Last August I predicted a Trump vs. Sanders contest. Trump was ahead then, as he has been almost continuously since announcing in June, so that looked like an easy, albeit controversial, call back then. But Sanders was way behind. Besides the anger leading to the popular support I saw that wasn't in the polls at that time, I also saw Clinton's crime that wouldn't go away, namely: the way she set up her own personal server to handle some of the most highly classified emails in the government.
This is not just something the Right wing Republicans dreamed up. This
isn't just a mistake in judgment or something she failed to perform in her
duties correctly.
It was a willful, proactive and complicated deliberate breach of the law. And it doesn't matter if it was done
for her "convenience" as she now claims, or that she "made a mistake" (she said
the same thing about voting for the war in Iraq in 2003).
Right now, the FBI has granted immunity to the information technology staffer who set up Clinton's server, Bryan Pagliano.
The Examiner.com article "DOJ and FBI grants immunity to Clinton staffer criminal charges a possibility" linked to above says:
The FBI was behind the decision to upgrade most of the over 2,000 emails to classified during the State Department review of Clinton's emails as part of the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. In total, 2,079 emails are marked classified at differing levels; the majority are at the lowest level confidential, There is a total of 65 messages at the "secret" a higher level of classified. There is a total of 2,028 emails marked "confidential," the lowest level of classified.
In January, the State Department retroactively classified 22 of Clinton's emails as "top-secret," the "highest level" of classified. The Department insisted they had not initially classified as such when the emails were originally sent and received. Clinton also sent "highly classified information" known as "special access programs" (SAP)" through her private email server. SAP means the information Clinton sent was "derived from sensitive intelligence sources."
For more on the nature of the Special Access Program (SAP) and the law surrounding it, see the following Bill Still Report, where he quotes an expert in the field Ed Coet, who was an a retired US Army Intelligence Officer. (Still has also had security clearance to work on classified documents since he was 18). Even people with Top Secret security clearance are not given permission to work on SAPs, and even those who are, on a must know basis, can generally only work on the one they are assigned to. The breach of these security protocols is presumed to be a potentially endangering move since it would give U.S. enemies access to field agents' names and undercover operations. Breaching these protocols is a criminal offense with a possible llifetime imprisonment.
The FBI is taking its time, and undoubtedly wants to get as solid a case as it can. But they typically don't' grant immunity to someone who facilitated a crime unless they are after bigger fish. That fish in this case, would be Pagliano's boss, Hillary Clinton.
The immunity deal implies that the investigation into Clinton's server is ramping out, and it could lead to criminal charges. An immunity deal looks bad for Clinton and shows how serious the FBI's campaign is becoming, and is a common practice in an investigation where the DOJ looks to "uncover criminal activity" in higher ranking positions.
I hesitated to write this article. I am a progressive, though I don't believe Hillary Clinton is one. However, with last night's drubbing in the semi-super Tuesday, Sanders will need a game changer in the electoral environment (though it is closer in Illinois than the media including the NY Times, led by the Associated Press, is saying (2%), because two outlying counties tilting towards Sanders have not been counted, and one of them, McHenry County, has had only 123 of its 212 precincts counted since last night, leaving about 8,579 votes left, enough to tip the scales towards a much narrower Clinton victory, or even, in theory, a loss if the balance of the only other county not fully counted, Cook County, for some reason don't go Clinton's way).
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
4
3
3
