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FBI Tag

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 14, 2016 16 Comments
Now that his wife has been "cleared" of any wrongdoing in her email scandal, Bill Clinton is getting a bit more bold in his defense of Hillary. It's apparently not enough that she got a walk for something that would have meant serious trouble for anyone else, now Bill has to rub the FBI's nose in it. The New York Post reports:
Bill Clinton accuses FBI of serving up a ‘load of bull’ Bill Clinton is accusing the FBI director of serving up “the biggest load of bull I’ve ever heard” — marking the first significant public comments from the husband of the Democratic nominee on the scandal that’s plagued his wife’s campaign for over a year.

Posted by Mike LaChance on July 31, 2016 20 Comments
Last week while all eyes were on the Democratic National Convention, FBI Director James Comey made an alarming prediction about possible new developments with ISIS and terrorism. He suggested that if and when ISIS is crushed in their Middle East strongholds, there will be a terrorist diaspora that will spread terror agents throughout the West. Bloomberg reports:
FBI Chief Warns ‘Terrorist Diaspora’ Will Come to the West Hundreds of terrorists will fan out to infiltrate western Europe and the U.S. to carry out attacks on a wider scale as Islamic State is defeated in Syria, FBI Director James Comey warned.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on July 10, 2016 12 Comments
As I've previously noted, Hillary's current email scandal echoes the '90's Project X scandal in which she was also involved in hiding sensitive high level email communications.  That's not the only echo from the past:  prosecutors during the Clinton presidency weighed whether or not to charge Hillary with a crime.  They even went so far as to draw up an indictment. The Washington Post reports:
While history remembers the 1990s probe led by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr for its pursuit of President Bill Clinton over the possibility he had lied under oath about his relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky, internal documents from the inquiry show how close prosecutors came to filing charges at that time against Hillary Clinton. They even drew up a draft indictment for Clinton, which has never been made public. At issue then was legal work Clinton had performed in the 1980s while an attorney at Little Rock’s Rose Law Firm on behalf of Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, which was owned by a business partner of the Clintons who was later convicted of fraud in connection with bad loans made by the thrift. Clinton said that her legal work was minimal and that she was unaware of the wrongdoing at Madison Guaranty.
Prosecutors, according to WaPo, weighed the likelihood of a conviction based on Hillary's then-status as First Lady.
The released records include a memo, written by Starr’s team, summarizing the evidence against Clinton. The prosecutors noted that she made numerous sworn statements between January 1994 and February 1996 that they thought “reflected and embodied materially inaccurate stories.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 09, 2016 128 Comments
Suspension of disbelief is the term that came to mind when I watched FBI Director James Comey's decision to recommend no charges against Hillary. As Comey went through the litany of Hillary's misdeeds, lies, defalcations of duty, extreme carelessness, cunning and risks to national security, Comey made the case for any of a series of charges against Hillary. Then, with the reputation of the FBI about to be vindicated, Comey dropped the dreaded "however." In House testimony, Comey again confirmed every factual point demanding prosecution, yet defended his decision not to recommend charges because he was treating Hillary just like he would any other citizen. Can anyone seriously claim, as Comey has, that Hillary was treated as any other citizen would? It's laughable and requires the suspension of disbelief. Either Comey is the dumbest person on earth, or he thinks we are.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on July 06, 2016 20 Comments
You might want to have a looped soundtrack of fingernails on a blackboard cued up . . . Because you could be clamoring for something relatively soothing like that after listening to Hillary's attempt at stand-up comedy. With All Due Respect opened today's show with a clip of Hillary trying to use humor to attack Donald Trump, as she stood in front of one his shuttered Atlantic City casinos. But the humor fell so flat, and was delivered in such a grating tone, that WADR put its own seal of . . . disapproval on the performance by following each "joke" with a classic "wha wha" or other sarcastic sound. Co-host John Heilemann delivered the  coup de grâce, acerbically saying: "oh boy, spontaneous humor abounding in Atlantic City."

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on July 06, 2016 7 Comments
Hillary gets a pass from the FBI despite overwhelming evidence that she and her minions mishandled classified information and most of America is all ¯_(ツ)_/¯. Throughout the investigation, we've noted the abundance of inconsistencies in Hillary's ever-changing story, and there have been many. Yesterday, the RNC released a video highlighting Hillary's five biggest email lies and it's pretty perfect.

