FBI DIRECTOR COMEY: HILLARY CLINTON GAVE NON-CLEARED INDIVIDUALS ACCESS TO CLASSIFIED INFORMATION~FORMER FEDERAL JUDGE INVESTIGATES SECRET LYNCH-CLINTON AIRPORT MEETING

HILLARY CLINTON GAVE NON-CLEARED INDIVIDUALS ACCESS TO 

CLASSIFIED INFORMATION

Comey says between two and ten individuals without clearances had access to server

BY ALANA GOODMAN

SEE: http://freebeacon.com/issues/fbi-director-clinton-gave-non-cleared-individuals-access-classified-information/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

Hillary Clinton gave people without a security clearance access to her private server that contained classified information, FBI director James Comey told a congressional panel on Thursday.

The FBI director said between two and 10 individuals without clearances had access to the server, including Clinton’s attorneys who sorted her emails before they were turned over to the State Department.

Comey was testifying before the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee regarding his announcement on Tuesday that he would not recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton or her aides related to the mishandling of classified information on the private email server.

Although Comey said Clinton was “extremely careless” in handling classified materials, he said no “reasonable prosecutor” would proceed with the case because there was not evidence of criminal intent.

At one point during the hearing, the FBI director acknowledged that Clinton’s attorneys did not hold security clearances when the former secretary of state asked them to sort through her emails to determine which messages to turn over to the State Department and which ones to delete.

Comey also said he was unsure whether Clinton’s IT aide Bryan Pagliano had a security clearance, but believed between two and 10 individuals without clearances had access to Clinton’s server.

The revelation came during a tense exchange between Comey and Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah). The FBI director hedged when Chaffetz asked whether Clinton’s non-cleared attorneys ever read her classified emails.

“I don’t know the answer to that,” said Comey. “I don’t know whether they read them at the time.”

Chaffetz pressed the FBI director on the question of access.

“Did Hillary Clinton give non-cleared people access to classified information?” asked Chaffetz.

“Yes,” said Comey, before adding that he did not see evidence of criminal intent.

“Her intent was to get good legal representation and to make the production to the State Department,” added Comey. “I don’t see the evidence there to make the case that she was acting with criminal intent in her engagement with her lawyers.”

Chaffetz appeared confounded by Comey’s response, arguing that the act of giving an unsecured person access to classified information was a crime on its own.

“I read criminal intent as the idea that you allow someone without a security clearance access to classified information,” said Chaffetz. “Everybody knows that, director. Everybody knows that.”

During the hearing, which lasted more than four hours, Republicans criticized the FBI’s decision not to recommend criminal charges in the case, while Democrats defended it as a fair resolution to the year-long investigation.

Although Comey is often described as a Republican, he said during the hearing that he is currently registered as an independent.

The FBI director declined to confirm whether the bureau is currently investigating Hillary Clinton’s actions on behalf of the Clinton Foundation while she was secretary of state. News reports had previously said the FBI launched a second public corruption probe related to the foundation, but this has not been publicly confirmed by the bureau.

“I’m not going to comment on the existence or non-existence of any other investigations,” said Comey.

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Comey: Investigation Showed Clinton Wasn’t 

‘Particularly Sophisticated’ 

With Classified Information

BY CHANDLER GILL

SEE: http://freebeacon.com/politics/investigation-showed-clinton-wasnt-sophisticated-classified-information/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

FBI Director James Comey said at the House Oversight Committee Thursday that his investigation showed that Hillary Clinton was not “particularly sophisticated” with classified information.

Reps. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.) and Mark Meadows (R., N.C.) did not take this revelation lightly.

DeSantis said he was having trouble understanding that if someone knew that there was classified information, then how it was appropriate to pass it on through a private and non-secure email server.

“This is information that clearly anybody who had knowledge of security information would know that it would be classified,” he said. “But, I’m having a little bit of trouble to see how you would not then know that that was something that was inappropriate to do?”

“Well, I just want to take one of your assumptions about sophistication,” Comey said. “I don’t think that our investigation established that she was actually particularly sophisticated with respect to classified information, and the levels, and the treatment.”

DeSantis was stunned and asked if she was an original classification authority. Comey nodded.

Later in the hearing, Comey explained to Meadows there were three documents that had confidential classified markings.

“There were three documents that bore portion markings where you’re obligated when something is classified, you put a marking on that paragraph,” he said.“And there were three that bore C in parentheses, which means that’s confidential classified information.”

Meadows jumped in to ask if it was reasonable to assume Clinton would be able to understand the marking.

“So a reasonable person who has been a senator, a secretary of state, a First Lady– wouldn’t a reasonable person know that that was a classified marking?” he asked. “As a Secretary of State.”

