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Attorney General Loretta Lynch confirmed to Congress Wednesday that career Justice Department attorneys are working with FBI agents on the criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email practices and the handling of classified material…
If the FBI makes the case that Hillary Clinton mishandled classified information and put America's security at risk, will you prosecute the case?” Republican Congressman John Carter asked Lynch during a budget hearing.

"Do you know of any efforts underway to undermine the FBI's investigation? And please look the American people in the eye and tell us what your position is as you are the chief prosecutor of the United States," Carter pressed.

Lynch replied, "...that matter is being handled by career independent law enforcement agents, FBI agents as well as the career independent attorneys in the Department of Justice. They follow the evidence, they look at the law and they'll make a recommendation to me when the time is appropriate,"…

The White House has been criticized for its public comments, including those of President Obama, that the transmission of classified information on Clinton's unsecured, personal server did not jeopardize national security.

Last month, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Clinton was not the target of the FBI probe, and it was not "trending" towards Clinton.

During congressional testimony in December, FBI Director James Comey was asked by Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas, “Does the President get briefings on ongoing investigations by the FBI like this?” Comey replied, “No.”

National Security Defense attorney Edward MacMahon, who routinely handles classified information as part of his case work, said "Lynch appears to be sending a message that there is no need for a special prosecutor because she has assigned career Justice Department lawyers, and not political appointees, to work with FBI agents on the Clinton matter."

MacMahon who recently represented CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, who was convicted of leaking intelligence to a New York Times reporter and is now serving a three- and-a-half-year prison sentence, said the pairing of FBI agents and Justice Department attorneys generally reflects the fact that the investigation has moved beyond an initial inquiry.

“As a general matter, a U.S. attorney is assigned as an FBI investigation progresses. The partnership with the U.S. attorney allows the FBI to use the investigation tools of the U.S. government, including subpoenas for evidence, business or phone records, as well as witnesses. And you need (a) U.S. attorney to convene a grand jury.”

It is not publicly known whether any of those actions have been taken. But an intelligence source close to the FBI probe said the career professionals at the bureau "will be angry and walk off if no indictment recommendation is followed through."

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...Her [lynch] choice just got tougher now that the former secretary of state is sure to win the Democratic nomination....

As one prankster, who managed to photo-bomb a Clinton campaign rally, put it on his tee-shirt: “Settle for Hillary.”

Before Democrats officially settle, though, Clinton, Lynch, and Barack Obama have a treacherous bridge to cross....

Standing athwart it is FBI Director James Comey, an experienced prosecutor and consummate professional with some 100-150 agents investigating the Democratic front-runner, the Clinton Foundation, and (presumably) several of Hillary’s closest aides: Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills, and Jake Sullivan.

Clinton voters are oblivious to the dangers. Polls show they no longer consider her “honest and trustworthy,” but they still don’t think she has committed any crimes. Countless Clinton supporters have told me, “These investigations won’t find anything. The Benghazi hearings proved it. This is simply a partisan witch hunt.”...

But the GOP is not leading the criminal investigation. The FBI is. The bureau is not partisan, and it is not on a witch hunt. Despite the obvious risks of investigating the presumptive Democratic nominee during a Democratic administration, its agents are sorting through mountains of evidence pointing to serious, deliberate crimes.

What are the key legal dangers facing Clinton and her aides? Here are just a few.

* Hillary Clinton deliberately set up a private email server for herself and her top State Department aides. She used it to store over 1,800 documents now deemed classified, some highly classified. The sheer bulk of the security violations is extraordinary. Intelligence professionals agree the server was almost certainly hacked by foreign agencies—probably by several.

* Secretary Clinton specifically instructed aides to send her classified materials on that insecure network. We know of at least one such instruction. We don’t know how many others were redacted by the State Department.

* Because her server was private, the State Department’s records did not include its contents when responding to Freedom of Information Act requests. The department wrongly told FOIA applicants that no such materials existed. Not only did the materials exist (on Clinton’s server), senior officials knew it and allowed false denials to be made.

* Some documents on the Clinton server contained the intelligence-gathering methods, the names of undercover agents, and real-time disclosures of top officials’ movements. Aside from the nuclear launch codes, these are the most closely guarded secrets in the U.S. government. That material is “classified at birth,” as Clinton, Mills, Abedin, and Sullivan certainly knew. To avoid any misunderstanding, they had all taken mandatory training in the proper treatment of sensitive and classified materials.

* Some of the classified materials on Clinton’s server originated in intelligence agencies outside the State Department and came into the department on a secure, classified network. They were marked as such. They could only be transferred to Clinton’s unsecured network by hand. Each occurrence was a felony. Since the server has now been recovered, the FBI and intelligence agencies know who sent those messages and who received them at the State Department.

