Tag: Loretta Lynch

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Crime and Non-Punishment

The Republican House moves to investigate alleged wrongdoings involving the Clinton Foundation, as well as actions by former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and James Comey during the 2016 presidential election open up a broader and deeply troubling question: Has a double standard been established for justice and politics in the United States?

It is increasingly difficult to overlook the reality that actions undertaken by Democrat appointed officials have escaped the appropriate legal response, or even the level of intense scrutiny and criticism they would reasonably entail if they were performed by a Republican. It is disingenuous to argue that partisanship does not play a significant role in this. That dichotomy serves as an enabler for future misdeeds.

Arguably, the most salient example involves the actions of Lois Lerner during her tenure with the Internal Revenue Service. Even after exposure and legal action, abuses by this hyper-partisan official continued unpunished.  A 2016 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit only lightly covered by many major media sources found that the IRS violated the Constitution, was unlawfully used for partisan purposes, and refused to comply with a court order to cease and desist in its illegal actions. Thirty-eight non-profit organizations from twenty-two states, represented by the American Center for Law and Justice  were subjected to violations of their First Amendment rights.

The Court noted that information obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that the offending IRS officials “orchestrated a complex scheme to dump conservative and Tea Party non-profit applicants into a bureaucratic ‘black hole.’ Another 294 pages of documents … also recently released by Judicial Watch further establish that ‘top IRS officials in Washington, including Lois Lerner and Holly Paz, knew that the agency was specifically targeting ‘Tea Party’ and other conservative organizations two full years before disclosing it to Congress and the public…”

Despite the blatant nature of Ms. Lerner’s actions, she received no punishment.

Other Obama-era examples abound. Also in 2016, the Select Committee on Benghazi released its report and the information revealed that the Clinton-era U.S. State Department knowingly lied to the American people about the cause of the attack. It also revealed that an antiterrorism team was indeed stopped from proceeding. Despite the death of a U.S. Ambassador and other Americans, and despite clear evidence of a knowing refusal to take actions before and during the attack that could possibly have prevented the tragedy, no repercussions followed.

No issue stands out more, nor illustrates better, the pro-Democratic double standard, and “get out of jail free” attitude towards those it favors, than the entire matter of the Russian uranium deal, in which the Kremlin’s nuclear energy agency, Rosatom, took control of 20% of U.S. uranium. National Review  described the deal:

“On June 8, 2010, Rosatom, the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation, announced plans to purchase a 51.4 percent stake in [a] …company..whose international assets included some 20 percent of America’s uranium capacity. Because this active ingredient in atomic reactors and nuclear weapons is a strategic commodity, this $1.3 billion deal required the approval of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Secretary of State Clinton was one of nine federal department and agency heads on that secretive panel. On June 29, 2010, three weeks after Rosatom proposed to Uranium One, Bill Clinton keynoted a seminar staged by Renaissance Capital in Moscow, a reputedly Kremlin-controlled investment bank that promoted this transaction. Renaissance Capital paid Clinton $500,000 for his one-hour speech. While CFIUS evaluated Rosatom’s offer, Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer observed, ‘a spontaneous outbreak of philanthropy among eight shareholders in Uranium One’ began. ‘These Canadian mining magnates decided now would be a great time to donate tens of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation.”
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Additionally, Secretary Clinton violated both State Department protocols and federal laws and regulations by using her private email server for emails containing secret and top secret messages. Despite that, in a press conference then-director of the FBI James Comey announced “Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes … our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”

To date, Ms. Clinton has received no punishment.

The double standard, unfortunately, has been employed not only in the spheres of media and politics but by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in matters pertaining to President Trumps’ anti-terrorism travel bans.

During his tenure in office, Barack Obama, on at least six occasions, barred potentially dangerous immigrants, predominately from Moslem nations, from entering the United States. Both President Trump and Obama employed the same section of laws, section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952,  (“Whenever the president finds that the entry of aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, the president may, by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or non-immigrant’s or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”) to justify their action.

The 9th circuit was quiet on Obama’s move, but sought to restrict President Trump.

Numerous other examples, some involving voting fraud, could be included in the discussion. But the point is already clear. Thanks to a highly partisan media and a portion of the court system that places its own partisan beliefs above the law, many Democrats have a sense of invulnerability in the commission of illegal or unethical political acts.

Illustration: Pixabay

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FBI Admits Clinton Wrongdoing But Won’t Press Charges

NOTE: today’s previously announced column, The Campaign vs. Free Speech, can be read at http://www.usagovpolicy.com/nyanalysis/campaign-vs-free-speech-continues/

FBI Director James B. Comey’s decision not  to indict Hillary Clinton should not be reviewed in terms of its effect on the 2016 campaign. Far more important is its effect on the federal system of justice, and its increasing susceptibility to political influence. We have reviewed points raised during his statement, and how they should be interpreted:

Comey acknowledges wrongdoing by Clinton, and the resulting danger to the United States:

“From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were “up-classified” to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent… there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information… For example, seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters. There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on e-mail. ” None of these e-mails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these e-mails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at Departments and Agencies of the U.S. Government—or even with a commercial service like Gmail.

