Contributors

Friday, April 01, 2016

Why Hillary Won't Be Indicted and Shouldn't Be

Richard O. Lempert offers an excellent summation of the faux scandal that is the Hillary Clinton email kerfuffle. It's the most honest and objective piece I have seen out there thus far. Here are some key points.

It is unclear whether classified information conveyed in an email message would be considered a document or materials subject to removal. Moreover, with respect to information in messages sent to Clinton, it would be hard to see her as having “knowingly” removed anything, and the same is arguably true of information in messages that she originated. If, however, she were sent attachments that were classified and kept them on her server, this law might apply.

And if they did?

But even if this section did apply, a prosecutor would face difficulties. Heads of agencies have considerable authority with respect to classified information, including authority to approve some exceptions to rules regarding how classified information should be handled and authority to declassify material their agency has classified. It would also be hard to show that Clinton intended to retain any information sent to her if her usual response was to forward the information to another, and if she then deleted the material from her inbox, whether or not it was deleted from her computer.

Some of that classified information includes information that was published in the New York Times and then retroactively classified recently.

This is a very thorough article that addresses the fact of the law. This is in direct opposition to what the media is reporting on a daily basis. I wonder why...


No comments: