I don’t pretend to understand everything there is to know about the criminal justice system, especially at the federal level. But this Hillary Clinton email thing is interesting. It’s been a year now since it was revealed that Hillary used a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State and may have mishandled classified information. I know what Hillary and her supporters say. She did nothing wrong. Perhaps that’s true, and, of course, she enjoys the presumption of innocence built into our legal system. Her supporters also like to say that Republicans are out to get her. I know that’s true, especially with regard to Libya and the whole Benghazi mess. But the email thing is different. You really can’t blame Republicans for that one. It’s the FBI that’s doing the investigating. Again, fully admitting to a less-than-comprehensive understanding of the inner workings of the FBI, it seems to me they don’t launch investigations unless there is reason to believe a crime has been committed. That’s what I’ve thought all along with regard to Hillary’s email server. Surely, the FBI doesn’t launch investigations if they don’t have some evidence of a crime. The FBI doesn’t delve into the breach of some arcane state department rule. They investigate crimes. So it wasn’t at all surprising to me when the Washington Post reported that the government granted immunity from prosecution to the Clinton aide who set up and maintained Hillary’s email server. Bryan Pagliano has agreed to work with the FBI in exchange for not facing any possible criminal charges, the Post reported. Well, if he didn’t think he broke the law, he wouldn’t need immunity, now would he? Of course, this absolutely does not mean that Hillary broke any laws, but it sure makes it seem like somebody did. If you’re the FBI, you don’t launch investigations and then grant immunity from prosecution to witnesses if you don’t believe a crime has been committed. You just don’t. And Hillary’s comments about her server problem have been quite dodgy. In fact, the Washington Post fact-checker recently published a compilation of 10 statements Hillary made with regard to her server. Each statement was awarded either two or three Pinocchios. Two Pinocchios means the statements contained either “significant omissions and/or exaggerations. Some factual error may be involved but not necessarily. A politician can create a false, misleading impression by playing with words and using legalistic language that means little to ordinary people. (Similar to ‘half true.’)” Three Pinocchios means “significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions. This gets into the realm of ‘mostly false.’ But it could include statements which are technically correct (such as based on official government data) but are so taken out of context as to be very misleading. The line between Two and Three can be bit fuzzy and we do not award half-Pinocchios. So we strive to explain the factors that tipped us toward a Three.” Not one of her statements got the coveted Geppetto Checkmark from the Post. That means the statement is simply true. So the FBI is investigating Hillary’s email server and she’s not being very truthful about her email server when she talks about it. Meanwhile, Attorney General Loretta Lynch seemed to intimate Wednesday that the law doesn’t require her Justice Department to pursue criminal charges against Hillary even if the FBI recommends it. According to a report in The Hill, Lynch was being questioned during a Congressional hearing by Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas. He asked, “If the FBI were to make a referral to the Department of Justice to pursue a case by way of indictment and to convene a grand jury for that purpose, the Department of Justice is not required by law to do so, are they — are you?” Cornyn asked. Her answer: “It would not be an operation of law, it would be an operation of procedures,” adding that the decision to pursue a criminal case would be “done in conjunction with the agents” involved in the investigation. “It’s not something that we would want to cut them out of the process.” So even if the FBI recommends charges, the Justice Department can beg off. Interestingly, The Hill also notes that the Justice Department had to sign off on the grant of immunity to Pagliano. It will be very interesting to see how all this plays out. This is our likely Democratic nominee for president of the United States. On the other side of the aisle, the likely nominee is Donald Trump. Seriously, folks, is this really the best we can do with regard to candidates for our nation’s highest political office? Guess so.
