Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Above the Law

FBI Director Comey's announcement this morning can be broken down to say essentially this: Yeah, Hillary Clinton was extremely careless (synonymous with grossly negligent, which is the language in the applicable law) in handling sensitive intelligence on an unsecured server.  If she were anyone else, I would recommend indictment - because she's pretty clearly guilty - but, as she could be my boss in a few months, I advise against it.  Also, no reasonable prosecutor who cares about career prospects would take this case.
 
As Glenn Reynolds often notes: Laws are for little people.  He has a column on this today. 
 
It is interesting that Bill Clinton 'coincidentally' met with Attorney General Lynch and, less than a week later, Hillary is 'cleared' by the FBI.
 
Here is Austin Bay's take on Comey, which is the harshest assessment I have encountered.
 
All of this does feed into Trump's constant refrain of 'Crooked Hillary' and Bernie's 'Rigged System' talk.  As I mentioned during the primaries, of the 4 remaining contenders, Hillary was the most establishment candidate in an anti-establishment year.  Though she has dodged the indictment, Director Comey has provided a very unfriendly bunch of sound bites that most Republicans (e.g. Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney) would never lower themselves to use in attack ads during the coming campaign.  Donald Trump is not that kind of Republican.

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