Appointing a Special Prosecutor to Charge Hillary does NOT Violate Due Process

a reply to: jadedANDcynical

I believe that Congress is pursuing this matter, through the House
Oversight and Reform committee, update as of Oct 5th.

Chairmen Question DOJ on Agreement to Limit Investigation of Secretary Clinton’s Private Server

October 5, 2016

The Honorable Loretta E. Lynch
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530


Madam Attorney General:

Last week your staff made available, for an in camera review by our committees, two letters to the Department of Justice (DOJ) from attorney Beth Wilkinson, on behalf of her clients Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson (the Wilkinson letters). The Wilkinson letters—both dated June 10, 2016—were incorporated by reference into the immunity agreements for Ms. Mills and Ms. Samuelson related to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) criminal investigation into former Secretary Hillary Clinton’s email server. The letters set out the precise manner in which the Department and the FBI would access and use federal records and other information stored on .PST and .OST email archives from Ms. Mills’ and Ms. Samuelson’s laptops. We understand Ms. Wilkinson and lawyers from the Justice Department drafted the Wilkinson letters jointly before Ms. Wilkinson sent them to DOJ

We write to express our concerns about the process by which Congress was allowed to view the Wilkinson letters, that the letters inappropriately restrict the scope of the FBI’s investigation, and that the FBI inexplicably agreed to destroy the laptops knowing that the contents were the subject of Congressional subpoenas and preservation letters.

With respect to the viewing restrictions imposed on the Committees, as a condition of cooperating voluntarily, the Department limited access to the letters to only Members of certain committees and one or two staff, prohibited Members and staff from “tak[ing] notes or photos, or otherwise seek[ing] to record the information contained in the memos,” and redacted the names of all DOJ and FBI personnel on the documents. These onerous restrictions are not consistent with the high degree of transparency you and Director Comey promised to Congress. Further, in previous in camera reviews these restrictions were not imposed, which calls into question why the Wilkinson letters were given special treatment. These extraordinary restrictions interfere with our constitutional obligation to conduct oversight of this matter. Thus far, the Department has not explained its rationale for imposing these restrictions.

In his statements before Congress, Director Comey repeatedly assured us that the FBI investigated whether charges of obstruction of justice and intentional destruction of records were merited. The facts of this investigation call those assertions into question. For example, the Wilkinson letters only permitted the FBI to review email archives from Platte River Networks created after June 1, 2014, and before February 1, 2015, that included emails sent or received from Secretary Clinton’s four email addresses during her tenure as Secretary of State. These limitations would necessarily have excluded, for example, any emails from Cheryl Mills to Paul Combetta in late 2014 or early 2015 directing the destruction or concealment of federal records. Similarly, these limitations would have excluded any email sent or received by Secretary Clinton if it was not sent or received by one of the four email addresses listed, or the email address was altered. Notably, in December 2014, Mr. Combetta deleted all Clinton emails older than 60 days, which was in effect all of Secretary Clinton’s emails from January 2009 to October 2014. He admitted this “change in retention policy” during his second FBI interview in February 2016.

www.grassley.senate.gov...

Full letter is here:
www.grassley.senate.gov...

So, it appears this is not an issue that is going away for Clinton.

There is also an inquiry as to whether or not a Grand Jury was impaneled,
that leads right to this issue of a Special Prosecutor.

originally posted by: muzzleflash
a reply to: introvert

That's out of context and not the subject of this thread.

My views on Trump are a different topic.
Do not try to derail this again.

Mods please snip his 2nd paragraph for attempting to drift or derail a perfectly good thread. Thanks.

For what? Because the truth he speaks contradicts the lie you choose to live? Your "perfectly good thread" makes a claim that you are being challenged on. You're taking something out of context and using it to stir the pot. That is more than relevant. You brought the claim, now it falls to you to defend it. Suck it up buttercup.

originally posted by: tigertatzen

originally posted by: muzzleflash
a reply to: introvert

That's out of context and not the subject of this thread.

My views on Trump are a different topic.
Do not try to derail this again.

Mods please snip his 2nd paragraph for attempting to drift or derail a perfectly good thread. Thanks.

