“For Brutus is an honourable man.”
The White House statements have seemed to me to be tailored to giving him cover for a dignified resignation. Really, how can Comey regain anyone’s confidence now?
Uggh. It has been pointed out and well explained by Richard Parker in this thread that the actual text of the law makes reckless carelessness illegal. If he left that unaddressed he most certainly would not be fulfilling his task.
Then he ought to have recommended prosecution? But didn’t, because…why?
Comey still has U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s confidence. She has urged him to wrap up this new investigation ASAP.
Glad to see the shit storm is dying down. Things will heat up if they find anything incriminating but let’s cross that road if we get there.
WTH, dude. I already answered this to you specifically a page or so ago
Then Richard Parker explained it:
.
Well Mrs. Clinton yesterday did demand that the FBI “release everything” or somesuch. Careful what ya ask for, I guess. For my part I would never want to get into a pissing match with the FBI. YMMV.
I don’t expect the average American to understand the minutae involved with handling and safeguarding classified documents. But, we need to start from the beginning and not gloss over crucial points.
Classified and top secret documents and data - satellite imagery, all kinds of stuff, lives in its own world. It’s not connected to the internet. It can’t be emailed to a Yahoo! account. It’s not physically or technically possible. Depending on the level of classification, they are only viewed in a secure area. By people who have not only been cleared to view such material, but also have a “need to know” this information. Cell phones, and cameras and such devices are not allowed.
Do you see where I’m going with this? The only way these classified or secret, top secret and higher documents and the rest of it, could end up on somebodies laptop mirrored on their Hotmail account was a complete end run around all of the laws that govern the handling of national security info e.g. classified. For example, a photograph could be taken of the computer screen. Or perhaps a thumb drive was used, although these are typically disabled for exactly this reason, and even the attempt will set off alarms. Maybe documents were printed, and then scanned, and uploaded to an unsecure network (the internet).
Simply put, there is no way to “mistakenly” end up with 650,000 state department emails on a Yahoo! account. Remember, the too secret stuff isn’t connected to the internet. Never the twain shall meet. This is crucial for people to understand, and why people who understand these things are justifiably outraged. If they aren’t work related, maybe it’s just time to shut down the State department, because they aren’t getting much work done.
CarnalK:
Yes, you are tediously repeating why he didn’t find her actions illegal and worthy of prosecution. How does that change the fact that he didn’t?
And *that *was his assignment, to make that decision. His editorial comments are not part of that assignment. If your going to insist that his personal thoughts on the matter are a part of his assignment, then wouldn’t that mean he was obligated to report to Congress any change in his perspective? If thar seems silly to you, I agree, but it follows from your reasoning that his personal views on correct behavior is as important as his analysis of the facts and the law.
Personally, I think that he couldn’t give the Republicans what they dearly wanted, so he gave them a consolation prize, he couldn’t find her prosecutable so he did the next best thing. But where in his assignment is he obliged, or even permitted, to scold? Did he have some license or permission to expand his assignment? He didn’t do it because he had to, because he was obliged to. He did it to be a “team player”, because he wanted to. My personal opinion.
Common Tater, your point eludes me. I can’t tell if you are saying that it is very unlikely that any such secret files are on Tony Dickpics laptop, therefore not to worry (Hillary is most likely in the clear)
OR
To have such info on a laptop requires a high level conspiracy worthy of Tom Clancy, and this is “…why people who understand these things are justifiably outraged…” (String her up!)
As Eugene V. Debs is my witness, I mean no snark at all, I genuinely can’t figure it out.
I was about to post the same thing.
Great minds think alike. Twisted minds as well, it would seem.
I think most people are hoping some of Hillary’s deleted emails will be on that laptop. She deleted what? 30,000? There’s a good chance Huma never got a chance to sanitize that laptop. Maybe copies of those deleted emails survived on that laptop. Even a few thousand of them would help investigators.
It would help investigators to see the type of emails Hillary deleted. Were they all personal like she claims? I think everyone agrees she had the right to delete her personal email before turning the others over to the FBI.
Just have to wait and see what they find on that laptop.
I’d love to give you the benefit of the doubt and think you were being deliberately obtuse but alas I can’t honestly think that.
The law says gross negligence is a crime. Comey thinks he found gross negligence. But he can’t recommend charging her because that would upset a hundred year application of the law. So he explained that position. Or, as you would put it, he scolded her for breaking the letter of the law but then explained the lack of spanking.
I agree, and the FBI agrees, but I bet there are 40 million or more that do not agree. Trump certainly doesn’t.
I’m aware of Comey saying that Clinton was negligent, but to my knowledge he never used the term “gross negligence.” Do you have a cite that he did? I may have missed it.
Simple negligence is not the same as gross negligence. Otherwise the word “gross” would not appear in the law, right?