* The Clinton Foundation and some private businesses were deeply involved in the State Department’s business. The lines were blurred between Hillary Clinton’s official role as secretary of state and her unofficial role at a major foundation, headed by her husband, that was showered with money from people and companies working with the State Department. At best, the arrangements were sleazy. At worst, they were criminal “pay to play.”

* Hillary’s closest aide, Huma Abedin, had blurred roles, too. While working at State, she was also employed by a private company whose clients did business with her department and the government...

So, will Abedin, Mills, or Sullivan answer fully and truthfully or invoke their Fifth Amendment rights? If they did, would it become known and hurt Hillary politically? If she refuses to testify herself, her political career is over. She won’t do that unless she fears indictment is certain, and she would have to drop out of the presidential race anyway.

If FBI Director Comey does recommend criminal charges, he will put DOJ and the White House in a very tight box. First, as a seasoned prosecutor, he will present only strong, winnable cases. Second, he won’t present one or two charges. He will present evidence of dozens and dozens of felonies. AG Lynch and her career attorneys won’t be able to say, “On the whole, there’s just not enough here to convict.” They will have to say that over and over, on each charge. Indictment on even a few felonies is a torpedo beneath the waterline for Clinton. Third, it is clear that CIA and FBI investigators already fear an administration whitewash and have leaked damaging information to the press...

If the FBI recommends felony charges, as is likely, the DOJ’s choices are damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t. For Loretta Lynch, it will make for a painful final year. For her party, the stakes are the presidency. For her country, they are the impartial rule of law.

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Why the asterisk? Because that "finalized" number is based Hillary's emails that did not include any of the 32,000 messages she and her lawyers unilaterally deleted with no oversight. She has claimed that all of the emails she failed to produce were unrelated to official business. We know for a fact that this is not true, based on emails discovered by the Pentagon, as well as work-related missives that turned up when Sidney Blumethal's private emails were hacked. So she lied about that, as she's lied about so many things pertaining to this national security-compromising scandal. That (important) caveat aside, the State Department has determined that more than 2,000 emails on Mrs. Clinton's unsecure, improper server were classified. Many of these emails were low-level and retroactively classified, still a far cry from her categorical, false "there is no classified material" assertion last March. But there were dozens of emails designated as secret, top secret and even above top secret -- allegedly covering extremely sensitive topics from the Iran nuclear negotiations, to North Korean nuclear weapons, to the identities of foreign nationals on the CIA's payroll...

Clinton and her defenders have claimed that none of these messages were "marked classified" at the time, which is legally irrelevant. Intelligence and classification experts say highly secretive material is "born" classified, and that US officials are trained to recognize and protect such information. Mrs. Clinton signed a binding nondisclosure agreement to that effect upon taking office, swearing to safeguard secret information, regardless of markings...

The bootleg email server violated "clear cut" State Department rules, which has been affirmed by a Bill Clinton-appointed federal judge. It was woefully under-protected, so much so that several high-ranking members of the Obama administration have concluded that its contents were accessed by foreign governments. Clinton maintained her national security-endangering scheme even after she was specifically and personally warned that foreign hackers were seeking to penetrate classified secrets by exploiting American officials' private email accounts. Various attempts at spin and misdirection from Clintonworld have failed under scrutiny. The FBI's ongoing and expanded criminal investigation into the matter remains underway. Conservative research group America Rising notes that the latest tranche of emails includes classified information about enemy missile launches, US drone strikes in Pakistan and Americans operating abroad. It also includes a fully-redacted email between Clinton and John Kerry, who has said he knew nothing of her secret server. As they've done in the past, Team Clinton is trying to deflect from this scandal by assailing the integrity of the Intelligence Community's Inspector General, who was appointed by President Obama and confirmed unanimously by the Senate...

One element of the FBI's investigation into Clinton reportedly deals with entities and individuals making contributions to the Clinton Foundation and offering massive speaking fees to former President Bill Clinton as they were actively lobbying Hillary Clinton's State Department...

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ORIGINAL: KenDckey

Seems like Bill like to block polling places in what appears to be a violation of MA law. Wonder if they will invistigate him too?

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ORIGINAL: DaddySatyr

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ORIGINAL: KenDckey

Seems like Bill like to block polling places in what appears to be a violation of MA law. Wonder if they will invistigate him too?

Since when does anyone with the last name "Clinton" (except for, maybe George) give a damn about laws?



Michael

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ORIGINAL: bounty44

too long and too complex to edit for quotes, but this is an excellent piece that deals with the recent pagliano immunity, how both "sides" view it, and what is the more likely case:

http://myinforms.com/en-ca/a/26109878-what-paglianos-immunity-deal-in-the-clinton-email-scandal-reveals/