Ruminating on Hillary and her escape from prosecution

Think how the President of the United States could be a prime target for blackmail by unfriendly powers such as Putin's Russia. TD

Politico: The Weird Hedge Fund That Prepared James Comey for His Capitol Hill Hot Seat  "House Republicans might want to think twice before taking on the FBI director over Hillary’s emails."

Hillary Clinton emails: Justice Department closes investigation without charges  . . . "“The normal punishment, in this case, would include losing authority to handle classified information,” Mr Trump said, “and that too disqualifies Hillary Clinton from being President.' ” 

Legal Insurrection:  Charade completed: AG Lynch rumber-stamps FBI recommendation not to prosecute Hillary   "She wanted to make sure the gift to Hillary was signed, sealed and delivered before Comey had a chance to backtrack on national TV.

Slate: The email scandal reveals everything that’s wrong with the outdated legislation used to prosecute spies and whistleblowers.
. . . "The better way forward is for Congress to do something it’s refused to do for more than 60 years: carefully and comprehensively modernize the Espionage Act, and clarify exactly when it is, and is not, a crime to mishandle classified national security secrets." . . .

Giuliani: 'President Trump' could prosecute Hillary  . . . "Calling the circumstantial evidence against Clinton “overwhelming,” Giuliani noted that is precisely the kind of evidence prosecutors use to show intent, since direct evidence of intent is usually lacking.

“Here’s the biggest piece of the circumstantial evidence: the destruction of the 34,000 emails,” he said, noting that a prosecutor would have been permitted to instruct the jury that the mass deletion “infers guilty knowledge.”

“I am so disappointed in this,” Giuliani said, but added the case is still not closed." . . .

WATCH: NBC Host Can’t Take It, Unloads After Hillary Escapes Indictment  "A huge political hit indeed, especially considering all that it revealed about Clinton’s true nature — namely her carelessness, her recklessness and her disdain for the truth."

It is revealing that the impartial "journalist" NBC host calls Hillary's escape "good news".

Roger L. Simon: Did Comey Actually Destroy Hillary Clinton by ‘Exonerating’ Her?  . . . "Look at that last paragraph again, because, if the Republicans have any brains at all, they will be quoting it ad infinitum. "To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions." What Comey is clearly saying (and leaving for us to "decide now") is that--whether you agree with his decision not to indict or no (I don't)—in a normal, real-world situation Clinton would face consequences, quite probably be demoted or even fired, certainly not promoted to the presidency of the United States, for what she did.

"Which brings me back to why Comey made this speech." . . .

It's hard to imagine Lynch speaking in public about how Clinton and her aides were "extremely careless" about national security, obvious though that was, or the high probability that the Clinton's server, not to mention her cell phone (!), was hacked by foreign powers. " . . . 

Comey’s game

"So did Director Comey cooperate the way American prisoners of war did, when forced to read statements praising their captors, by in effect blinking Morse code?  He gave exactly what he was supposed to.  But he did it in a way calculated to do political damage to Hillary Clinton."

Thomas Lifson   "Yesterday, the director of the FBI offered 15 of the most puzzling minutes in the history of American law enforcement.  James Comey spent the first 12 minutes or so laying out a devastating case dismantling Hillary Clinton’s email defense.  Then, in a whiplash-inducing change of narrative, he announced that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring the case he had just outlined, an assertion that was contradicted within hours by luminaries including former U.S. attorney (and mayor) Rudy Giuliani and James Kallstrom, former head of the FBI’s New York office.

"How can we possibly explain the FBI director deliberately inducing mass
cognitive dissonance?" . . .

Lifson then speculates on Comey's possible fear "whether something decidedly unpleasant might happen to him or his loved ones, as has happened to so many people inconvenient to the Clintons, by sheer coincidence, of course."

. . . "So did Director Comey cooperate the way American prisoners of war did, when forced to read statements praising their captors, by in effect blinking Morse code?  He gave exactly what he was supposed to.  But he did it in a way calculated to do political damage to Hillary Clinton." . . .

Fact Checker: Everything You Wanted To Know About Trump And The Six-Pointed Star

Yeshiva World News

"Controversy over Trump’s tweet carrying the image of a six-pointed star similar to the Jewish Star of David became the subject of much scrutiny over the Fourth of July weekend. And Trump continues to face criticism. For readers who may have tuned in sporadically or missed it entirely, here’s a complete timeline of the facts of exactly what happened – starting with the original, now-deleted tweet.

. . . 

"We are not going to issue a rating here, which is another case of Trump retweeting controversial memes without checking the source. Still, some questions remain: Did the campaign initially check at all to see where the image originated? Did the campaign know the potential anti-Semitic message it carried? 

"If the Trump campaign truly believed it was simply endorsing the shape of a sheriff’s star to “fit with the theme of corrupt Hillary,” why delete the initial tweet and replace the star with a circle?

"It’s unclear if we’ll get answers to these remaining questions, but we will update this timeline if there are any new developments."

Comey’s unusual public recommendation in the Clinton email investigation

Volokh Conspiracy . . . " Comey’s announcement takes the path of the least politicalization. Comey is a former career prosecutor who served twice as a political appointee in George W. Bush’s Justice Department. He is now serving a non-renewable 10-year term as FBI director that expires in 2023. It’s hard to come up with a clear argument for why Comey would be beholden to Clinton or why his recommendation would be politically biased.

"It is telling that, at least so far, Trump’s expected Twitter attacks on Comey are just generic. “The system is rigged,” “bad judgment,” etc.

. . . 

No decision on the Clinton email case will please everyone, of course. But Comey’s announcement takes the path of the least amount of politicalization in a uniquely politically charged case.