What do you think it says about you and the news outlets you choose to cite when your source says “there is no evidence Hillary broke the law” when what he actually said was :“We have no evidence sufficient to justify the conclusion that she violated any of the statutes related to classified information”
In what universe did I ever imply that we should assume that the new evidence would overturn the previous position? The fact of the matter remains, she meets ALL of the elements of a crime but for the inability to prove intent. If that makes the crime “imaginary” to you then I think you are underestimating the nuance behind the use of the word imaginary to describe a situation where we have clear evidence of ALL of the elements of a crime other than intent. Now to be clear, intent is a very important element but its also very hard to prove.
I personally was not bothered by the whole email thing once she acknowledged her mistake and apologized for it. I was much more bothered by her cheating, corruption and plutocratic ass-kissing of the rich and famous.
Yes it is for this particular crime (there are some crimes that don’t require intent but that’s not relevant here), I should have said she met all of the elements other than intent.
“there is no evidence Hillary broke the law” = “We have no evidence sufficient to justify the conclusion that she violated any of the statutes related to classified information”
Sorry for the nauseating color scheme, but it seemed the most space-efficient way to map out the sentences.
If you are the sort that wants to believe that she needs to be locked up, the overly verbose structure of Comey’s phrase allows you to create your own interpretation, but a generation from now, the historical record would be the same no matter which phrasing was used- Hillary Clinton did not break the law.
I don’t think “we have no evidence” has the same meaning as “we have no evidence sufficient to justify the conclusion that”
Here, let me try it in a different context.
We have no evidence that Trump was ACTIVELY courting racist and bigots.
We have no evidence sufficient to conclude that Trump was ACTIVELY courting racists and bigots.
Because I think I have plenty of evidence that Trump was actively courting racists and bigots, but I don’t have evidence that is sufficient to conclude that he was actively doing so.
I don’t think Hillary should be in jail. If Petraeus (where we did have evidence sufficient to conclude that he committed crime) didn’t spend a day in jail then neither should Hillary.
Frankly I don’t really give a shit about the emails. She apologized and it wasn’t like she was selling secrets to the Russians. I cared a lot more about her plutocratic propensities, her corruption, her cheating, her nasty vindictive personality and her horrible campaign strategy of spending all her time in wealthy parts of deep blue states.
The difference between intent and “the killing part” is that the killing is an objective element and it is a lot easier to prove the killing part if I know all objective facts, intent is a state of mind and that’s a lot harder to prove.
Ironically, President Buttercup wouldn’t be getting quite so much abuse if he wasn’t such a pompous, petulant, unprincipled, pusillanimous, pestiferous poltroon who cries when people are mean to him.
It would be so simple for him to just admit the error, too. Birthers are easy to disregard and overlook and dismiss, but they really did want Obama’s presidency deemed invalid and they tilted at that windmill a long long time. Probably still are - have any of them asked Trump to direct the Justice Department to look into Obama’s birthplace “to clear it up once and for all?”
Don’t get me wrong, I understand what you are saying. I just think in the long view, it all will come down to the same thing. Those of us present at the time are going to have a much different view of the event than those reading a “just the facts” footnote in a political history book down the line. I am definitely no Hillary supporter (though I did hold my nose and vote for her, because I found the alternative to be far worse), but as far as the law goes, history will show that she did not, in fact, break it.
The only way historians 100 years from now are going to be able to write about this era is by starting with “In 2016, the American electorate both became certifiable and gave up on democracy”.