hillary Clinton "goofy" Elizabeth Warren, aka (in his mind) Pocahontas
Lyin' Ted, Little Marco, Crazy Bernie. So it's misogyny when he treats women equally, is it? This is the exact thing I'm talking about here. It's people like you who are sabotaging the momentum the left was bequeathed after Iraq. The alt-right is built first and foremost on a rejection of self-flagellation and inferiority complex politics (racism is secondary and not as universally subscribed, although it is alarmingly common.)
'Pocahontas' has nothing to do with misogyny that I can see, and I'd go fur
Had Bernie won... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Had Bernie won... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Had Bernie won... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Had Bernie won... (Score:5, Insightful)
Had Sanders been the candidate, he would have been running 15 points ahead of Trump right now
And Rubio would be crushing Clinton had he won. It doesn't matter at this point.
Had Rubio won (Score:3)
Not really. The same dirt that they're digging up on Trump now would have been dug up on Rubio - his absenteeism in the senate, his past loans, his usage of a party credit card... He may have explained that satisfactorily during the campaign, but they'd have been brought back to haunt him
Re:Had Bernie won... (Score:4, Insightful)
This election is is a referendum on antidisestablishmentarianism - left vs right barely enters into it. Both Trump and Sanders ran a disestablishmentarian campaign. Given the choice between the two (and the inevitable third-party establishment candidate), Bernie is a far more presentable candidate than Trump, and would have walked away with most of the "fed up" vote (e.g., all the female vote).
Re:Had Bernie won... (Score:5, Funny)
Rephrasing your post:
Clinton = antidisestablishmentarian
Trump = disestablishmentarian
Sanders = supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Re:Had Bernie won... (Score:4, Informative)
Plenty of people WILL vote for Gary Johnson. He's on track to set records for libertarian votes, both by number and by percentage. The historical record I think is 1% of the vote. Johnson has polled way higher than that: even if those votes don't turn out, it seems VERY likely that he'll storm past the old 1% barrier.
But that's not what you are asking. You aren't asking, "why won't 3rd parties get at least 3% of the vote". You are asking "why don't the 3rd party votes actually add up to enough to elect one of them".
This is because of several reasons!
1st- We have a "plurality" voting system in almost every state. That means that whichever candidate gets the MOST votes, gets ALL the electoral votes for that state. That means that if you have two similar candidates and one liberal candidate, that the liberal candidate can win, even if the sum of the two conservative candidates greatly eclipsed that liberal candidate. Knowing this, people will normally vote for the major party candidate. With something like Instant Runoff Voting, or Condorcet, you might not see this.
2nd- Lesser known, the electoral college ONLY succeeds in electing a candidate if a MAJORITY of electoral votes are delivered for that candidate. So if, out of 538 possible electoral votes, candidate A gets 268, candidate B gets 255, and candidate C gets 15 votes, the winner is... up to the House of Representatives. Who can vote in any of the top three candidates in terms of electoral college votes.
3- Because of this, a vote for a Green candidate is perceived as "stealing" a vote from the Democrat, and a vote for a Libertarian or Constitution party member is perceived as "stealing" a vote from a Republican. I disagree with this sentiment strongly, but that's the general idea behind it, and I don't see it changing until we have a voting system that is something beyond plurality voting at the state level.
So if you assume that your vote might matter, and you disagree strongly with a major party candidate, agree strongly with a third party candidate, and agree somewhat with a major party candidate, you are VERY likely to vote for the major party candidate that you agree somewhat with.
Re:Had Bernie won... (Score:4, Informative)
Not in any RED state he wouldn't.
At least here in Texas, arguably the only important red state, one cannot even vote for Sanders because he has registered as a candidate and chosen a running mate. Simply writing his name on a ballot will cause your vote to not count at all.
So those wanting to protest vote are forced to dig a bit deeper. But yes, he's the only candidate I would have voted for this year. Instead I was voting against two assholes.
Re: Had Bernie won... (Score:3)
Splitting the Democrat vote isn't the same thing as winning Republican votes...
Re:Obama will pardon her (Score:5, Interesting)
Ford preempted prosecution of Nixon (Score:3, Informative)
IF Clinton were successfully prosecuted and unable to serve then Kaine would be sworn in. More likely Obama will pardon her to prevent such chaos and enable her to serve.
Doesn't one need to be convicted before a pardon could be granted? Think the DOJ could get its conviction of HRC before Obama left office?
No. Nixon was neither convicted nor impeached when he was pardoned by Ford. Ford wanted to preempt any prosecution.
Re:Oh drop it already (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, vote for the vaxxer-apologist who wants a moratorium on pesticides and whose primary economic policy initiative - ordering the Fed use quantitative easing to forgive student debt - is based on a complete misunderstanding of the relationship between the government and the Fed, and what quantitative easing even is.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
No, because Bernie has a clue. Jill Stein, not so much.
Re: (Score:3)
Not if ALL Hitlery voters moved to Stein. You'd then have a Dem-Green coalition up against Trump.
To get a Dem-Green coalition together you would probably need a Dem to lead the ticket maybe some one like Al Fraken, I can see it now
FrakenStien2016
But the Midwest wouldn't vote for that they would just get the torches and pitchforks out...
Re: (Score:3)
How many of the emails have you actually read, and which ones specifically are you basing that on?
Re:Nobody (Score:5, Insightful)
And even if all politicians are corrupt, they still vary by degrees of corruption. Remove the worst offenders and the average corruption of the whole goes down.
Re:Nobody (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Next wiki dump coming (Score:4, Insightful)
Apparently, there is suppose to be another dump sometime next week which according to wiki (doubt if I believe it) should "get Hillary arrested". Now, as much as I think the Clinton's are crooks, and should be in jail, I doubt it will happen.
Then why wait a week before the election?If it's something big enough to get her arrested immediately they should release it now. Anything else would take too long through the system that she couldn't even be charged until after the election, just due to investigation necessary given the source and circumstances of the release.
Interesting though, the Clinton's have transferred over 2 million dollars from their accounts in the USA, to Dubai. Are they planning some sort of escape in the near future, to a country that will not extradite them to the USA? Why transfer all of your assets to another country?
I'd say $2 million hardly counts as all of their assets.
She has to know, if she loses, Trump, even though I still have it in the back of my mind he only got into this election to help Hillary, by taking all of the spotlight off of other candidates, may of had a "come to Jesus meeting" and got his mind right with God...I hope so!
If Trump does get elected he will run headfirst into the brick wall of reality and the US will have it's own Brexit scenario. My guess is most of his supporters would sour to him quickly and he would certainly not get a second term.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
According to the investigation, only three emails on server had any classified marking on them. None contained classified headers, only (c) markings. The investigation determined that given HRC's lack of expertise in these regards, it's likely that she did not know what that symbol meant; classified documents are usually given to top officials with classified headers. She was however faulted for not treating sensitive information as classified regardless of whether or not it was marked as such, as is gover
Re:PGP? (Score:5, Insightful)
According to the investigation, only three emails on server had any classified marking on them.
She was bribing people to get things marked as unclassified [bbc.com]. Look, I admire your ardent defense of the Clintons, but at this point it's like trying to defend the legitimacy of Bush's invasion of Iraq (you can't prove that the WMDs weren't shipped out to Syria!)