# Why isn't Hillary clinton in jail? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 20, 2015, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125 "2015-04-20T16:26:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125/41 "2015-04-20T20:48:08Z")
> [@Barack\_Obama](#): > > I’m not exactly too sure how the justice system may work I snipped the one factual statement from your OP. > [@](#): > > If she even gets a single vote I will have lost a great deal of faith in our society and may consider more radical actions towards this Government. Such as? We have a thread in the Elections Forum about folks threatening to leave the country if “X” person gets elected president. Perhaps that’s just the thing for you. Might as well start packing now, because I’m pretty sure she will get at least 1 vote. ---
**Author:** ![davida03801](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5e925/32.png) [@davida03801](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davida03801)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125/42 "2015-04-20T20:50:23Z")
The OP misses the key point. Clinton is a Democrat, therefore all mis-deeds are given a pass. Now if a Republican with the exact same sequence of events then all here who defend Clinton would be calling for the immediate execution (and death penalty be damned) of the evil doer. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125/43 "2015-04-20T20:55:32Z")
I’m actually kind of enjoying watching the Republicans lose their fucking shit over a Clinton again. It’s like comfort food, really… ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125/44 "2015-04-20T20:56:54Z")
> [@davida03801](#): > > The OP misses the key point. Clinton is a Democrat, therefore all mis-deeds are given a pass. > > Now if a Republican with the exact same sequence of events then all here who defend Clinton would be calling for the immediate execution (and death penalty be damned) of the evil doer. I dont’ remember that happening with Secretary Powell, which was pretty much the same situation (as most SoS did before that particular law was passed). ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125/45 "2015-04-20T21:02:26Z")
> [@OldGuy](#): > > Do you really believe that liberals/Democrats are less concerned about civil liberties and the rights of the accused than conservatives/Republicans. Perhaps yes for the recent spate of accusations against the police, but in general? Really? Do you know the difference between “a Democrat did something wrong” and “a Democrat did something wrong that a Republican never did?” There is no “but MOOOOM, Junior destroyed evidence TOOO” exception to laws/morality. Not everything is about your stupid horse race. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125/46 "2015-04-20T21:04:50Z")
> [@davida03801](#): > > The OP misses the key point. Clinton is a Democrat, therefore all mis-deeds are given a pass. > > Now if a Republican with the exact same sequence of events then all here who defend Clinton would be calling for the immediate execution (and death penalty be damned) of the evil doer. Yeah, they’d be all over her like white on Rice. I’ll be going to Hell now. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125/47 "2015-04-20T21:30:04Z")
> [@davida03801](#): > > The OP misses the key point. Clinton is a Democrat, therefore all mis-deeds are given a pass. > > Now if a Republican with the exact same sequence of events then all here who defend Clinton would be calling for the immediate execution (and death penalty be damned) of the evil doer. I disagree. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125/48 "2015-04-20T21:32:24Z")
The answer to the OP’s question, of course, is “She never did anything wrong” ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125/49 "2015-04-20T21:34:26Z")
> [@davida03801](#): > > The OP misses the key point. Clinton is a Democrat, therefore all mis-deeds are given a pass. > > Now if a Republican with the exact same sequence of events then all here who defend Clinton would be calling for the immediate execution (and death penalty be damned) of the evil doer. Those Democrats over in Fantasyland are real pieces of work, aren’t they? ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125/50 "2015-04-20T21:35:19Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > The answer to the OP’s question, of course, is “She never did anything wrong” Sure she did. The OP and **Haberdash** are just still working out what it was. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125/51 "2015-04-20T21:36:14Z")
I’d like to point out just one bit of stupidity in the mindless attacks on Hilldawg. She said that she didn’t want to carry a second phone, as a reason for not setting up a SoS account. Then the RW derp-o-sphere finds a pic of her using a tablet. I have a laptop, a gaming desktop, a smartphone and a tablet. If you told me to get a second phone for work, I’d rather not. Because I don’t want to carry two phones. The idea that she has a phone and a tablet, which do very different, if somewhat overlapping, things, is the same as carrying two phones is asinine. It’s obvious shitty, muddy thinking. I hate that ideology and RW media has snuck into the same headspace as blandly accepting what a religious leader tells you. \*Don’t question it. She had an iPad. She was lying. Don’t question it. \* She was probably asked while transitioning if she wanted to set up a SoS email, and she probably thought about it for an eighth of a second and said, “Nah, I have a secure server, I’ll just use my personal. I already have every world leader and their spouses on this thing.” ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125/52 "2015-04-20T21:39:02Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > There is no “but MOOOOM, Junior destroyed evidence TOOO” exception to laws/morality. You’re right. What law did Clinton break again? ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125/53 "2015-04-20T21:43:52Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > The idea that she has a phone and a tablet, which do very different, if somewhat overlapping, things, is the same as carrying two phones is asinine. It’s obvious shitty, muddy thinking. I hate that ideology and RW media has snuck into the same headspace as blandly accepting what a religious leader tells you. \*Don’t question it. She had an iPad. She was lying. Don’t question it. \* This is amusing. The idea that the reason Hillary Clinton bought a server, paid to operate it, and hired someone to run it, all while keeping this secret from anyone who would have alerted her opponents to it for four years, was because she didn’t want to carry two phones is plainly ridiculous. It’s plainly ridiculous for many reasons, including but not limited to the fact that there are multiple other people whose sole job is to carry things so Hillary Clinton doesn’t have to, and that the hassle of carrying two phones pales in comparison to that of maintaining your own email server. It’s completely unbelievable that any person thinking in good faith believes that “I didn’t want to carry two phones” is the reason this was done. That\* questioning Hillary Clinton\* rather than\* believing obvious lies from Hillary Clinton\* is your definition of blindly (or “blandly”) accepting what a leader tells you is the only thing more ridiculous than “didn’t want to carry two phones.” This is what people don’t like about Democrats. You cheerfully act as foot soldiers in the march of bullshit, then act like you’re the only people in the world who are being reasonable. This descent into believing that your job is to apologize for the party rather than have any thoughts or moral sense on your own is exactly the hubris that the Bush disciples fell into the mid-00s. Six-plus years of Democratic power has turned you into the party of glib, amoral hucksters that refuses to even consider that you may be wrong and gets angry at other people for not falling for your nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125/54 "2015-04-20T21:46:08Z")
Rants belong in The BBQ Pit, not Great Debates. You can argue just as easily, there, and the rest of the posters don’t have to keep stumbling over a fact free opinion piece. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125/55 "2015-04-20T21:47:26Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > You’re right. > > What law did Clinton break again? The Federal Records Act of 1950, which requires that all heads of agencies maintain permanent copies of records of official business, and various sections of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requiring compliance with Congressional subpoenas, at least one of which requested her e-mails before the date on which she destroyed the server. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125/56 "2015-04-20T21:48:09Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > This is what people don’t like about Democrats. You cheerfully act as foot soldiers in the march of bullshit, then act like you’re the only people in the world who are being reasonable. This descent into believing that your job is to apologize for the party rather than have any thoughts or moral sense on your own is exactly the hubris that the Bush disciples fell into the mid-00s. Six-plus years of Democratic power has turned you into the party of glib, amoral hucksters that refuses to even consider that you may be wrong and gets angry at other people for not falling for your nonsense. Thank you, I was wondering why people didn’t like Democrats. I’m glad it’s not just because they like to foul the water and air, and pay less taxes. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125/57 "2015-04-20T21:49:51Z")
> [@Barack\_Obama](#): > > If she even gets a single vote I will have lost a great deal of faith in our society and may consider more radical actions towards this Government. Well, 42% of the customers at that Chipotle say they’d lean towards voting for her, 44% lean against, and 14% are pissed at her for taking the last of the carnitas meat. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125/58 "2015-04-20T22:01:51Z")
to all the people defending Hillary: what would your reaction had been if Rumsfeld had deleted 30,000 secret emails? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125/59 "2015-04-20T22:02:32Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > The Federal Records Act of 1950, which requires that all heads of agencies maintain permanent copies of records of official business, and various sections of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requiring compliance with Congressional subpoenas, at least one of which requested her e-mails before the date on which she destroyed the server. As I noted in an earlier post the republicans have seized chances to torpedo the Clintons with glee any chance they got. They spent years on Benghazi and before that spent years on Whitewater. The most they got was lying about a blowjob out of all of that. So this time around she broke the law and the republicans are lying low? Lying low just as anew election cycle starts and she is likely to be the biggest threat the democrats will throw at them? Somehow I doubt that. Lawyers are suggesting no law was broken _when she did this_. > [@](#): > > **Fox News Legal Analysts: Hillary Clinton Didn’t Break the Law** > > “I’m going to say no, because at the time she did what she did when she used her own personal email, the law was very nebulous,” former prosecutor Jonna Spilbor said in response to Carlson’s question about Clinton breaking the law. “It didn’t say you couldn’t use your own email, it said any government use of email had to be preserved. So what did she violate?” she asked. As long as Clinton can still retrieve the emails in question, Spilbor said, “There’s no law broken.” > > Carlson’s other guest, Arthur Aidala agreed, saying there may be ways to tell if Clinton is deliberately trying to hide communications. “Was there a crime?” he said. “You can’t be convicted of a crime that didn’t exist at the time that you committed it.” > > SOURCE: [http://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-news-legal-analysts-hillary-clinton-didnt-break-the-law/](http://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-news-legal-analysts-hillary-clinton-didnt-break-the-law/) You can of course argue it was a shady thing and wrong for her to do (and I think there is a good case for that) but that is different from being illegal. ---
**Author:** ![Lanzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/74df32/32.png) [@Lanzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lanzy)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125/60 "2015-04-20T22:20:55Z")
Come here, yeah over here. I got a little secret. After 30+ years of working in various forms of IT for the government I KNOW almost everyone IN said government of the USA has and uses a personal email at work. I think the first time the first person was issued an email address they went out and got another one to talk to people about the first one without it being on record. Orange county FL just issued another of a long line of anothers to tell county employees to NOT use personal email at work. This seems to be the way it is. FWIW [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-hillary-clinton-in-jail/718125.md?page=4)