Comey said yes.

Meadows continued to make his point.

“A reasonable person,” he said. “That’s all I’m asking you.”

Comey gave a shocking response.

“Yeah, before this investigation I probably would have said yes, I’m not so sure,” he said. “I don’t find it—”

“Director Comey, come on,” Meadows said. “I mean, I’ve only been here a few years and I understand the importance of those markings. So, you’re suggesting that a long length of time she had no idea what a classified marking would be. That’s your sworn testimony today?”

Comey immediately said no.

“No, no, not that she would have no idea what a classified marking would be, but, it’s an interesting question as to whether she—this question about sophistication came up earlier—whether she was actually sophisticated enough to understand what a C in parenthesis means,” he said.

“So, you’re saying this former Secretary of State is not sophisticated enough to understand a classified marking?” Meadows asked. “That’s a huge statement.”

Comey said no. He said before this investigation, he would have assumed that someone would know what that meant but wasn’t sure any longer.

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Guilty as Not Charged

SEE: http://the-trumpet-online.com/guilty-not-charged/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

lewrockwell.com

By Andrew P. Napolitano

Is it worth impairing the reputation of the FBI and the Department of Justice to save Hillary Clinton from a deserved criminal prosecution by playing word games?

What has become of the rule of law — no one is beneath its protections or above its requirements — when the American public can witness a game of political musical chairs orchestrated by Bill Clinton at an airport in a bizarre ruse to remove the criminal investigation of his wife from those legally responsible for making decisions about it?

How hairsplitting can the FBI be in acknowledging “extreme carelessness” while denying “gross negligence” about the same events, at the same time, and in the same respect?

These are questions that now beg for answers in light of what can only be the politically motivated FBI report delivered earlier this week on the likely criminal behavior of Hillary Clinton.

The espionage statute that criminalizes the knowing or grossly negligent failure to keep state secrets in a secure venue is the rare federal statute that can be violated and upon which a conviction may be based without the need of the government to prove intent.

Thus, in the past two years, the DOJ has prosecuted a young sailor for sending a single selfie to his girlfriend that inadvertently showed a submarine sonar screen in its background. It also prosecuted a Marine lieutenant who sent his military superiors a single email about the presence of al-Qaida operatives dressed as local police in a U.S. encampment in Afghanistan — but who inadvertently used his Gmail account rather than his secure government account.

And it famously prosecuted Gen. David Petraeus for sharing paper copies of his daily calendar in his guarded home with a military colleague also in the home — someone who had a secret security clearance herself — because the calendar inadvertently included secret matters in the pages underneath the calendar.

Yet earlier this week, FBI Director James Comey — knowing that his bosses in the DOJ would accept his legal conclusions about Clinton’s failure to keep state secrets secure, because they had removed themselves from independently judging the FBI’s work — told the public that whereas the inadvertence of the above defendants was sufficient to justify their prosecutions, somehow Clinton’s repeated recklessness was not.

It is obvious that a different standard is being applied to Clinton than was applied to Petraeus and the others. It is also now painfully obvious that the game of musical chairs we all witnessed last week when Bill Clinton entered the private jet of Comey’s boss — Attorney General Loretta Lynch — unannounced and spent 30 private minutes there with her at a time when both he and his wife were targets of FBI criminal probes was a trick to compromise Lynch and remove her and her aides from the DOJ chain of command regarding the decision as to whether to present evidence of crimes against either of the Clintons to a federal grand jury.

Why do we stand for this?

The criminal case against Mrs. Clinton would have been overwhelming. The FBI acknowledged that she sent or received more than 100 emails that contained state secrets via one of her four home servers. None of those servers was secure. Each secret email was secret when received, was secret when sent and is secret today. All were removed from their secure venues by Clinton, who knew what she was doing, instructed subordinates to white out “secret” markings, burned her own calendars, destroyed thousands of her emails and refuses to this day to recognize that she had a duty to preserve such secrets as satellite images of North Korean nuclear facilities, locations of drone strikes in Pakistan and names of American intelligence agents operating in the Middle East under cover.

Why do we stand for this?

Comey has argued that somehow there is such a legal chasm between extreme carelessness and gross negligence that the feds cannot bridge it. That is not an argument for him to make. That is for a jury to decide after a judge instructs the jury about what Comey fails to understand: There is not a dime’s worth of difference between these two standards. Extreme carelessness is gross negligence.

Unless, of course, one is willing to pervert the rule of law yet again to insulate a Clinton yet again from the law enforcement machinery that everyone else who fails to secure state secrets should expect.

Why do we stand for this?

