It’s an interesting thing: you right now have over 50 people, including Hollywood stars Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, charged in a scheme to bribe their kids’ way into college. Felonies. Yet Hillary Clinton, who violated numerous federal statutes, wasn’t even charged. I wonder why? Here’s how the Democracy Dies In Darkness paper explains it
Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page defended herself and the bureau last year against accusations that anti-Trump bias affected federal investigations of the Trump campaign’s suspected Russia ties and of Hillary Clinton’s emails, according to a transcript released Tuesday by the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.
Page, who came to prominence over anti-Trump texts she exchanged with former FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok while both were assigned to the Clinton and Trump investigations, stressed that senior bureau officials were also expressing anti-Clinton animus — but that neither affected how agents working those cases carried out their jobs. (more flowing defense of Page for paragraphs)
She pushed back against the suggestion that the FBI “blew over†potentially charging Clinton with gross negligence under the Espionage Act, saying officials did consider it — but decided that the move would be too “constitutionally vague,†unprecedented, and “that they did not feel that they could sustain a charge.†Page also said Richard Scott, the Justice Department official in charge of overseeing the Clinton probe, had advised against making the harsher charge.
So, no big deal, right?
Lisa Page admitted Obama DOJ ordered stand-down on Clinton email prosecution, GOP rep says
Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page admitted under questioning from Texas Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe last summer that “the FBI was ordered by the Obama DOJ not to consider charging Hillary Clinton for gross negligence in the handling of classified information,” the congressman alleged in a social media post late Tuesday, citing a newly unearthed transcript of Page’s closed-door testimony. (snip)
“So let me if I can, I know I’m testing your memory,” Ratcliffe began as he questioned Page under oath, according to a transcript excerpt he posted on Twitter. “But when you say advice you got from the Department, you’re making it sound like it was the Department that told you: You’re not going to charge gross negligence because we’re the prosecutors and we’re telling you we’re not going to —”
Page interrupted: “That is correct,” as Ratcliffe finished his sentence, ” — bring a case based on that.” (snip)
Page also testified that the DOJ and FBI had “multiple conversations … about charging gross negligence,” and the DOJ decided that the term was “constitutionally vague” and “had either never been done or had only been done once like 99 years ago,” and so “they did not feel they could sustain a charge.”
That’s a wee bit more specific than what Democracy Dies In Darkness states, eh? Getting beyond the obvious bias of the Washington Post (most other news outlets barely cover the document dump, if at all), what this really highlights is that the fix was in. Exactly what Republicans were saying. That’s how you end up with James Comey laying out a case to prosecute Hillary then saying “na. Never mind.”
