James Comey: DOJ Gave Mills Immunity, Not the FBI
Once again, we’re left with more questions than answers.
FBI Director James Comey has continued to face criticism over his bureau’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email, including the numerous immunity deals given to her aides. Well, it turns out, the FBI didn’t give immunity to Cheryl Mills, a longtime aide:
“Who authorized granting Cheryl Mills immunity?” Rep. John Sensenbrenner asked.
“It’s a decision made by the Department of Justice, I don’t know at what level inside,” Comey responded. “In our investigations, any kind of immunity comes from the prosecutors, not the investigators.”
The FBI doesn’t hand out immunity deals:
Comey added he understood Mills’ immunity as a request pertaining to the production of her laptop during the investigation.
“The FBI doesn’t grant immunity to anybody, the Department of Justice is able to grant very different kinds of immunity,” Comey said. “If new and substantial evidence develops a witness lied [under immunity], of course the Department of Justice can pursue it. Nobody gets lifetime immunity.”
Last Friday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) lashed out at the FBI over the immunity deals:
“No wonder they couldn’t prosecute a case,” Chaffetz said. “They were handing out immunity deals like candy.”
Comey told Rep. Ben Sasse (R-NB) that Mills needed the immunity “because without it, Mills would have fought investigators tooth and nail in an effort to withhold her computer.” But as Guy Benson points out, Hillary has claimed she and her team have fully cooperated. Well, doesn’t this declaration contradict her statement?
He also told Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) that Mills was in fact a “subject” of the investigation because of her computer. Comey confirmed Mills had classified emails on her computer, but denied she committed a crime because they do not know why she had the emails on her unsecure server:
“You’d have to know the circumstances,” Comey told committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.
Yeah, I don’t get it either.
Despite all of this, the FBI and DOJ allowed Mills to act as Hillary’s attorney and sit in on Hillary’s interview even though she was a witness. Thus, acting as Hillary’s attorney her communications with the presidential candidate are considered privilege. NOTHING TO SEE HERE, FOLKS. But the GOP knows there is more to it:
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R., S.C), a former federal prosecutor, said concerns were raised “when you have five immunity agreements and no prosecution, when you are allowing witnesses who happen to be lawyers…to sit in on an interview.” He added, “That is not the FBI that I used to work with. It looks to me like some things were done differently that I don’t recall being done.’’
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Hmmm. Did the immunity arrive via secure email?
It is true about the DOJ, the FBI does not have authority to give immunity (although it can recommend it).
You are missing my point.
If the immunity from the DOJ arrived by secure email, then the DOJ has treated a privileged document properly using a higher standard than Sec. Clinton treated State Department documents.
The entire point of giving immunity to these obviously culpable people was to avoid the spectacle of them having to assert their fifth amendment privileges when questioned about the facts of the case.
The invocation of their right against self incrimination, if done en masse by Hillary’s aides and co-conspirators, would have indicated to the public that she was surrounded by people who were willing to break the law.
To avoid that spectacle, immunity was handed out to these witnesses/potential defendants.
Giving immunity to people who are obviously culpable is only justifiable if they are going to implicate more culpable people (such as Hillary, for instance). Giving immunity on a large scale, and then announcing that there is no evidence to bring charges is prima facie prosecutorial malpractice. As a retired prosecutor, this entire affair reeks of corruption.
I understand what you are saying. You are describing the prosecutorial malpractice, not defending it. But it’s still jawdropping, the stupidity of these transparent lies. Since when does a computer have 5th Amendment rights? Because that’s what this is about.
““because without it, Mills would have fought investigators tooth and nail in an effort to withhold her computer.””
Physically when the FBI executed the search warrant? Because I’ve never heard of a witness/target/whatever setting the terms for what evidence FBI investigators were entitled to have and under what conditions. If this had been anyone else the FBI would have simply seized the evidence. Cheryl Mills nor her attorneys could have done nothing about it. Getting a judge to sign off on a search warrant is not an adversarial procedure.
