The Double Standard of Attorney-Client Privilege Between Trump and Hillary
FBI respected attorney-client privilege during Hillary’s investigation.
John Solomon, the vice president of digital video at The Hill, appeared on The Ingraham Angle last night to discuss the double standard of attorney-client privilege when it comes to President Donald Trump and failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
The FBI recently raided the offices of Michael Cohen, Trump’s lawyer, which led the president to declare that attorney-client privilege is dead in America. Many called him a whiner and found excuses to make an exception for this case, but weirdly enough, they and the FBI appeared to back the privilege when it came to Hillary.
Solomon: If you’re @realDonaldTrump‘s lawyer & you just had your office raided and then you hear these stories about how @HillaryClinton‘s lawyers were able to invoke attorney-client privilege…You can see why they come to the idea that there’s a double standard. @IngrahamAngle pic.twitter.com/KpftA8Usze
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 12, 2018
Solomon brought up Paul Combetta of Platte River Networks, the man who wiped clean Hillary’s at home server she used while secretary of state. Host Laura Ingraham reminds us that if you delete files under subpoena then you are de facto obstructed justice.
Combetta lied about his actions the first time and the Department of Justice gave him immunity.
Solomon explained that when the FBI asked Combetta if Hillary’s lawyers instructed him to delete the files he claimed attorney-client privilege and could not answer the questions.
“How can you have attorney-client privilege? He’s not the client of David Kendall or Cheryl Mills,” stressed Solomon. “He was the vendor and yet the FBI said okay we just won’t ask you about that and walked away.”
Solomon said when you’re Trump’s lawyer and you hear how the FBI basically gave up at points in its investigation into Hillary’s server when someone invoked attorney-client privilege, it’s easy to see why they think there’s a double standard.
Harvard law school professor blasted these raids when he appeared on Hannity:
Look, this is a very dangerous day today for lawyer-client relations. I deal with clients all the time. I tell them on my word of honor that what you tell me is sacrosanct. And now they say just based on probable cause, even though there was cooperation with Cohen, they can burst into the office, grab all the computers and then give it to another FBI agent and say, you are the fire wall. We want you now to read all these confidential communications. Tell us which ones we can get and which ones we can’t get.
You know, if this were the shoe on the other foot, if this were Hillary Clinton being investigated, and they went into her lawyer’s office, the ACLU would be on every television station in America jumping up and down. The deafening silence of the ACLU and civil libertarians about the intrusion into the lawyer-client confidentially is really appalling.
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Comments
No double standard – NO STANDARD AT ALL !
Just predetermined to not do anything at all except to go through the motions.
To say that there was an investigation is the biggest lie in history !
Not to mention cronies/employees like Cheryl Mills, who never functioned as an attorney for the Hildabeast but who was apparently a “person of interest” if not a co-conspirator, claimed and wase accorded attorney-client status and privilege.
Respecting Hillary’s attorney client privilege doesnt really characterized what happened.
People seem to forget that the DOJ [the FBI can’t grant immunity without the approval of the DOJ] actually gave Cheryl Mills, and several other close associates of HRC, immunity to obtain access to HRC’s emails. No midnight or early morning raids on their homes and offices. They made a deal which gave these people plenty of time to destroy evidence. And, the only reason for granting immunity, was because these people KNEW they had broken the law, as did the FBI and DOJ.
So, why the change in tactics here? Inquiring minds should be asking that question; LOUDLY.
Not only that, but I seem to recall Hillary was not put under oath, and no recording was made of her interview. That smells worse than smegma.
That no recording was made doesn’t smell bad, because the FBI never records interviews. That way they can say whatever they like about what happened and juries will presume their accounts to be accurate.
There is a double standard. The FBI is politicized, corrupt, and dirty as hell.
Inasmuch as Democrats are virtuous and Republicans are evil, there is no double standard.
I believe that Trump should curtail this circus in an outlandish and unpredictable fashion that would perplex and anger his enemies while amusing his supporters and neutral observers. He should issue about 25-100 pardons in a short time frame, starting with pardons for notable Dems and their associates. He should pardon Hillary and Bill, listing all the possible crimes they committed. Then their circles of workers and drones, including the people that handled her server and destroyed the phones sought by the feds. Then B. Hussein and Michelle. Then Petraeus, Scooter Libby, Gen. Flynn, and various military personnel that have been prosecuted while Hillary and her cronies went untouched. Then turn to Trump associates like Manafort, Papadopolous, Page, Cohen, family and friends, and then himself.
In the pardons, Trump should include a small executive order saying that federal agents and officers shall refrain from harassing, investigating, or serving any process or documents of any type on them for any purported crime before the date of the order. Further, he should order the feds to immediately return all documents and things taken from such persons prior to the order in their original condition and order that all agents refrain from discussing or making any disclosures or dissemination of info related to such documents and things.
Then, later on, fire Sessions and the Combover Kid (Rosenstein).
I think we’d be well-advised to not use the term “double standard” in comparing these two cases. That term suggests that we might be satisfied if the Swamp Lords created the same opportunities for Trump to prevaricate and destroy evidence as they created for Hillary.
I don’t think that’s quite what we’re after.
Just the process alone, not the outcome, is where the double standard is coming from. Trump and Cohen were reported many times to be cooperating with the investigations and giving them the items requested, yet they get treated like they are criminals. Hillary sandbagged and delayed and repeatedly lied, and the head of the FBI gives her a pass and an excuse after laying out the crimes committed. That is a double standard in the way the investigation is being handled, and in the way the people are treated, while also being a double standard in how each responded to their respective responses. Outcome of this isn’t the issue, though optics sure are making it out to look like it is a crime being made for a specific target.
There is a double standard if you think we should have equal treatment under the law.
There is one standard if this is a coup where the mission is the standard.
This is serious. I can’t comprehend the AG tolerating this behavior unless he is part of it.
You mean a presumption of guilt. If you presume people are guilty, that it is simply unthinkable that a raid like against Cohen could take place unless he oozes guilt out of every pore, everything suddenly looks “reasonable” to you. (Not naming names.)
It’s also not the point. What every layman sees is that lawyers can get no-knock raids without being asked nicely, without being served with a subpoena by a normal method first, even when they have been cooperating to date. At this point, “Don’t worry, we’re only going to do this to Republicans,” is not particularly convincing, or reassuring for that matter.
Such blatant b.s.
Enough.
“FBI respected attorney-client privilege during Hillary’s investigation”
They did a lot more than that. They gave attorney-client privilege to people who never acted as Hilary’s attorney in order to insulate them from attempts to force them to testify against Hilary.
The FBI allowing Cheryl Mills to sit in on Hillary’s interrogation is not “respecting the attorney-client privilege”, it’s abusing it. With all due respect, the granting of immunity and the return of some computers to the attorneys in her inner circle by the FBI was allowed specifically to make a successful prosecution of Hillary Clinton a legal misadventure, if not an impossibility.
The feds will naturally assert the crime-fraud exception based on some crime and fraud to which Cohen and Trump were complicit.