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Dick Morris: Indict Hillary for Contempt of Congress

SEE: http://the-trumpet-online.com/dick-morris-indict-hillary-contempt-congress/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

By Dick Morris
Thursday, 07 Jul 2016 01:04 PM More Posts by Dick Morris
FBI Director James Comey testified before Congress Thursday that Hillary Clinton lied when she said that she neither sent nor received classified material. And that nothing was marked classified on the emails on her server. And that she lied when she said her server was not hacked. And that she lied when she said that she turned over all her work-related emails to the State Department.

All these lies where spoken in media interviews on virtually every news show in the country.

They were also repeated before Congress in her sworn testimony during the Benghazi hearings.
Asked why he did not recommend prosecution for perjury, Comey answered that he did not have a referral and that he needed one to investigate further. Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said he would send a referral over in a matter of “hours.”
Now, maybe we’ve finally got her.

The Justice Department has decided not to indict her for mishandling of classified material. But how about lying under oath to Congress?

The FBI will find it hard not to recommend prosecution. The facts are evident and clear.

If the Justice Department won’t prosecute this clear instance of perjury, their partisanship will be on display. And the decision will have been made following an FBI recommendation, but most likely opposing it.

Lying under oath seems to run in the Clinton family. Maybe it is contagious.

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FORMER FEDERAL JUDGE INVESTIGATING LYNCH-CLINTON AIRPORT MEETING

SEE: http://www.newswithviews.com/NWV-News/news522.htm;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

By NWV Senior Political News Writer, Jim Kouri
Posted 1:00 AM Eastern
July 8, 2016
© 2016 NewsWithViews.com

"What was just laid out is what we would call a no-brainer in the attorney's office that Jim Comey worked at. And [Comey] was one of my assistants." - Rudy Giuliani

A former U.S. federal judge filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information surrounding the recent private meeting between Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former President Bill Clinton that occurred on June 27, 2015 at the Phoenix airport.

The meeting took place just days before the FBI announced it would not recommend charges against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The Department of Justice (DOJ) apparently attempted to keep the meeting secret, as reporters on the ground were told: “no photos, no pictures, no cell phones.”

CoA Institute President and CEO, and former federal judge, Alfred J. Lechner, Jr.: “A private meeting between President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch raises serious concerns about impartiality at the Department of Justice. Today’s announcement that the FBI will not recommend pursuing charges against Hillary Clinton does not remove the public interest in knowing what was discussed.”

To understand the purpose of this meeting, Cause of Action Institute has requested all records, transcripts, or recordings of the meeting as well as the Attorney General’s schedule for June 26 – 28, 2016, including but not limited to pre- and post-meeting email which concern the meeting in any way.

"The [Clinton-Lynch] meeting raises serious concerns about the Attorney General’s impartiality in two pending DOJ investigations, one into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email server to house official government records and the other into the Clinton Foundation. On July 1, 2015, there were conflicting reports about whether Attorney General Lynch will effectively," CoA states in its legal filing.

Meanwhile, former New York City Mayor and U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani blasted FBI Director James Comey for his decision to not indict Hillary Clinton in the email scandal, saying "this is the special exemption for the Clintons."

"It would be unreasonable for a prosecutor not to go forward with it and almost an abdication of duty," Giuliani told Gretchen Carlson on Fox News. "What was just laid out is what we would call a no-brainer in the attorney's office that Jim Comey worked at. {By the way] he [Comey] was one of my assistants," Giuliani noted.



"A reasonable prosecutor would have brought this case no doubt," he added. "I don't know how he ever, ever is going to be able to charge anybody in the CIA or the FBI who is extremely careless with top secret information, if he isn't charging Hillary Clinton."

Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Lechner was a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps, and received a J.D. from Notre Dame Law School in 1972. He was a judge on the New Jersey Superior Court from 1984 to 1986.

On April 8, 1986, Lechner was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on June 6, 1986, and received his commission on June 9, 1986. Lechner served in that capacity until October 1, 2001, when he resigned.

The CoA filing includes the following information requests:

1. Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s schedule for June 26, 27, and 28, 2016, including but not limited to pre- and post-meeting email which concern the Meeting in any way.

2. All records, transcripts, or recordings of the Meeting.

3. All records including notes and/or memoranda by or to the Attorney General in either the Office of the Secretary or the Office of Legal Counsel discussing the Meeting either before or after it occurred. This item includes any advice given or memoranda created in response to the Meeting or news of the Meeting.

4. All records including notes and/or memoranda by or to the Attorney General in either the Office of the Secretary of the Office of Legal Counsel relating to the Attorney General’s decision whether to effectively recuse herself and accept the recommendation of career prosecutors and the FBI in the ongoing investigations relating to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.

5. Any records reflecting the FBI decision or authority to restrict reporters and others on the ground from using cell phones or taking pictures. [Link]

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