Basically Comey is admitting that Mills was in charge of this investigation , on behalf of Clinton. That’s been clear from start to finish. When Mills was interviewed, she and her attorneys set the parameters for what the investigators were allowed to ask. When investigators asked about Clinton’s email procedures Mills et al shut down the interview. And at the end, when Clinton was interviewed Mills, and immunized target in the investigation herself, sat in as Clinton’s attorney.
This is despicable, but it’s clear that Obama and his court toadies and throne sniffers such as Comey don’t have to lie well. In fact, the more obvious the lie the better because it just serves to highlight the fact that they’re giving Congress and the American people the finger and telling us that they’re above the law.
I would also have to say that this was an effort to sway the Presidential election.
As you say, having 5 aides and others associated with Hilliary reciting their 5th Amdmt privileges would look very bad in the months running up to the election, so they engineered it away.
The Mob always tried to buy off police and prosecutors, but the Democrat Party has them beat hands down. They succeeded.
He lurched wildly between being cavalier and snappish and angry
Isn’t it always the prosecutor who grants immunity and then only at the behest of the investigators?
Is Comey being disingenuous here?
Given the fact that Comey already has blurred the lines by executing prosecutorial discretion when he announced that despite all the obvious wrongdoing no reasonable prosecutor would attempt to bring Clinton to trial, the answer is yes. Comey is being disingenuous.
This stooge has been all along.
This isn’t my area of expertise, but I thought plea deals and immunity deals generally had conditions related to fully cooperating in the investigation attached to them. And by cooperating, that generally means providing evidence and/or testifying against whoever is left. So once a first immunity deal is given, there should be less need for a second and no need at all for a third, fourth, or fifth.
Was Secretary Clinton given immunity? Was immunity for Clinton discussed?
Will Obama grant immunity to Comey?
““You’d have to know the circumstances,” Comey told committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va”
Comey has to be the “designated whipping boy.” He is the one who is to take all the faceshots for the team. There is no way he can believe the BS he is slinging. Or he is the stupidest and worst lawyer in the country. Somehow I doubt that last point.
I work in the intel field. If the powers that be found classified emails on my unclassified laptop, I would have some “splainin’ to do” but that would not be required to convict me and send me to prison.
We are rapidly becoming a banana republic.
Does Comey’s criteria apply to all laws? Would that not make any new law unenforceable? After all, if you cannot prosecute for something that has rarely been enforced, how do you prosecute for something that has never been illegal?
Sadly, I can imagine this argument being used. Never underestimate the stupidity of the average human.
I was intel for 20 years in the Navy. I never knew how valuable my courses in Islamic Studies (I could have double majored; I only took those courses because I was a poli sci major focusing on the then USSR’s southern tier of Islamic SSRs, and could hand in the same term paper for both) would turn out to be. Iran has been at war with us since 1979, and we’ve been dragged into what turned out to be nearly constant conflict in one Sunni hotspot or another as well. So basically I just had to continue my studies for what is now over thirty years. It’s important to know the motivations and goals of your enemies, and despite what Obama would like you to believe that’s to be found in the Islamic scriptures.
So I’m going off on a slight tangent, but only slightly because while Comey spent the vast majority of his time testifying about his pretense of an investigation into Clinton’s emails, some of the Reps did ask questions about the recent Muslim stabbing spree at the St. Cloud, MN mall.
I’ll let Scott Johnson at Powerline take it from here, as Powerline provided a lot of valuable coverage of a recent domestic terrorism trial in MN this summer. Besides I tend to get long winded and Johnson is more concise.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/09/comey-on-the-stabbing-rampage.php
“…Rep. DeSantis asks what’s going on in Minnesota generally. He puts the question this way: “Why is Minnesota turning out so many jihadists?” Comey cites Minnesota’s large and concentrated Somali community. Comey, however, downplays the number involved. “Again we’re talking about eight people [who have departed Minnesota to join terrorist groups], I think the number is,” he says, and praises the cooperation of Minnesota’s Somali community with law enforcement.”
Did you catch that? DeSantis was asking about an act of domestic terrorism, and Comey disingenuously downplays the situation by giving an answer about MN Somalis going abroad to commit terror. As I said earlier, Comey has been disingenuous in his testimony before Congress, every single time, no matter what the subject.
