Firecracker duds: Benghazi investigations and a private
email server
A lesson for voters: where there is smoke there is not
always fire and a lit fuse does not necessarily mean fireworks follow.
Like firecracker that failed to go off, the $7million House
Select Committee Ben Ghazi investigation
and report failed to blast Hillary Clinton out of the race. The eighth report on Ben Ghazi was issued in
two partisan reports by a “bi partisan” House subcommittee, but Clinton herself
was not fingered with guilt in any of
them.
In addition, the
attacks against Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server grew out of the
Ben Ghazi hearings and Tuesday, the FBI director announced he would recommend to the Justice Department not to prosecute her for intentionally
conveying classified information on it or for being guilty of gross negligence in handling of such
sensitive material. The reason, there
was not enough evidence for any reasonable prosecutor to prove a criminal case. The State Department was criticized for
sloppy handling, but in a criminal case a prosecutor must be able to prove a case
beyond a reasonable doubt of intent and criminal negligence. One other outcome was that there was no
evidence the private server had been hacked by anyone, though it could have
been possible.
This is becoming a pattern: Donald Trump or the GOP Congress
to make charges to tarnish Clinton and then find out later they were not true
or lacked sufficient proof. Over a year
ago the House Select Committee dominated by Republicans set about to dig into
the Benghazi incident once again, even after other investigations preceding it
had found no guilt to pin on Clinton
herself. Democrats saw it as a witch hunt to try to damage Clinton. The
political purpose was inadvertently confirmed on September 29, 2015, when Republican Rep.
Kevin McCarthy said the following during an appearance on Hannity:
“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a
Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her
numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have
known any of that had happened, had we not fought.” (McCarthy tried to back
peddle a few days later). Donald Trump had also
made accusations against Clinton that Clinton was asleep during the attack and
decision making. That charge was so outrageous and without proof, even he
backed down the next day.
Regarding Benghazi, the select committee did discover that administration
SNAFUs resulted in miss spoken, missed
opportunities, lack of security planning in the face of CIA warnings about the dangers of going to
Benghazi , the failure of the military to execute orders, and erroneous public statements issued in its aftermath
about the details and causes fed by
White House staff to spokespeople. What
is clear, though, the death of the Ambassador and three Americans with him was
a tragedy that did not need to have happened.
What we can now expect is that conspiracy theorists will go
to work trying to find the proof that the FBI did not find everything or some
sort of collusion. FBI Director James B. Comey took unusual public pains to be transparent about the
investigation. As he said, what matters are the facts, so let us see what facts
theorists present.
More thoughts on the FBI decision:
The problem is showing intent. That is essential to criminal charges. The FBI could not find proof of intent. Without that they could not charge her. The shrill spokesperson for the RNC kept saying she intentionally set up her server to avoid scrutiny. That is exactly what the FBI could not prove. That she was careless is no doubt, but the strategy of the GOP to get her indicted was a true bust. An indictment would have gotten her out of the race. That she was careless did not rise to the criminal prosecution standard of gross negligence, just extremely careless.That was Comey's call and conclusion. Expect the GOP to question his judgment call. I spent 7 years as a white collar crime DA investigator and another 8 enforcing election contributions fraud...so I understand the differences. I also understand that DA's standard for prosecution is: can we win or at least probably win and they often refuse to file or indict. For more: this and more are contained in a subsequent follow up posting: More thoughts on the FBI....
More thoughts on the FBI decision:
The problem is showing intent. That is essential to criminal charges. The FBI could not find proof of intent. Without that they could not charge her. The shrill spokesperson for the RNC kept saying she intentionally set up her server to avoid scrutiny. That is exactly what the FBI could not prove. That she was careless is no doubt, but the strategy of the GOP to get her indicted was a true bust. An indictment would have gotten her out of the race. That she was careless did not rise to the criminal prosecution standard of gross negligence, just extremely careless.That was Comey's call and conclusion. Expect the GOP to question his judgment call. I spent 7 years as a white collar crime DA investigator and another 8 enforcing election contributions fraud...so I understand the differences. I also understand that DA's standard for prosecution is: can we win or at least probably win and they often refuse to file or indict. For more: this and more are contained in a subsequent follow up posting: More thoughts on the FBI....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kevin-mccarthys-truthful-gaffe/2015/09/30/f12a9fac-67a8-11e5-8325-a42b5a459b1e_story.html
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