dagblog - Comments for "She Was Never Getting Indicted. Really."

Kaplan dissects things

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 07 Jul 2016 20:30:16 +0000

In reply to Comey's Congressional

Kaplan dissects things further - quite the joke.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2016/07/hill...

Comey's Congressional

rmrd0000 — Thu, 07 Jul 2016 18:30:11 +0000

In reply to She Was Never Getting Indicted. Really.

Comey's Congressional testimony got him to admit that none of Hillary's emails were marked "Classified".

http://thedailybanter.com/2016/07/fbi-director-admits-that-zero-hillary-...

Right. But because the

Doctor Cleveland — Thu, 07 Jul 2016 17:59:40 +0000

In reply to “… but in any case, is it the

Right. But because the Republicans are fools, instead of letting all the anti-Clinton things he said yesterday sit and ferment in the media, they dragged him to the Hill today and forced him to defend Clinton on live TV. It's like they don't even want to catch a break.

“… but in any case, is it the

barefooted — Thu, 07 Jul 2016 17:27:55 +0000

In reply to Except Comey was wrong about

“… but in any case, is it the FBI's job to determine a presidential election through innuendo, or should it be "just the facts, ma'am", straight up, quick, close the books one way or the other?”

Ideally, the latter, but if Hillary Clinton is involved the former is obviously preferred. Comey did everything he possibly could to appease Republicans through suggesting unproven wrongdoing and opining to great length on all the maybes, could haves and mights that no reasonable prosecutor could use to bring charges. He walked the line beautifully … unfortunately, the GOP is still not satisfied and wants him to show his work.

Except Comey was wrong about

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 07 Jul 2016 16:50:49 +0000

In reply to Doc, until now, I viewed this

Except Comey was wrong about her having more than 1 server in the period 2009-2013 and she only had 1 phone at a time. What else did he exaggerate in scolding Hillary? I don't mean to excuse her with that, but Comey's a fairly unethical political player, and the FBI has been pretty ethically challenged from illegal public surveillance to false pretenses on hacking iPhones to entrapping Muslims as "terrorists" and prosecuting whistle-blowers on iffy secrecy charges. So I think Comey was getting as much mileage out of his part as he could, he voice of authority, playing the demi-urge par excellence and stoking up his position for the next 7 years.

In a way the speech hurt Hillary, but mostly the closure helps - but in any case, is it the FBI's job to determine a presidential election through innuendo, or should it be "just the facts, ma'am", straight up, quick, close the books one way or the other?

Yeah, I hear you. But I don't

Doctor Cleveland — Thu, 07 Jul 2016 16:19:00 +0000

In reply to Doc, until now, I viewed this

Yeah, I hear you. But I don't know how much value to lend to Comey's editorializing, which seems to break the usual prosecutor's rule of "bring charges or be quiet." All the stuff he said about Clinton is, by his own admission, stuff he knows he can't charge her for.

What would it take? I think your examples basically get at it: she could have turned this into a thing with an effort at obstruction. But, contrary to her reputation, she didn't. She wasn't dumb enough to turn a scandal that wouldn't produce charges into a legitimate obstruction-of-justice charge. And apparently the Dem and Republican establishment figured that she wouldn't.

I think the sign that she really got close to criminal jeopardy would have been serious charges against some of her underlings. That's how you bring a big player down: by squeezing and flipping her people to make them witnesses. If Hillary Clinton is ever going to be put on criminal trial (which I do not expect), Huma Abedin will probably be looking at a hard 20-year federal sentence first.

That really didn't happen: the kid who set up Clinton's server got immunity to testify, and maybe a few other people did too. But they didn't face major charges if they didn't cooperate because they, like Clinton, hadn't actually done anything you could put them in jail for.

It's frustrating, I agree.

Doctor Cleveland — Thu, 07 Jul 2016 15:56:20 +0000

In reply to Perhaps a congenital optimist

It's frustrating, I agree.

I like to think there's a happy way forward for both Bernie and the party. In fact, I think he'll do best by himself by doing what's in the interest of the larger group. But then, I'm a little socialist that way.

Perhaps a congenital optimist

Flavius — Thu, 07 Jul 2016 12:12:13 +0000

In reply to She Was Never Getting Indicted. Really.

Perhaps a congenital optimist until now I have believed that Bernie was ,sort of, keeping

in contention on the chance that there would be an indictment and the party would then have had

no choice but to turn to him.

I say "until now" since I'm convinced by your assessment, thank you . Unfortunately a corollary is that Bernie- who probably has reached similar conclusions-will continue his guerilla campaign until the convention. With increased coverage.

Oh well.

Doc, until now, I viewed this

Michael Wolraich — Thu, 07 Jul 2016 11:07:00 +0000

In reply to She Was Never Getting Indicted. Really.

Doc, until now, I viewed this thing pretty much the way you do, but Comey's press-con made me think that this was a closer call than I realized. He didn't find a smoking gun during the investigation, but what if he had? It would not have taken much--a false statement under oath, a deleted email suggesting intent to conceal, a witness. Did Obama and Dem leaders know there would be no indictment? Or were they just lucky?

PS I don't meant to imply that there was an actual crime, just that the case was closer to meeting the threshold for indictment than I realized.

I agree with everything you

CVille Dem — Wed, 06 Jul 2016 23:05:03 +0000

In reply to She Was Never Getting Indicted. Really.

I agree with everything you said, but I think you give today's "journalists" too much credit:

And the media obviously benefited from the idea that criminal charges might be coming, because that's a better story. You don't even have to be slanted against Clinton to want a juicier story

Anyone with the slightest bit of curiosity and the desire to search for truth would realize the treasure trove of scandals (raping his wife - documented in her book, bribing Attorneys General - Florida and Texas at least {and using his 'charity' to do so}, all the claims he makes without any proof whatsoever) etc, etc.

Maybe the reason they leave all of his scandals alone is because they believe that once the dominos start to fall the horse race will be over. But one might reasonably hope that our country's future might weigh in at some point.