And then he praised the Somali community’s cooperation with law enforcement, which is laughable if you followed the recent trial against the remaining four suspects you’ll know that the courtroom was packed with their supporters. So many supporters showed up that the judge ordered a second courtroom opened so their supporters could watch the proceedings remotely. And that still didn’t accommodate the crowd of supporters who arrived at the courthouse everyday.
Some of the Somalis did cooperate with the government’s investigation. Their only supporters were immediate family, who were practically taking their lives in their hands by showing up. In fact, they were at times involved in scuffles as other Somalis attacked them because their family members had “turned” on fellow Muslims.
“Six of the 10 defendants pleaded guilty before trial. Two of the six entered into cooperation agreements with the government and testified at trial. Contrary to the gist of Comey’s remarks, the informant and two cooperating defendants took a lot of abuse within the Somali community for testifying against their three colleagues who went to trial — so much that Minneapolis FBI Division Special Agent in Charge Richard Thornton made the following statement at the press conference immediately following the guilty verdicts that were returned on June 3: “I find it shameful that some so-called community leaders have tried to vilify the confidential human source in this case. There is something wrong when you blame the person who did the right thing and defend those who were clearly in the wrong.””
The Somali community in Minneapolis as a whole and their leadership in particular did their dead level best to obstruct this investigation. There’s no way these same Somalis actually provided the help to law enforcement that the moronic Comey thanked them for. This goes on across the country. Law enforcement officials, when they’re being honest, will tell you that they never get any help from the Muslim community at large. But when the police make a terror bust the same Muslim community/leaders will ask to be on the stage at the press conference so the LEOs can thank them for the help they didn’t provide.
It’s a joke. Most won’t do it; only Comey is fool enough to do it.
I’m not saying there aren’t patriotic Muslims who won’t secretly help law enforcement. But it’s never the religious or community leaders. Because if it ever got out that they helped the police there would be hell to pay. They will not keep their leadership positions. And there’s a reason for this.
Surah 3:28 Ali ‘Imran (Family of Imran)
“Let not believers take disbelievers as allies rather than believers. And whoever [of you] does that has nothing with Allah , except when taking precaution against them in prudence. And Allah warns you of Himself, and to Allah is the [final] destination.”
Helping the Kuffar Harbi (the unbelievers at war with Islam, which is what the Muslims call us who live in Dar al Harb, the house of war or the parts of the world where the Muslims don’t yet rule, so we’re at war with Islam whether we want to be or not) is an act of betrayal not just against fellow Muslims but against Allah. It’s really an act of apostasy, which what it means when it says they “have nothing to do with Allah.”
But Muslims can pretend to be on our side (“except when taking precaution against them,” in Arabic this includes a form of the word taqqiyah or lying to protect an individual or indeed the entire ummah). In 2011 a several dozen Muslim groups, most Muslim Brother front group identified during the Holy Land Foundation terror funding trial, wrote to John Brennan, then a deputy director of the national security council, to demand that they fire “Islamophic” law enforcement, military, and intelligence training contractors. These were simply non-Muslims who know Islam, and were being truthful about what Islam actually teaches. The Muslim Brotherhood can’t allow the truth to get out (see the Muslim Brotherhood Strategic Plan for North America, presented as an exhibit at the HLF terror funding trial and you’ll know why).
Of course, this was all coordinated before that letter was written. Shortly after Brennan responded to the letter the Pentagon issued new training directives in compliance with the Muslim Brotherhood demands and it predated the letter. It’s literally a firing offense to let on that you know what the actual motivating ideology of our enemies is, and that our enemies are not in fact hijacking anything. But Obama is ideologically committed to removing any link between Islam and terrorism no matter the fact they are joined at the hip. He doesn’t care; remember when he went to Cairo he said it was his job as President to defend Islam. And he’s doing a wonderful job, don’t you think.
They’ve all been replaced by trainers hand-picked or approved by Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas front groups such as CAIR. A Hamas front group and an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding trial, which ended in 2008 with the successful conviction of all five defendants on all counts.
As late as 2010 the DoJ was still confirming to Congress that CAIR was an unindicted co-conspirator in the HLF terror funding trial and why. Again, it was created at the behest of Hamas to advance its interests in the US, which it does while masquerading as a “civil rights organization.”