For what? Because the truth he speaks contradicts the lie you choose to live? Your "perfectly good thread" makes a claim that you are being challenged on. You're taking something out of context and using it to stir the pot. That is more than relevant. You brought the claim, now it falls to you to defend it. Suck it up buttercup.

No one has challenged my claims in this thread yet.
You didn't either.

Y'all are challenging off topic claims however, like my personal inclinations or disposition.

You can't just waltz in a thread and derail it because you feel like the thread is about the messenger rather than the message, especially if the messenger explicitly requests such a distinction.

This topic's context is about a proposition, that prosecuting Hillary is not a violation of her Due Process rights.

I allowed a broad range of discussion pertaining to that.

Me, my disposition, and the topics of other threads is not that context.

This thread premise is not out of context, it is it's own individual new context I set it in to make a claim, support that claim, and foster discussion surrounding that claim or promote debates contending around that claim.

a reply to: jadedANDcynical

a reply to: burntheships

Thank you for that relevant information.
That is well within the contextual confines of this thread.

I appreciate your contributions very much.

originally posted by: muzzleflash

originally posted by: Sillyolme
And a new investigation would do what?

I don't know the future well enough to say. I haven't had any visions or divined any fortunes about it.

It would be valid legally to investigate any allegations of criminal activity at any time though. Better safe than sorry.

What's the point of the Law anyway?

Not only this, but there's every possibility that new witnesses may come forward once HRC is defeated and many of her protectors in assorted government departments are replaced with more law-abiding personnel.

She could easily still end up with myriad legal issues if Trump wins.

Many here would rather she never be held responsible for her criminal actions, but it could happen.

I for one hope it does.

a reply to: Urantia1111

That's absolutely possible. Probably even very likely. This is a very precarious situation in terms of legal issues surrounding Hillary and many of her past associates.

Thank you for your contribution.

a reply to: amazing

You should be calling for an investigation of the FBI and Attorney General's office. Isn't that where the problem is, then?

And what if such an investigation lead higher up the line?

Obama's emails have still been held back:

The State Department has refused to make public that and other emails Clinton exchanged with Obama. Lawyers have cited the "presidential communications privilege," a variation of executive privilege, in order to withhold the messages under the Freedom of Information Act.

Obama used a pseudonym in emails with Clinton, FBI documents reveal

At this stage of the game, no one is going to have the fortitude to investigate the executive branch this close to an election. And should such an investigation be indicated by what may or may not be found within those withheld emails, the time frame of said investigation would stretch to well beyond the end of this election cycle.

Like it or not we are, I think, stuck with what we have on offer.



a reply to: burntheships

I saw Jason Chaffetz post that to his twitter feed. I hope they follow this angle to its conclusion. I just don't know what will happen with Mills and her connections. If I were Combetta, I would be requesting protective custody.

a reply to: muzzleflash

Great thread, good to see you Muzzle,

Here is the information from the House Oversight, in which
they are inquiring as to whether there was a Grand Jury convened.
I have bolded that question from the letter.

Many questions asked may be relevant to your thread,
and maybe helpful.



Goodlatte Presses Justice Department on Secret Agreements with Top Clinton Advisors

October 3, 2016

Dear Attorney General Lynch:

As part of the Judiciary Committee’s ongoing oversight of Secretary Clinton’s unauthorized use of a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State, the Justice Department (DOJ) provided in camera review of certain immunity agreements. After a specific request from the Committee, based on references made in the immunity agreements to certain “side agreements,” DOJ subsequently provided in camera review of those “side agreements” between DOJ, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Beth Wilkinson, the lawyer representing both Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson. Like many things about his case, these new materials raise more questions than answers. Please provide a written response to the below questions and make DOJ staff available for a briefing on this matter no later than October 10, 2016.

1. Why did the FBI agree to destroy both Cheryl Mills’ and Heather Samuelson’s laptops after concluding its search?

2. Doesn’t the willingness of Ms. Mills and Ms. Samuelson to have their laptops destroyed by the FBI contradict their claim that the laptops could have been withheld because they contained non-relevant, privileged information? If so, doesn’t that undermine the claim that the side agreements were necessary?

