Posted: 06 Jul 2016 02:07 AM PDT What the hell just happened? James Comey laid out an indictable and winnable case and then did a 180-degree turn and recommended to the Attorney General that Hillary Clinton not be prosecuted. I have little doubt that the hardworking investigators and forensic inspectors at the FBI are good and honorable people who did a professional job on dissecting Hillary Clinton’s email server and actions. As FBI James Comey laid out the FBI’s findings, point-by-point, I, once again, felt that the Director did a great job in presenting the facts of the case. Right up until the end, where Director Comey, appears to re-write the Espionage Act and introduces a non-existent element, “intent,” to justify his case to recommend prosecutors not take action against Hillary Clinton. Notice Comey did not say anything about obstruction of justice or the fate of lesser employees who also used the same email system. Nor did Comey mention anything about those who may have removed classified markings from documents or bridged the gap between classified systems and unclassified systems. Nor did James Comey indicate whether or not Clinton’s attorneys purged emails relating to the Clinton Foundation or the various Clinton projects as being “personal in nature.” There is so much that Comey did not say. But, he still put forth a credible case for indictment. I now believe that Comey, who I respected up until this point, is now part of a progressive conspiracy to cover up high crimes and misdemeanors involving high government officials. And, that had he not actually presented a case that appeared to indict Hillary Clinton, there would have been a revolt in the ranks of the FBI. The fact that Comey stepped beyond his authority and suggested no "reasonable prosecutor" would bring a case after laying out the case. Seven Days in Summer …
Unfortunately, nobody can’t depose the participants under oath, because Bill Clinton has proven he is willing to perjure himself if confronted with scandal. Hillary Clinton appears to be a congenital liar. And, who knows about Lynch and Comey. Cowardice and fear that simple questions would expose the BIG LIE? Comey cut and ran before any questions could be asked … turning a press conference into a Hillary Clinton press event. Will Congress have the guts to exert their oversight authority and investigate this matter close to an election or are they all talk as usual?
Just because nobody has ever done something this dreadful and damaging before and no precedent exists, does not give a pass to someone who clearly violated the law. Granted, nobody operated a home-brew server, but the FBI did recently handle a similar case.
Without a security clearance, Hillary Clinton and her cadre of close supporters – many of whom used the same private email server – could not obtain the necessary security clearances in order to fulfill the obligations of the President of the United States. Her top aids would also be precluded from assisting her in any official endeavor. Surely, FBI Director and Attorney General Lynch are aware of this case. And, perhaps Comey needs to explain why Hillary's lawyers get a pass for wantonly destroying government property -- admittedly without examining all of the emails individually and using keywords to facilitate the destruction? Did these attorneys have the necessary clearances to view, possess, and store classified information? And, why did these attorneys feel the need to use special software to ensure the destruction of this data if the data were benign and personal? Bottom line … My best friend Al was also discouraged by this turn of events, but was not surprised as this is the outcome he predicted all along. He continues to give me grief for “wishful thinking” and believing that the system will somehow pull a rabbit from the hat. The only positive thing I can think of that might justify Comey’s action in not recommending the prosecution of Hillary Clinton is that the government wanted to protect a much larger case involving the selling of information and favors to special interests, with the payments being routed to the various dodgy and impenetrable Clinton Enterprises. Or, in a moment of constitutional clarity, the GOP will bypass Trump and put a constitutional conservative such as Ted Cruz in as the nominee. Unlikely, but I can dream. Will this singular event energize the base of both political parties? The Trump supporters seeking a President that will hold Hillary Clinton accountable for her actions. And, the Clinton supporters mustering to protect Hillary against the evil GOP that wants to send Hillary to jail? But Al and I agree on one thing: we are so screwed by this crew in office. |
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
Brexit: Sovereign Kingdom or little England?
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Given their arrogance, pomposity and habitual absurdities, it is hard not to feel a certain satisfaction with the comeuppance that Brexit has delivered to the unaccountable European Union bureaucrats in Brussels.
Nonetheless, we would do well to refrain from smug condescension. Unity is not easy. What began in 1951 as a six-member European Coal and Steel Community was grounded in a larger conception of a united Europe born from the ashes of World War II. Seven decades into the postwar era, Britain wants out and the EU is facing an existential crisis.
Yet where were we Americans seven decades into our great experiment in continental confederation, our “more perfect union” contracted under the Constitution of 1787? At Fort Sumter.
The failure of our federal idea gave us civil war and 600,000 dead. And we had the advantage of a common language, common heritage and common memory of heroic revolutionary struggle against a common (British) foe. Europe had none of this. The European project tries to forge the union of dozens of disparate peoples, ethnicities, languages and cultures, amid the searing memories of the two most destructive wars in history fought among and against each other.
The result is the EU, a great idea badly executed. The founding motive was obvious and noble: to reconcile the combatants of World War II, most especially France and Germany, and create conditions that would ensure there could be no repetition. Onto that was appended the more utopian vision of a continental superstate that would once and for all transcend parochial nationalism.
That vision blew up with Brexit on June 23. But we mustn’t underestimate the significance and improbability of the project’s more narrow but still singular achievement: peace. It has given Europe the most extended period of internal tranquility since the Roman Empire. (In conjunction, of course, with NATO, which provided Europe with its American umbrella against external threat.)
Not only is there no armed conflict among European states. The very idea is inconceivable. (Fighting between the various nations has been subcontracted to soccer hooligans.) This on a continent where war had been the norm for a millennium.
Give the EU its due. Despite its comical faux-national paraphernalia of flag, anthem and useless parliament, it has championed and advanced a transnational idea that has helped curb the nationalist excesses that culminated in two world wars.
Advanced not quite enough, however. Certainly not enough to support its disdainful, often dismissive, treatment of residual nationalisms and their democratic expressions. Despite numerous objections by referendum and parliament, which it routinely either ignored or circumvented, the EU continued its relentless drive for more centralization, more regulation and thus more power for its unelected self.
Such high-handed overriding of popular sentiment could go on only so long. Until June 23, 2016, to be precise.
To be sure, popular sentiment was rather narrowly divided. The most prominent disparity in the British vote was generational. The young, having grown up in the new Europe, are more comfortable with its cosmopolitanism and have come to expect open borders, open commerce and open movement of people. They voted overwhelmingly — by 3 to 1 — to Remain. Leave was mainly the position of an older generation no longer willing to tolerate European assaults on British autonomy and sovereignty.
Understandably so. Here is Britain, inventor of the liberal idea and home to the mother of parliaments, being instructed by a bunch of pastry-eating Brussels bureaucrats on everything from the proper size of pomegranates to the human rights of terrorists.
Widely mentioned and resented was the immigration directive to admit other EU citizens near automatically. But what pushed the “leave” side over the top was less policy than primacy. Who runs Britain? Amazingly, about half the laws and regulations that govern British life today come not from Westminster but from Brussels.
Brexit was an assertion of national sovereignty and an attempt, in one fell swoop, to recover it.
There is much to admire in that impulse. But at what cost? Among its casualties may be not just the European project — other exit referendums are already being proposed — but possibly the United Kingdom itself. The Scots already are talking about another vote for independence. And Northern Ireland, which voted to remain in the EU, might well seek to unite with the Republic.
Talk about a great idea executed badly. In seeking a newly sovereign United Kingdom, the Brits might well find themselves having produced a little England.
Charles Krauthammer is a columnist for The Washington Post. Readers may contact him at letters@charleskrauthammer.com.
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