I’m also not aware of Comey saying that Clinton “broke the letter of the law.” As far as I know, that’s you putting words in his mouth. Do you have a cite for him saying that she violated the law, but he recommended against prosecution anyway? I think this is a horribly mangled and fundamentally incorrect summary of what he said.
No. There’s room for disagreement about what Comey meant, but CarnalK’s interpretation is not only perfectly reasonable, it is probably the correct one.
The standard is gross negligence. That is usually defined as something between ordinary negligence and recklessness. Comey calling her “extremely careless” is pretty safely in that zone.
He went on to say:
He is clearly saying that while she may well have violated the statute, the history of the prosecution of that statute is that prosecutors have required the presence of things not formally required by the statute.
You could argue that the presence of the prosecutorial discretion factors meant he never really had to reach a final decision about whether she was grossly negligent. And that’s fair. But calling CarnalK’s interpretation therefore mangled and fundamentally incorrect is way off base.
I disagree that it is off-base. He claimed that Comey found that Clinton violated the statute. He quite literally did not say that in his press conference, and in my opinion went to considerable effort to avoid saying anything like that. For example, he did. It say that Clinton was “grossly negligent.” He said she was “extremely careless.” If he meant “grossly negligent,” my assumption is that he would have used those words, and not a vague possible synonym for that term. After all, if a law enforcement officer avoids the use of terms defined in statute such as “homicide, murder, manslaughter” or whatnot, and uses a word that does not have the same precision - “unauthorized death” maybe? - it seems to me that words in this sort of context are chosen for a reason.
I believe that in context, Comey did NOT want to send a message to the public that Clinton DID break the law but he (and others) decided NOT to pursue a prosecution. Which frankly is a message that questions his competence. Instead, it is quite clear to my reading that he did not want to say that Clinton broke the law, but that she ought to be chided - and perhaps administratively punished - for her actions.
What I strongly disagree with in your post (and the one I quoted earlier) is a simple logical fallacy. Comey highlighted that the law (B in this case) has historically been applied in certain manners (A). Logically, if A (Clinton’s misdoings match precidents of prosecution), then B (she broke the law). Surely we can all agree on this.
But Comey stated Not A. Logically, Not A does not mean B. Not A also does not mean not B. Pointing out how the precidents of how the statute has been used in prosecutions does not mean that he is saying that she broke the law but shouldn’t be prosecuted - he literally does not weigh in on whether she broke the law, but to my reading strongly implies that she didn’t, AND that the decision not to prosecute is consistent with precident (as opposed to the text of the law).
To use his statement on precedent to imply some conclusion on whether she broke the law isn’t supported by the text of his statement nor is it a logically sound conclusion from what you have presented. That why I said it is a mangled argument.
Perhaps I am not party to this argument, though Carnalk seems to insist that I am. Allow me a bit of simplification.
“Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”
This was his job. The legal facts of the matter. There is evidence of “potential violations”. Has anyone ever been indicted for a potential violation, or is that procedure reserved for crimes that have demonstrably been committed? Cock Robin is dead, and would not otherwise be that way, save for his impalement by arrow. If he had evidence of actual, provable violations, he would have said so.
His additional opinion about “reasonable prosecutors” is interesting and insightful. Doesn’t change what he has already attested to. It is a “furthermore”, the lettuce and tomato, he has already delivered the meat.
With this, his duty is discharged, the evidence does not support anything more tangible than a “potential violation”. He is not charged with any duty to comment upon Ms Clinton’s sloppy habits, poor organization, or personal hygiene. That he chose to do so is an exercise in discretion that he has assigned to himself. There are plenty of people eager to scold Ms Clinton, we need not burden the Director of the FBI to take that on himself.
Had he delivered the crux of the biscuit and then STFU, he would have continued to enjoy my approval. All the way up to Friday last.
You’re quite obviously misreading my post, given that I explicitly said “You could argue that the presence of the prosecutorial discretion factors meant he never really had to reach a final decision about whether she was grossly negligent. And that’s fair.” I think your reading of Comey is similarly a clear misreading, but I don’t see much to gain by arguing about it. The text isn’t long. People can decide for themselves.
This really isn’t that complicated.
There’s what the statute requires a prosecutor to prove. Let’s call that S. And there’s the factors a prosecutor might use to decide whether to bring a charge. Let’s call that P.
You need S+P to indict. Comey said he did not have P. The debate is over whether he thought he had S.
The evidence that he thought he had S is:
-He called her conduct extremely careless
-He said there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information
-He described his reasons not to prosecute exclusively in terms of P and not S
The frustrating part is that refusing to even acknowledge that part of Comey’s testimony is refusing to even try to understand the Hillary haters. Ok, you’re against them but what’s the point of pretending you don’t even understand the crux of their grudge? Comey made a specific effort to address it while ultimately dismissing it. But that’s not good enough for some around here. It’s all or nothing.