Is Hillary Clinton above the law?

Hillary Clinton was personally involved in mishandling documents and ordered others to block investigators who were working on the case.

Her behavior fit into a pattern of concealment: she and her husband had tried to conceal their roles in two other matters under investigation by law enforcement. Taken together, the interference by White House officials, which included destruction of documents, amounted to “far more than just aggressive lawyering or political naiveté.” It constituted “a highly improper pattern of deliberate misconduct.”

Those conclusions were made 20 years ago in 1996 by James Comey and his investigators when Comey was Deputy Special Counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee.

On Tuesday now Director of the FBI, James Comey gave a 15-minute press briefing that up until the last two minutes I thought Comey was going to recommend criminal charges be pursued against Hillary Clinton.

For a minute I was thinking I was watching a segment of Bill O’Reilly’s “Spin Zone.”

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot happened I thought after listening to Comey.

I have admired James Comey and still believe he is an honorable man.

However in this case I cannot support him. I think he made a bad decision.

Comey put it this way: “Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”

“Seven email chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters.

There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on email.”

“None of these emails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but there presence is especially concerning because all of these e-mails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff.”

“Separately, it is important to say something about the marking of classified information. Only a small number of the e-mails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information. But even if the information is not marked “classified” in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.”

“While not the focus of our investigation, we also developed evidence that the security culture of the State Department in general, and with respect to use of unclassified e-mail systems in particular, was generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government.”

“With respect to potential computer intrusion by hostile actors, we did not find direct evidence that Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail domain, in its various configurations since 2009, was successfully hacked. But, given the nature of the system and the actors potentially involved, we assess that we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence.

We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial email accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account. We also assess that Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal email extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account.”

If we take everything into account as to what James Comey told us, how does one come to the conclusion that she did not violate the law?

Clinton used multiple private servers and mobile devices for official government work when dealing with classified information. She knew when she set up those private servers that she was violating the law and compromising national security.

How could she say she could not have known that?

She was a former first lady, a Secretary of State and an attorney.

She hasn’t been telling the truth for the past year. The FBI investigation proved that.

Hillary Clinton was grossly negligent in the way she handled classified information. She compromised national security.

At the very least she was incompetent and at the same time negligent.

Doesn’t “extreme carelessness” equate to grossly negligent.

The Clinton’s have a history of getting a free pass on their corrupt behavior and in this instance it appears Hillary Clinton has done it again.