Here’s a fun fact for this week. A federal felony conviction doesn’t preclude you from holding a federal elected office. Now, there are a lot of other things that a federal felony conviction can screw up for you – voting rights, jury service, owning firearms or ammunition, pilot’s licenses, private radio licenses, certain federal employment, state licenses and occupational restrictions, federal benefits and certain travel restrictions, just to name a few. But the U.S. Constitution doesn’t prohibit federal felons from holding elected federal offices. (See Article I, Sections 1 & 2; Article II, Section 1 and Article IV.) Article II, Section 4 says, “The President, the Vice President and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery or other hight crimes and misdemeanors.” And if you backtrack to Article I, Section 3, it says that once you’re impeached, you’re disqualified “to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.” But that doesn’t stop a federal felon from getting elected. All this must give a certain level of comfort to Democrats whose front-runner for President, Hillary Clinton, is the target of an FBI investigation with regard to her private email server. Hey, no biggie. Even if she gets convicted of a felony, she can still get elected – from a cushy federal prison somewhere out east. Then it would be up to Congress to impeach her and we all know that would never happen. No way the U.S. Senate could muster the two-thirds majority needed to impeach a sitting Democratic president. You don’t have to be a Philadelphia lawyer to figure out that Hillary may have some legal troubles. I understand that the Benghazi committee is a political deal. No question the committee was out to tarnish Hillary. But if the committee hadn’t been poking around we likely never would have known about Hillary conducting official state department business on a private email server. Then came the real surprise for me. The FBI actually launched an investigation. My sense of those guys is that they really don’t launch investigations unless they are fairly confident a crime has been committed. Especially in a Democrat administration when the target is a Democrat candidate for president. But so what? Just because she’s being investigated doesn’t mean she broke any laws. Here’s an excerpt from the New York Times: WASHINGTON — F.B.I. agents investigating Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private email server are seeking to determine who at the State Department passed highly classified information from secure networks to Mrs. Clinton’s personal account, according to law enforcement and diplomatic officials and others briefed on the investigation. FBI is also trying to determine whether foreign powers, especially China or Russia, gained access to Mrs. Clinton’s private server ... And, according to Reuters: Clinton and her senior staff routinely sent foreign government information among themselves on unsecured networks several times a month, if the State Department's markings are correct. Within the 30 email threads reviewed by Reuters, Clinton herself sent at least 17 emails that contained this sort of information. In at least one case it was to a friend, Sidney Blumenthal, not in government. ... ... The information appears to include privately shared comments by a prime minister, several foreign ministers and a foreign spy chief, unredacted bits of the emails show. Typically, Clinton and her staff first learned the information in private meetings, telephone calls or, less often, in email exchanges with the foreign officials. This sort of information, which the department says Clinton both sent and received in her emails, is the only kind that must be "presumed" classified, in part to protect national security and the integrity of diplomatic interactions, according to U.S. regulations examined by Reuters. "It's born classified," J. William Leonard, a former director of the U.S. government's Information Security Oversight Office told Reuters. Leonard was director of ISOO, part of the White House's National Archives and Records Administration, from 2002 until 2008, and worked for both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. "If a foreign minister just told the secretary of state something in confidence, by U.S. rules that is classified at the moment it's in U.S. channels and U.S. possession," he said in a telephone interview, adding that for the State Department to say otherwise was "blowing smoke." This is serious stuff. And this is just what’s online for anybody to see. Imagine what the FBI is looking at. It’s fairly evident to even the most passive observer that Hillary may well have committed a felony. Seems this email episode goes well beyond “a lapse in judgment” or “a breach in departmental policy.” The federal statute – 18 U.S. Code § 793 – regulating this type of thing is pretty plain. (d) Whoever, lawfully having possession of, access to, control over, or being entrusted with any (information) relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully (communicates or causes to be communicated) the same to any person not entitled to receive it ... Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both. Clearly, Sidney Blumenthal was not a person “entitled to receive” this presumed classified material, some of which – according to published reports – was actually made public by a Romanian hacker who breached Blumenthal’s email account. Now, let’s be clear. Plenty of hapless folks, of much less stature of course, have been prosecuted for such things by the Obama administration. In July, Bryan Nishimura, a California Naval reservist, was sentenced to two years probation and a $7,500 fine after he pleaded guilty to removing classified material and downloading it to a personal electronic device. There was no evidence he planned to distribute the material. Last year, Bronze Star recipient and combat veteran Chief Petty Officer Lyle White pleaded guilty to storing classified documents on a nonsecure hard drive in Virginia. He received a suspended 60-day sentence and a suspended $10,000 fine in return for the plea. Again, no evidence of making the material public. And of course there’s decorated war veteran, U.S. CENTCOM Commander, Commander of U.S. and ISAF forces in Afghanistan and former CIA director Gen. David Petraeus. He let his mistress take a peek at his little black code book. She was writing a book about him, but none of the classified material was ever made public. In January, the FBI and Justice Department recommended felony charges against him. He pleaded guilty and got two years probation plus a $100,000 fine. Once the FBI completes its Hillary investigation, it turns everything over to the Justice Department. But President Obama already has said – much to the chagrin of FBI investigators – he is “confident” no laws were broken. And it’s Obama’s Justice Department that decides whether to file charges. He said that same thing about Lois Lerner, the head of the Internal Revenue Service. Remember her? During sworn testimony in a Congressional hearing, Lerner admitted the IRS had singled out conservative groups. She called her agency’s actions “absolutely inappropriate.” She blamed “front-line people” for the whole mess and then pleaded the Fifth Amendment, refusing to answer any more question because she didn’t want to incriminate herself. Just last week Obama’s Justice Depart released its findings to Congress: “We found no evidence that any IRS official acted based on political, discriminatory, corrupt or other inappropriate motives that would support a criminal prosecution.” Big shock there, eh? So I would say there’s a fair chance that Hillary will enjoy a similar outcome. She knows that. That’s why anytime anybody asks Hillary about her emails she just tosses her head back and laughs and laughs and laughs. But no worries, Democrats. Either way, it’s all good for Hillary. Remember, even if she does get convicted of a felony, she can set up a mini oval office in the federal slammer.