3. Have these laptops, or the contents of the laptops, in fact been destroyed, thereby making follow up investigations by the FBI, or Congressional oversight, impossible?

4. For both the Mills and Samuelson laptops please provide individual numbers on the following:

How many total documents were reviewed by the FBI filter review team from the Mills and Samuelson laptops?

How many documents did the FBI filter review team deem to be privileged and withhold from the FBI investigative team?

How many documents were ultimately turned over from the Mills and Samuelson laptops to the FBI investigative team?

How many documents were withheld from the FBI investigative team from each laptop for lack of relevancy?

How many documents were withheld from the FBI investigative team because they fell outside the da e range agreed to between DOJ and Ms. Wilkinson in the side letters dated June 10, 2016?

Please indicate how many documents were withheld from the FBI investigative team because they were both not relevant AND outside the agreed upon date range.

How many classified documents, broken down by national security classification level, were on each of the Mills and Samuelson laptops?

5. Please provide the privilege log for all documents withheld by the filter review team from the FBI investigative team for both the Mills and Samuelson laptops. If no such log was created, please create one in the same manner the Deparment requires private parties to satisfy their obligations under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26.

6. Please provide any opinion, memo, or other materials, whether formally endorsed or not, from the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel, or the FBI Office of the General Counsel related to the following:

DOJ and FBI procedures on privilege review.

The validity of Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson’s claim of attorney client privilege with respect to Secretary Clinton.

The ability of Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson to sit in on the investigative interview of Secretary Clinton.

7. Please explain why DOJ agreed to limit their search of the Mills and Samuelson laptops to a date no later than January 31, 2015 and therefore give up any opportunity to find evidence related to the destruction of evidence or obstruction of justice related to Secretary Clinton’s unauthorized use of a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State.

8. Why was this time limit necessary when Ms. Mills and Ms. Samuelson were granted immunity for any potential destruction of evidence charges?

9. Please confirm whether a grand jury was convened to investigate Secretary Clinton’s unauthorized use of a private email server. Disclosure is authorized under Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)(3)(A)(i) and (e)

10. Please confirm whether the immunity agreements listed on n. 2 and the “side agreements” between Beth Wilkinson and DOJ, dated June 10, 2016, are the entirety of the immunity agreements granted as part of the Department’s investigation into Secretary Clinton’s unauthorized use of a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State.

Sincerely,

Bob Goodlatte
Chairman
House Judiciary Committee

judiciary.house.gov...

Full Context of letter here:
judiciary.house.gov...

originally posted by: muzzleflash
My reason for this thread is to educate people about how the legal process works.

Yet neither you or Trump knows how it works, just look at the title of this hate Hilary thread....

"Appointing a Special Prosecutor to Charge Hillary"

Do not worry about due process, Trump will just tell a Special Prosecutor to charge her.... no evidence needed, just charge her!

originally posted by: jadedANDcynical

I hope they follow this angle to its conclusion. I just don't know what will happen with Mills and her connections. If I were Combetta, I would be requesting protective custody.

I looked today for an update on Mills, and the formal complaint
with the D.C. Bar, but seems we might be waiting for a long while.

Formal DC Bar Complaint Filed On Top Clinton Lawyer Cheryl Mills

Those can take months to process, longer to investigate.

I suspect if Clinton is installed, nothing will come of it,
unless the House Oversight were to pursue impeachment,
which is possible.

originally posted by: muzzleflash
a reply to: introvert

That's out of context and not the subject of this thread.

My views on Trump are a different topic.
Do not try to derail this again.

Mods please snip his 2nd paragraph for attempting to drift or derail a perfectly good thread. Thanks.

Some folks are good at that
Deride , Deflect. You know , standard Alinsky style.

On topic

The FBI did enough violating due process already. I hope Trump would throw Comy under the same style prosecution

Oh, oh, Trump got in the way of his own plan. He predetermined the outcome when he said, “Because you’d be in jail.”

