The Noose Tightens on Hillary Clinton

Justice awaits!      Photo Credit: Flickr.com/S Baker

Neither the Democratic electorate nor most of the media have shown much interest in Hillary Clinton’s legal troubles so far, but recent developments with the FBI investigation of her make it hard to believe that anyone will be able to ignore them for much longer.   

Clinton’s Legal Problems

In case you have just returned from visiting another planet, you should learn about why Hillary Clinton is facing a possible trial. While she was Secretary of State, Clinton maintained a private email server for her official State Department business in an old bathroom closet in a loft in downtown Denver. It was run by a small outfit called Platte River Networks, which an ex-employee of Platte River called a “mom-and-pop shop.” The ex-employee, Tera Dadiotis, told the New York Post, “At the time I worked for them they wouldn’t have been equipped to work for Hillary Clinton because I don’t think they had the resources, they were based out of a loft, so [it was] not very high security, we didn’t even have an alarm.” 

So what files did Clinton have on that not-so-secure server that are so problematical? On January 14, the Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III revealed in a letter to Congressmen with oversight over the intelligence community and the State Department that,

To date, I have received two sworn declarations from one IC [intelligence community] element. These declarations cover several dozen emails containing classified information determined by the IC element to be at the CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, and TOP SECRET/SAP levels. According to the declarant, these documents contain information derived from classified IC element sources. Due to the presence of TOP SECRET/SAP information, I provided these declarations under separate cover to the Intelligence oversight committees and Senate and House Leadership. The IC element is coordinating with State to determine how these documents should be properly treated in the FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] litigation.

You can read the full letter, which is unclassified, here. In addition, a former senior law enforcement officer told Fox News, “There is absolutely no way that one could not recognize SAP material. It is the most sensitive of the sensitive.”

Now, a few words of explanation should be given on security classifications. In the Department of Defense there are three levels of classification, and I believe the State Department classifications are very similar if not identical. They are in increasing level of sensitivity:

1. CONFIDENTIAL: Information in which the unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause damage to the national security.
2. SECRET: Information in which the unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to the national security.
3. TOP SECRET: Information in which the unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.

In addition, a document can be labeled UNCLASSIFIED to denote no classification whatsoever. Files labeled TOP SECRET/SAP are technically not a separate security classification from TOP SECRET (there is no higher classification than TOP SECRET), but the access qualifier SAP effectively does indicate information more sensitive than just TOP SECRET. The acronym SAP stands for Special Access Program, and it indicates the information is so sensitive that special access restrictions are imposed. Such information should not reside outside of a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF (pronounced “skiff”), and it is a serious felony to remove SAP material from a SCIF. In fact it is a serious felony to have removed any of the classified material from State Department computers to Clinton’s totally unsecure machine.

National Security Problems Created By Clinton

In fact, the unauthorized dissemination of classified material from Clinton’s server has already created severe security problems for the United States, as I noted in the post Bernie Sanders is Probably The Democrats’ Nominee. In that post I observed that classified material was sent to her longtime advisor Sidney Blumenthal. which was subsequently hacked by a Romanian, Marcel Lehel, self-styled “Gucifer”. Gucifer apparently distributed Clinton’s emails to hundreds of recipients on email distribution lists. At least two of these recipients were in the Russian Federation. Gucifer also sent the emails to around two dozen reporters working for Russian newspapers such as Pravda, the Moscow Times, the St. Petersburg Times, and the RT news channel.

In addition, there is information that Russia attempted, and probably succeeded, in hacking Clinton’s Platte River server five times. Also there is evidence her server was hacked by China, South Korea, and Germany. Former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden declared on the Hugh Hewitt Show, when asked if he thought Russians and others gained access to Clinton’s server, that “I would lose respect, I would lose all respect for scores of intelligence services around the world if they did not have all the access they wanted to that server.”

Acceleration of Clinton’s Problems

This last week Clinton’s legal jeopardy increased significantly when it was revealed that a computer tech who helped set up Clinton’s server, Bryan Pagliano, was granted immunity from prosecution by the Justice Department in return for his testimony. The Washington Times reported that three conclusions could be drawn from this event. The first is that the Justice Department has already launched a federal Grand Jury investigation into the alleged mishandling of classified material by Hillary Clinton. The second is that Pagliano has both material evidence and exposure to prosecution himself. The third and final conclusion is that granting him immunity was the only way Justice could get him to testify.

In all of this former Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fox News’ senior judicial analyst, agrees, particularly that the granting of immunity means that a grand jury has  probably already been convened. This would signal the FBI believes it has enough evidence to indict Clinton and begin a criminal trial. Napolitano said that only a federal judge could grant Pagliano immunity, and would do so only if Justice Department prosecutors, not FBI agents, asked for it. Also, he said the Justice Department would make such a request only if they already had a Grand Jury hearing testimony. ABC correspondent Jonathon Karl also has said the FBI is now very likely to question Clinton herself soon, and will probably wrap up their investigation by May.

Possible Reactions of the Democratic Party

If Clinton is indicted for a felony, how can the Democratic Party possibly recover? Clinton would probably come under great pressure from the party to resign from the race. How could she campaign if she were simultaneously being prosecuted in a criminal trial? If she did resign from the campaign, who would take her place? One very real possibility is the party would go with the only remaining declared candidate, Bernie Sanders. This is the reaction that those further on the Left in the party are urging, such as editors and contributors on Salon magazine.

Yet, even though the Democratic party in general and Millennials in particular are having a love affair with Sanders’ “democratic socialism”, the party leaders have a definite reason to be nervous about going with a Sanders nomination. In a recent YouGov poll, while 36% of Millennials and 43% of Democrats favored socialism over capitalism (with 39% and 43% favoring capitalism, respectively), the total population favored capitalism over socialism by a two-to-one ratio, with 52% favoring capitalism versus 26% for socialism. If Bernie Sanders is the Democratic Party’s Plan B, possible candidate names for Plan C that have been mentioned are Vice President Joseph Biden, Jr., Secretary of State John Kerry, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and former Vice President Al Gore. However, if Clinton is indicted in May and the Democratic Convention held in Philadelphia is in late July, the time is growing very, very short for bringing in a new, substitute candidate, and by May it may be impossible to go with anyone other than Sanders.

Are we going to be given a choice between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders? The very thought gives me shudders.

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