Now this Hamas front group is providing “trainers” to organizations such as the FBI. This would be like having known KGB agents advising us on how best to conduct Soviet relations during the cold war. It’s insane, but it’s Obama’s “national security” policy so we really can’t be shocked at the stupidity and malevolent anti-American impulse behind it. And one of things these “trainers” tell people like Comey is that they should thank Muslim communities and religious leaders for their help. Which they never provide. Out of the other side of their mouths CAIR tells them not to help.
They say it will improve relations with the Muslim community but in reality it’s all part of he taqqiyah directed at us non-Muslims. The deception. And Comey is dutifully going along with it. Obama is working for the other side against us, and Comey is his stooge.
I honestly don’t know if we’re going to live through this.
Of course the FBI didn’t grant the immunity: they have never had that power.
And no sane attorney would allow a client in Mills’ position to be interviewed by the FBI without it. Why would you?
– –
However, the general practice for granting immunity is that the witness’ attorney makes a proffer to prosecutors, essentially telling them off the record what the witness will say. If the actual testimony varies from the proffer in a substantive way, bye-bye immunity.
Seems like DOJ got little or nothing for all the immunity they handed out. It isn’t always the case that immunized evidence leads to prosecutions, of course, but it is rare for so many to receive it. Also, allowing a key witness to serve as the target’s attorney is just begging for trouble.
I have no idea who you are responding to above — mark, Estragon. But I was amused by this part of it.
“And no sane attorney would allow a client in Mills’ position to be interviewed by the FBI without it. Why would you?”
Uhh, that’s not how it works, unless you’re a member of the new American “Above the Law” class of DNC superdelegates.
If you’re not a member of the exempt class, law enforcement interviews can’t be vetoed by your attorney. You can have an attorney present. But I find it hilarious someone thinks it’s up to a suspect’s attorney whether or not the interview will be allowed to take place. It will take place. Unless your name is Clinton or you are a close associate.
USAG Lynch’s Dept of Jackazzery is a disgrace
At what point does Comey just try on Clinton’s glove and say that it doesn’t fit?
Nobody gets lifetime immunity.
Considering the performance of the FBI and DOJ, I’d say that nobody would need it.
Dishonorable Comey retirement pay = honorable Comey retirement pay.
Dishonorable Comey = Big Bucks job with Clinton Foundation.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOpenGovernment
Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies
SUBJECT: Transparency and Open Government
My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government.[snip]
=====
This is actually true. Who knew how low the level could actually be set if one had zero integrity or no ethical standard that was greater than zero?
Comey bristled at the insinuation of impropriety. As a loyal Democrat would he he bristled at the insinuation of gross incompetence? Probably not. We need a special prosecutor here, and a Sam Ervin equivalent, to root out these scoundrels.
Of course he’s getting touchy. He once had a reputation for unimpeachable integrity, of being a stand up guy.
For the record, if anyone is keeping records, had I been a Congresscritter, that would have immediately made me suspicious of him. We are after all talking Washington D.C. I never would have joined the bandwagon of Republicans praising him for his Boy Scout like honesty.
So the Obama administration sent him out to announce that there is no crime the Democratic party nominee can commit that will move the Obama administration to initiate a prosecution. He was supposed to be the one guy in the administration who could credibly lie to us. And I think he expected to get away with it. Somebody should have told him you can spend a lifetime establishing a reputation for good character and piss it away in five minutes.
He’s not getting away with it, and it’s just now dawning on him he got used like a five dollar hooker. Now he has an entirely new reputation and he doesn’t like it.
Agreed that that’s a factor but has his integrity ever really been tested? He’s not getting away with it? If I were the shrill type I’d say we just had a quiet coup of sorts.
“…If I were the shrill type I’d say we just had a quiet coup of sorts.”
Well, then. Now the rest of us will get to test, or demonstrate, the qualities of our characters, won’t we?
I appreciate the point you made though. Has Comey ever been tested? I don’t know, but after I looked at his biographical details I doubt it. I didn’t see anything about a Marine DI making his life a living hell in there.
Nobody gets lifetime immunity.
He obviously forgot about Hillary !