The Director acknowledges a cover-up by Clinton:

“It is also likely that there are other work-related e-mails that they did not produce to State and that we did not find elsewhere, and that are now gone because they deleted all e-mails they did not return to State, and the lawyers cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery.”

Comey acknowledges that laws were broken:

“…there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information…”

And finally, the Director acknowledges that another person would receive punishment:

“To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences.”

Summarizing the above, the FBI:

  • Admits that Clinton handled top secret information with reckless disregard for the safety of the nation;
  • Admits that the former Secretary of State attempted to cover-up her misdeed;
  • Admits that laws were probably broken;
  • And acknowledges that someone else doing precisely what Clinton did would face punishment.

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The decision was handed down just days after an inappropriate meeting between Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton, which the FBI sought to hide by banning journalists and photographers from covering the matter. The FBI is part of the Department of Justice, and Director Comey reports to Lynch.

Imagine this scenario:

A District Attorney has a friendly meeting with the spouse of a suspect under investigation. A few days later, despite admitting that harm was done to the public, laws were broken, and a cover-up of evidence took place, an announcement is made that no charges would be pressed, even though punishment was appropriate. Local cops prevented news reporters from trying to cover the meeting.

It’s obvious the public would be outraged, the District Attorney would be removed, and an indictment of the suspect would proceed.

The Clinton-Lynch case, however, is protected by partisanship, the heavy hand of the White House, and a media which is heavily biased in favor of Clinton’s candidacy. It may escape the full fury from the Republican Party, whose leaders are so distracted by the civil war between Trump’s supporters and detractors that they can’t effectively do what an opposition party is supposed to do. However, Republican leaders in Congress are planning to demand that Comey testify regarding his decision.

 

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Environmental Extremists Illegal Assault on Free Speech

An unprecedented legal attack, in utter violation of the First Amendment, has been launched against a think tank. According to Claude Walker, the left wing attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI)  has committed the “offense” of disagreeing with Progressive extremists on the issue of climate change. The move is in line with the anti-free speech action of U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch who “referred to the FBI”   consideration of whether to prosecute those who dare to question the claims of environmental extremists.

According to CEI, “The subpoena requests a decade’s worth of communications, emails, statements, drafts, and other documents regarding CEI’s work on climate change and energy policy, including private donor information. It demands that CEI produce these materials from 20 years ago, from 1997-2007….”

In a statement on CEI’s website, General Counsel Sam Kazman pledged: “CEI will vigorously fight to quash this subpoena. It is an affront to our First Amendment rights of free speech and association for Attorney General Walker to bring such intimidating demands against a nonprofit group. If Walker and his allies succeed, the real victims will be all Americans, whose access to affordable energy will be hit by one costly regulation after another, while scientific and policy debates are wiped out one subpoena at a time.”

In a reply to the subpoena, which has more in common with actions taken by totalitarian regimes than anything in American jurisprudence, CEI’s legal counsel stated:

“The subpoena that you served on the Competitive Enterprise Institute (“CEI”) is a blatant attempt to intimidate and harass an organization for advancing views that you oppose. There is no way to understand your demand that CEI turn over all of its internal documents concerning climate change and its communications…other than as an effort to punish it for its public policy views, chill its associations, and silence its advocacy. You acknowledged as much in your remarks at the March 29 “AGs United for Clean Power” press conference in New York. You said that you launched this investigation not to carry out any law-enforcement duty, but to ‘make it clear to our residents as well as the American people that we have to do something transformational’ about climate change, stop ‘rely[ing] on fossil fuel,’ and ‘look at reliable energy.’ You are entitled to your opinions on public policy, but you have no right to wield your power as a prosecutor to advance a policy agenda by persecuting those who disagree with you. That is, in fact, the law: ‘If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.’
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The subpoena has prompted intense opposition by those in the media worried about the dictatorial nature of both it and the actions of U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch. In an editorial, the Wall Street Journal stated: “Sometimes we wonder if we’re still living in the land of the free.”

The actions of the climate radicals becomes more extreme as the science against their point of view becomes more obvious.  They refuse to discuss key facts such as the lack of any warming for almost two decades; the fact that, long before factories and cars existed, the Earth regularly cooled and heated; (Europe was warmer in the 10th Century A.D. and during the Roman Empire, and it was colder during the “Little Ice Age” which began in 1300 A.D.) and the revelation that other planets have endured temperature increases at about the same time the Earth did, despite the absence of human activity. They also refuse, in their bid to sanction any activities that may theoretically cause warming, to discuss the findings of Russian and German solar scientists who believe that decreased sun activity may be the harbinger of colder temperatures for a good portion of the next 50 years.

The howls of the climate extremists extend to absolute fabrications.  The claim that the scientific community unanimously agrees with them is little short of sheer nonsense. Over 31,000 scientists have objected, for example, to President Obama’s claim that the matter is “settled science.”

It is increasingly apparent that the excuse of global warming is being used to ram a series of unpopular leftist economic policies down the throats of Americans. As the lack of science and overt conflicts of interest are exposed, the result is a fascist-like attempt to silence critics through harassing law suits.