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James Comey’s Clinton Immunity
- Thread starter Tom B
- Start date
Cheryl Mills’s Legal Privileges
The evidence of a politicized Clinton probe keeps building.
ENLARGE
Cheryl Mills in 2015. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Oct. 5, 2016 7:05 p.m. ET
646 COMMENTS
The more we learn about the Justice Department’s investigation ofHillary Clinton’s private email, the worse it looks. The latest revelation is that, along with granting immunity to two Clinton aides, Justice agreed to secret side deals that provided highly unusual protections from potential prosecution.
The side agreements came to light this week in a letter from House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte to Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Mr. Goodlatte says he learned about the side deals by examining the immunity agreements, which haven’t been released to the public.
We already knew that Justice offered immunity to at least five central figures in the private email probe, including Cheryl Mills andHeather Samuelson, the aides in charge of deciding which of the former Secretary of State’s emails on her private server would be turned over to the State Department. FBI Director James Comeystruggled to explain to Congress last week why immunity was necessary to obtain the laptops the two had used for sorting the emails.
Now we learn that Ms. Mills and Ms. Samuelson also obtained guarantees that investigators would not search these laptops after Jan. 31, 2015. More amazing, Justice agreed to destroy both laptops after examining them. Think about that: Before the authorities knew what was on the laptops, they agreed to destroy potential evidence in their investigation. The evidence was also under a congressional subpoena and preservation order.
The “no-look” date beyond Jan. 31, 2015 means the FBI couldn’t see what the two aides said or did after the news of Mrs. Clinton’s private server became public in March 2015. Investigators would be unable to determine if Ms. Mills or Ms. Samuelson had engaged, as Mr. Goodlatte put it in his letter, in “destruction of evidence or obstruction of justice related to Secretary Clinton’s unauthorized use of a private email server.” Why else would time limits be necessary given that the two women already had immunity?
We’re told by prosecutors that this kind of special treatment is all but unheard of. Justice would typically empanel a grand jury, which would issue subpoenas to obtain physical evidence like the laptops. No grant of immunity would have been necessary.
So why no grand jury? Mr. Comey told Congress last week that the FBI was eager to see the laptop evidence and that it is sometimes easier to have informal agreements to obtain it. But surely it’s possible to negotiate with lawyers and conduct a grand jury at the same time. Without the threat of a grand jury the Clinton entourage had all the leverage, and they were able to get away with what amounted to formal get-out-of-jail-free cards.
Our guess is that Justice also knew that word of a grand jury was likely to leak and further damage Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign. Better to work sotto voce with the Clinton team until Mr. Comey made his public announcement in July that he was recommending that no charges be brought in the case.
All of this adds to the mounting evidence that the FBI and Justice gave Mrs. Clinton and her entourage special political treatment. (See Noel Francisco and James Burnham nearby.) No grand jury that the public knows about. Immunity. Special side deals. No hard digging into contradictory testimony. An FBI interview only at the last minute. Public exoneration by the FBI director when that isn’t his job. FBI summaries released on the Friday afternoon before Labor Day.
No wonder millions of Americans think the system is rigged.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/cheryl-millss-legal-privileges-1475708726
The evidence of a politicized Clinton probe keeps building.
Cheryl Mills in 2015. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Oct. 5, 2016 7:05 p.m. ET
646 COMMENTS
The more we learn about the Justice Department’s investigation ofHillary Clinton’s private email, the worse it looks. The latest revelation is that, along with granting immunity to two Clinton aides, Justice agreed to secret side deals that provided highly unusual protections from potential prosecution.
The side agreements came to light this week in a letter from House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte to Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Mr. Goodlatte says he learned about the side deals by examining the immunity agreements, which haven’t been released to the public.
We already knew that Justice offered immunity to at least five central figures in the private email probe, including Cheryl Mills andHeather Samuelson, the aides in charge of deciding which of the former Secretary of State’s emails on her private server would be turned over to the State Department. FBI Director James Comeystruggled to explain to Congress last week why immunity was necessary to obtain the laptops the two had used for sorting the emails.
Now we learn that Ms. Mills and Ms. Samuelson also obtained guarantees that investigators would not search these laptops after Jan. 31, 2015. More amazing, Justice agreed to destroy both laptops after examining them. Think about that: Before the authorities knew what was on the laptops, they agreed to destroy potential evidence in their investigation. The evidence was also under a congressional subpoena and preservation order.
