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ORIGINAL: bounty44

anyone ever read about Pavlov's dogs and classical conditioning?

if so, I trust you will recognize the reference.

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Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), went after FBI Director James Comey at a House hearing yesterday, expressing his disappointment with the way the Hillary Clinton email investigation was carried out.

Cheryl Mills, a top aide to Hillary Clinton who also acts as her lawyer, received an immunity deal from the Department of Justice and was also allowed to sit in on the FBI's interview with Clinton.

Gowdy told Comey that he doesn't understand how the FBI could hand out five immunity deals with no prosecutions and also allow Mills, a potential target of the investigation, to sit in on the interview with Clinton.

"That is not the FBI I used to work with," said Gowdy.

Comey said he hopes Gowdy will, after the "political craziness" is over, look back and reconsider, adding "this is the FBI you know and love" and that the investigation was done "by pros in the right way."

This morning on America's Newsroom, we heard from Gowdy, who said the five immunity agreements were all "very troubling." He questioned how no one could be prosecuted for sending or receiving classified information by email or for destroying federal records.

"Out of all of this. [After] five immunity agreements and a really unusual investigation about national security matters, with hundreds of classified emails, not one single person is going to face a legal consequence," he explained.

Gowdy agreed with Bill Hemmer's statement that the case is basically "dead in the water." But the House Benghazi Committee chairman said the final decision will be made on Election Day by the American people.

"On November 8th, the real jury gets to weigh in. And if they think this Department of Justice has been politicized, they are welcome to replace it with another Department of Justice."

Watch the full interview above.

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The whole thing’s worth watching but especially the bit beginning at 3:30. This is a sequel to Gowdy’s first grilling of Comey before the House Oversight Committee in July, so go watch that clip to prepare yourself for this one.

Gowdy’s point then was simple: 18 U.S.C. 793(f), the statute that makes mishandling classified information a felony, applies if the suspect showed “gross negligence” in how they handled the info. You don’t need to show that they intended to mishandle it in order to get a conviction. (Who besides an actual spy would intentionally mishandle state secrets?) All you need to prove is that they were grossly deficient in their duty to handle the information responsibly. Which, very clearly, was true in the case of Hillary “Private Server” Clinton.

Comey, however, declined to charge her because, he said, only once in the many decades since that law was passed has someone been charged under it. Supposedly it would be unfair to prosecute Hillary for showing gross negligence when other people hadn’t been prosecuted — never mind that, as a cabinet official, her recklessness involved information at the highest levels of secrecy. Comey all but declared at his press conference in July that he would have prosecuted Clinton only if he had detected an intent to mishandle info. Gross negligence wasn’t enough to charge — even though that’s all the statute requires.

Gowdy’s point is the same now as it was then. Isn’t destroying evidence and then lying about it the best evidence of criminal intent insofar as it reveals a guilty mind? Because that’s what we have here — deleted emails, wiped servers, and then a series of public lies by Hillary about whether she’d ever dealt with classified information on her private system. What more would you need to have seen from her by way of suspicious behavior, he asks Comey, to conclude that she really did know all along that she was mishandling classified information and therefore is guilty even under Comey’s own standard of intent?

Comey … has no good answer. Yes, he says, it’s true that concealing evidence is a strong indicator of bad intent, but we need to look at what the suspect has said, too. Which is Gowdy’s point: The false exculpatory statements Clinton has made publicly are further proof that she’s concealing the truth. We also need to look at whether anyone’s been prosecuted for this particular crime before, notes Comey. That’s all that seems left of his decision not to charge her now. He’s not forcefully disputing Gowdy’s claim that Hillary knowingly, not just negligently, mishandled classified information. All he’s saying when you boil it down is that if no one’s gone to prison for this before, it’d be unfair to send Clinton to prison for it now. In July it seemed as though he was writing a new element of the crime into the statute, replacing “gross negligence” with “intent.” Now it seems like he’s writing the statute out of existence entirely because it hasn’t been used in court enough to this point.

Emphasis on “seems”: If you’re a government employee, I advise you not to test the FBI’s willingness to charge you if you’re an average nobody rather than their potential next boss.

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The conservative group Judicial Watch has received responses from a Clinton lawyer regarding her email server, responses submitted “under penalty of perjury.” It relates to a FOIA lawsuit filed by the group over documents relating to the former first lady’s tenure as our top diplomat at the State Department. The answers to the 25 questions are fraught with Clinton not being able to recall key details about her private email arrangement at State, which wasn’t approved by officials. That talking point, in which Clinton said it was approved by the State Department, was blown up with the IG report last May. The ongoing debunking of Clinton email narrative has torpedoed her trust and honesty numbers with voters...

The answers to the questions rehash what the FBI found about the investigation, but first—Clinton’s supposed amnesia about her email server (via Associated Press):

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Clinton lawyer David Kendall provided the Democratic presidential nominee's sworn responses to 25 written questions submitted by Judicial Watch. The group has filed multiple lawsuits seeking copies of government documents from Clinton's tenure as secretary of state.

Clinton's answers provided no new information beyond what she told FBI agents during the recently closed investigation into whether she and her staff mishandled classified information.

In her responses, Clinton used some variation of "does not recall" at least 21 times.

For example, Clinton was asked when she decided to use her private email account to conduct government business and whom she consulted in making that decision.

Clinton said she recalled making the decision in early 2009, but she "does not recall any specific consultations regarding the decision."

Asked whether she was warned that using a private email account conflicted with federal record-keeping rules, Clinton responded that "she does not recall being advised, cautioned, or warned, she does not recall that it was ever suggested to her, and she does not recall participating in any communication, conversation, or meeting in which it was discussed."

In September, when the FBI released their notes about their investigation into the Clinton server, where we found that some emails discussed possible future drone strikes. The FBI also noted Clinton not being able to recall any training about the retention of federal records or handling classified information...

Now, we have a high-ranking source at the FBI noting that the agents involved in the investigation were sickened by FBI Director James Comey’s decision not to file charges against Clinton—and that nearly everyone involved felt that her security clearance should’ve been yanked.

King also mentioned during this September segment that Clinton prided herself in being Ms. Detail, the nerd, the policy wonk, while Bill Clinton would run into someone after not seeing them for 20 years and remember what this person had for dinner at their last rendezvous. Given that both, especially Clinton, have prided themselves in being masters of details and in some cases memory—does she really think that folks are going to believe that she doesn’t remember key questions about her unusual, unsecure, and unauthorized email arrangement? I think you already know the answer to that.