Making threats or vows to use a nation’s criminal justice system against one’s vanquished political opponent is worse than terrible policy: it’s incompatible with the survival of a stable constitutional republic and, under our Constitution, would represent an abuse of power so grave that it would be an impeachable offense—one reminiscent of Richard Nixon’s deliberate use of the IRS to go after his political enemies.”

source

originally posted by: muzzleflash

originally posted by: tigertatzen

originally posted by: muzzleflash
a reply to: introvert

That's out of context and not the subject of this thread.

My views on Trump are a different topic.
Do not try to derail this again.

Mods please snip his 2nd paragraph for attempting to drift or derail a perfectly good thread. Thanks.

For what? Because the truth he speaks contradicts the lie you choose to live? Your "perfectly good thread" makes a claim that you are being challenged on. You're taking something out of context and using it to stir the pot. That is more than relevant. You brought the claim, now it falls to you to defend it. Suck it up buttercup.

No one has challenged my claims in this thread yet.
You didn't either.

Y'all are challenging off topic claims however, like my personal inclinations or disposition.

You can't just waltz in a thread and derail it because you feel like the thread is about the messenger rather than the message, especially if the messenger explicitly requests such a distinction.

I have challenged no such thing personally. However, pretending that personal bias does not affect a person's political perspective is silly. It absolutely does. If you want to believe something, great. Believe whatever you like. But be adult enough to own it.

That poster is not wrong for pointing out bias, because it is precisely that which prompted the writing of this thread, and the comments of everyone who supports its claims. Bias is absolutely relevant here. If there were no bias, there wouldn't be multiple political parties in the first place, and therefore no need to debate.

The OP is reaching, as are the vast majority of the other rhetorical, redundant political threads that dominate these forums. Look at everyone, sniping at each other like a pack of hyenas.

Look at all of these grown-ass adults who have allowed themselves to be reduced to a bunch of squabbling, finger-pointing, entitled brats, whose sole focus is on having the last word, on scrambling to; no matter what, no matter how how tenuous their hold on the edge of that depleted barrel they're scraping. Hovering like vultures, scrutinizing every single sentence for any and every miniscule detail that can possibly be taken out of context and used to score new points in the same old, tired arguments. How much lower can we go?

And my apologies, too, if I appear to be singling you out; my intent is not that at all. I am simply speaking out against the behavior I see that is furthering the agenda of those who set everyone at each others' throats in the first place; the very same people to whom so many are devoting their misguided loyalty.

The atmosphere here and in life outside is a sobering reality for people watching from the sidelines of this convoluted reality show gone horribly awry. While our country goes swirling down the drain around us, the vast majority of the nation is waging war on itself like the Ouroboros, voraciously eating its own tail and being reborn into something unrecognizable, alien; everything we know turned upside down.

If the political, personal bias is removed from the situation and therefore only the facts remain, how compelling would this topic really be? Hillary Clinton is not going to be charged. Period. She's just not. I watched the debate, which I have never done before in my life, with a group of people last night, and all of us were blown out of the water by how blatant it was that the entire thing was a choreographed performance.

Every last bit of it; the answers, the questions, the body language...all of it was a rehearsed performance. Donald's creepy angry baby scowl and exaggerated derision, Hillary's smirk and smug superiority...all of it, fake as hell. Did you notice the way they were circling each other like predators on the stage, without even looking to see where they were stepping?

If all of these people who are spending so much energy embroiled in battle over this charade could see what myself and others see; push bias and scorekeeping aside and really look at the entire situation, it would very likely become obvious to them too that they are perpetuating a total farce here, buying into a colossal lie. Pavlov would probably be applauding right now.

If someone is flinging ad homs at others for their bias and personal views, I can understand the outrage over calling those things into question. But to say that they are not relevant is a merely a deflection, because this entire election nightmare is fueled and driven by personal bias and opinion. Continuing to stubbornly revisit the same old issues, hoping that some new twist on things will produce a different outcome is an exercise in futility...from both sides of the debate.

I am not challenging your views or anyone else's, because it would be pointless for me to do so. I am challenging the melodramatic appeal to the mods to remove a post that brought those views into question, because they have direct bearing on the reasoning behind the purpose of this thread, which is to challenge something that was itself a product of decisions made based on someone else's viewpoint...in this case, the US legal system and those who operate under it. He's not derailing anything. He's trying to get through to people by challenging their views on the topic, which is appropriate in a discussion forum.

originally posted by: desert
Oh, oh, Trump got in the way of his own plan. He predetermined the outcome when he said, “Because you’d be in jail.”