The “no-look” date beyond Jan. 31, 2015 means the FBI couldn’t see what the two aides said or did after the news of Mrs. Clinton’s private server became public in March 2015. Investigators would be unable to determine if Ms. Mills or Ms. Samuelson had engaged, as Mr. Goodlatte put it in his letter, in “destruction of evidence or obstruction of justice related to Secretary Clinton’s unauthorized use of a private email server.” Why else would time limits be necessary given that the two women already had immunity?
We’re told by prosecutors that this kind of special treatment is all but unheard of. Justice would typically empanel a grand jury, which would issue subpoenas to obtain physical evidence like the laptops. No grant of immunity would have been necessary.
So why no grand jury? Mr. Comey told Congress last week that the FBI was eager to see the laptop evidence and that it is sometimes easier to have informal agreements to obtain it. But surely it’s possible to negotiate with lawyers and conduct a grand jury at the same time. Without the threat of a grand jury the Clinton entourage had all the leverage, and they were able to get away with what amounted to formal get-out-of-jail-free cards.
Our guess is that Justice also knew that word of a grand jury was likely to leak and further damage Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign. Better to work sotto voce with the Clinton team until Mr. Comey made his public announcement in July that he was recommending that no charges be brought in the case.
All of this adds to the mounting evidence that the FBI and Justice gave Mrs. Clinton and her entourage special political treatment. (See Noel Francisco and James Burnham nearby.) No grand jury that the public knows about. Immunity. Special side deals. No hard digging into contradictory testimony. An FBI interview only at the last minute. Public exoneration by the FBI director when that isn’t his job. FBI summaries released on the Friday afternoon before Labor Day.
No wonder millions of Americans think the system is rigged.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/cheryl-millss-legal-privileges-1475708726
These women had good lawyers, obviously. They got an insurance policy that the FBI promise of immunity would be difficult to renege on. And the FBI got what it wanted; a look at the laptops. Though the laptops were destroyed, the FBI would have made copies of anything of particular interest bearing on their investigation, and would testify to their authenticity and that these documents were originally on the laptops. The women and their attorneys wanted to make sure that personal stuff on the laptops would not later see the light of day in some form or other. The only way to assure that personal information didn't eventually leak , perhaps even years later, would be to insist that once the FBI got what they were looking for, if anything, the laptops would be destroyed. Would that all attorneys were as competent as those these women must have had!
Both sides were in a hurry. There was an election coming up! Seating a Grand Jury and going that route with subpoenas, etc. would have taken much longer. It seems the FBI acted prudently in this case and made all the right decisions given the time constraints they were operating under from the Republican leadership..
The system is clearly rigged in favor of those with the best lawyers. Always has been. Donald Trump knows this, Hillary Clinton knows this, and I know it. Surely this comes as no surprise to hardly anyone.
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who is paying you to spin that crap? When is the FBI and the Justice dept out lawyered? these women were guilty as sin with classified docs on their computer and part of a conspiracy to cover up traitorous activity.
they did not have good lawyers they had "good" connections to bad leaders.
they did not have good lawyers they had "good" connections to bad leaders.
I wear different hats.
this is my objective facts and actions speak louder than words hat.
this is my objective facts and actions speak louder than words hat.
Thank god you're not a judge or on a jury.
I can assure you that the best white collar defense lawyers in the country could not get that kind of treatment. This was wired from the top. It had nothing to do with lawyering.
The FBI has extraordinary powers when national security issues are involved. They could have had those laptops and anything else those crooks were hiding and it wouldn't have taken a grand jury.
It is elementary that you do not immunize people unless they can give you incriminating information on bigger players. You squeeze them, threaten them, put the screws to them. That's when they roll over.
These hardcore Clinton goons like Cheryl Mills were never going to roll over because they knew Obama had their back and they also know what happens to people who turn state's evidence against the Clintons. Accidents, usually fatal, or suicides. But a competent prosecution could have either put them in jail or forced Obama to pardon them to his great embarrassment.
Clinton could have easily been prosecuted. If a jury let her walk, fine that is our system. Instead we get the spectacle of a high official getting obviously preferential treatment, while ordinary people get the book thrown at them in similar cases. But let's not lose sight of the important issues, eg what Trump said 25 years ago on a reality show.
Maybe you can turn this creative stuff into hard cash. Produce a documentary. "The Cheryl Mills Story".