Posted by Mike LaChance on July 06, 2016 8 Comments
Bernie Sanders supporters have been clinging to a hope that if the FBI recommended indictment for Hillary Clinton, there was a chance the Democratic Party would dump her and nominate Bernie instead. That hope ended this week. Now that the FBI has let her off the hook, nothing will stop her nomination. Many Bernie supporters are disgusted and who could blame them? CNN reports:
Sanders supporters melt down over FBI's Clinton decision It's not only Donald Trump and Republicans expressing their indignation at the FBI's decision not to recommend charges against Hillary Clinton over her handling of classified materials on a private email server.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on July 06, 2016 21 Comments
Last night, I emailed our Legal Insurrection leader Bill Jacobson to say I was counting on Joe Scarborough to have his finest moment this morning in light of the fiasco of the failure of the FBI to recommend the indictment of Hillary Clinton. This morning, Scarborough rose to the occasion. With significant support from Mika Brzezinski, Morning Joe's opening segment was one long blast at Hillary -- for doing what she did with her email and lying about it -- at James Comey -- for failing to indict -- and at President Obama -- for putting his thumb on the scale on Hillary's behalf. There were many noteworthy moments that you will find in the video montage we've assembled. One highlight: Scarborough says that while he doesn't question Comey's integrity, "I question his courage."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on July 06, 2016 16 Comments
Trump surrogates have been accused of debasing themselves by supporting The Donald. But have any sunk so low as poor Harold Ford, Jr., the Hillary surrogate who humiliated himself today on national TV? Appearing on With All Due Respect, former Dem congressman Ford, disagreed with Rudy Giuliani's statement made earlier in the day that Hillary Clinton could not get a security clearance given FBI Director Comey's conclusion that she acted "extremely carelessly" in the handling of classified material. When Ford claimed that if he were Attorney General, he would hire Hillary for a sensitive position involving national security, it seemed that host Mark Halperin could be heard, off camera, literally laughing in his face. Remind us never to hire Ford as Attorney General.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 05, 2016 61 Comments
FBI Director James Comey delivered the verdict on Hillary Clinton today - not guilty by reason of ... of ... of .... There are a lot of details on why this was a miscarriage of justice. The best starting place is Andy McCarthy's column at National Review, FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook. But those are mere details. Important details, critical details, details worth writing about -- but not the big picture. Noah Rothman at Commentary wrote:
No amount of cynicism could have prepared Americans for what they witnessed on Tuesday morning, and 2016 has not been short on cynicism.
Getting closer. The best truly big picture view I saw was from Karol Markowicz, a columnist for the NY Post and an ex-Soviet who moved the the United States as a child. In response to the Comey verdict, Markowicz tweeted out a statement as to how others who came from the USSR expected no other result:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on July 05, 2016 81 Comments
Despite describing Hillary's email debacle as "completely careless," the FBI announced earlier today it would not recommend prosecution. Professor Jacobson covered the decision in more detail here. Surprising? Not really. Maddening? Hell yes it is. Responses across the political spectrum are trickling in and Speaker Ryan minced no words, rejecting Clinton's "pattern of dishonesty and poor judgement":

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 05, 2016 127 Comments
FBI Director James Comey gave an on-camera press statement today from FBI headquarters, and is taking questions from reporters off camera. Despite finding serious problems and carelessness in handling classified information, rejecting claims that such information must be "marked" classified, and likelihood of foreign hacking, Comey says no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case because no bad intent. Somewhere, David Petreaus and dozens of others prosecuted in the past are crying. Legal Insurrection readers called it: https://legalinsurrection.com/2016/07/will-fbi-recommend-prosecuting-hillary-reader-poll/ (Full Text of Comey Statement at bottom of post)

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 03, 2016 84 Comments
So much speculation lately. From Loretta Lynch's impromptu, it-just-happened, guess-who-I-bumped-into private sit down with Bill Clinton, her saying she's staying out of it but maybe not, to Hillary's interview with the FBI, to supposed leaks by "sources" in both directions. The QUESTION IS NOT whether you want the FBI to recommend Hillary be prosecuted. The QUESTION IS whether you think the FBI will recommend Hillary be prosecuted.

Get it? The Reader Poll question is not what you want to happen, but what you think will happen.

It's Yes or No. A time for choosing. No "undecided" allowed. Make a choice, the FBI has to.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on July 02, 2016 58 Comments
Hillary's long-awaited date night with the FBI apparently took place this morning in Washington D.C. and lasted for 3 1/2 hours. ABC News reports:
Hillary Clinton gave a "voluntary interview" to the FBI today regarding her email arrangements while she was secretary of state, her campaign says. "Secretary Clinton gave a voluntary interview this morning about her email arrangements while she was Secretary," spokesman Nick Merrill said. "She is pleased to have had the opportunity to assist the Department of Justice in bringing this review to a conclusion. Out of respect for the investigative process, she will not comment further on her interview." The interview occurred at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., and lasted approximately three and a half hours, according to a Clinton aide.
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