Atleast someone gets it. Hillary now has an excellent defense that she'll get an unfair trial which would overturn any conviction. Furthermore, if she were found guilty, impeachment proceedings could be brought against Trump for interfering in the process, which getting out of is much like trying to prove a negative.

Basically, Trumps performance last night guaranteed that he can't go after Hillary.

a reply to: tigertatzen

You are right that there is a 99.99% chance the entire debacle is Scripted.

When you say the country is screwed, well, there's no such thing as a country, in reality. It's a fiction we created that exists only in our delusional, easily controlled minds.

You are wrong about why I asked for mod intervention though, I'll explain:

I've been here at ATS a long time, and I knew the mods wouldn't enforce any rules in my favor. I just wanted to prove that to myself.

When I created the thread I thought "I should make this very narrowly confined" because I knew people would try to derail it - they always do no matter what side of a contentious issue you take.

So I predicted two things successfully, that I'd face immediate derailment attempts and that no mod would protect me.

Now, the mods are so bias against me, that just mentioning that bias risks me getting a warning. They will gladly hold me to the HIGHEST standards imaginable, and yet ignore anyone that attacks me.

I don't do anything against them, so I don't know why they don't like me, I promote the website and brag on it regularly. Maybe it's because I take unpopular views, or maybe it's because I tackle touchy issues and offend their sensibilities, I dunno, that's just speculative. I do know as a fact I infuriate a lot of them by merely opening my mouth.

You are wrong about why the person attempting to derail it did so, it was purely founded upon bias and frustration because I said something they didn't like and so, recognizing they were incapable of properly combatting it, focused on trying to shift the debate into something else (off topic) to change the subject and argue about something subjective rather than something objective. They knew that, it was personal, it was fueled by stress and anger.

I wanted to keep the topic confined to what is explicitly stated because it's an easy debate and keeps opinionated bickering at a minimum. Allowing that bickering to expand without limitation would make it a battle of who likes who, and therefore no real debate could occur. There'd be no viable outcome, no definitive idea could win.

a reply to: Aazadan

That's not necessarily true.

It'd only be bias if he personally interfered.

Someone who has been alleged to have committed crimes in office is not immune simply because their opponents win office.

Think about it, so if she wins she is immune because she'll be president, and if she loses she's immune because she's a victim of politics?

No. That's a catch 22 and not founded on basic legal principles.

The prosecutor would have an incredibly hard job and will need to have solid, easy to understand evidence that is indisputable or they'd be revealed as bias and politicing.

There really isn't much precedent to go on with impeachment proceedings, it'd have to be creative as it went along.

Congress would have to want to do it, and that's not impossible as many of even the Republicans in Congress already hate Trump.

Popular opinions and overall sentiment would play into that as well. Reelections etc.

And it's even possible they could try to impeach Trump over the smallest mistakes just because they can't stand him, though that's somewhat unlikely.

It's really one of those things with a lot of leeway and Congress can ignore tons of crimes the way they ignored the prior presidents.

originally posted by: muzzleflash
It'd only be bias if he personally interfered.

He has already interfered, he claimed her guilty on a highly rated bit of national television.

Think about it, so if she wins she is immune because she'll be president, and if she loses she's immune because she's a victim of politics?

No. When she wins she won't be immune (outside of the blanket pardon always issued to the previous administration) because she's President. She won't be immune at all, but just like now, no one will have any real evidence to charge her with so no trial can proceed.

The prosecutor would have an incredibly hard job and will need to have solid, easy to understand evidence that is indisputable or they'd be revealed as bias and politicing.

Comey already declined to prosecute, and he's very anti Hillary. If the FBI couldn't get enough evidence, you have to face reality that the evidence you're looking for doesn't exist which in turn means she's not guilty.

Wonder what the level of outrage would be if Obama ordered the IRS to further investigate Trump for not paying taxes and to assign a special prosecutor to investigate his dealings with Russia