Deroy Murdock: FBI probe of Clinton e-mails was spa of special treatment

The FBI did everything but drive Hillary Clinton’s getaway car.

Former Secretary of State Clinton is a free woman largely thanks to the tender loving care that the FBI provided her and her conspirators during its probe of her illegal, unsecure e-mail server and related abuse of government secrets. GOP lawmakers concluded this after grilling FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe on Dec. 21, behind closed doors, according to John Solomon’s molar-grinding expose in The Hill.

“For the first time, investigators say they have secured written evidence that the FBI believed there was evidence that some laws were broken,” Solomon reported. This proof includes newly confirmed suspicions and what Solomon calls revelations of “irregularities and contradictions” in the FBI’s inquiry.

▪ Former FBI director James Comey’s first draft of his statement exonerating Clinton was dated May 2, 2016. But FBI agents on this case still were collecting subpoenaed documents and other relevant evidence. They cataloged additional exhibits on May 13, 19, and 26.

▪ Comey wrote his “Free Hillary” speech before 12 to 17 separate witnesses had been questioned, including Clinton herself. She was not interrogated until July 2 — fully two months after Comey penned remarks designed to keep her from jail. He delivered his words of absolution that July 5.

▪ Comey’s May 2 draft reportedly declared, “The sheer volume of information that was properly classified as secret at the time it was discussed on e-mail (that is, excluding the “up classified” e-mails) supports an inference that the participants were grossly negligent in their handling of that information.”

Clinton is only human. Even her critics might excuse a couple of goof-ups, in which she accidentally exposed a classified record or two. However, Clinton operated a busted water main of classified data that flowed in from State and gushed out of her lawless, do-it-yourself server. These 113 “born-classified” records included eight top secret e-mails, 10 confidential ones, and 37 secret messages.

▪ Comey’s first draft correctly called this behavior “grossly negligent.” That precise legal standard should have triggered Clinton’s prosecution under the Espionage Act of 1917. Luckily for her and her comrades, Peter Strzok — a disgraced, vociferously anti-Trump and volubly pro-Clinton FBI official — excised those words and inserted “extremely careless,” language absent from that statute. This removed the pesky formulation and helped Clinton sway voters rather than federal jurors.

▪ The technician who handled Clinton’s server after it left her Chappaqua, N.Y., mansion also unlawfully erased e-mails on its hard drive — soon after Clinton’s attorney spoke with Platte River Networks, the technical advisor’s employer.

“What did the FBI do to investigate this apparent obstruction?” Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, wondered on the Senate floor. “According to affidavits filed in federal court — absolutely nothing.”

▪ Also scot free is Hillary’s top aide, Huma Abedin. According to Judicial Watch, whose Freedom of Information Act lawsuit liberated State Department documents, “at least 18 classified e-mails” migrated from Clinton’s server to the laptop that Abedin shared with her ex-husband, Anthony Weiner, a former Democratic congressman from Brooklyn. Abedin also sent sensitive State Department passwords to her unprotected personal account.

So far, Clinton’s team has suffered zero consequences for treating state secrets as reverently as old newspapers.

Kristian Saucier should be so lucky. The former Navy machinist took six photos within the classified area of the U.S.S. Alexandria, a nuclear submarine on which he served in 2009. He wanted to show his family his workplaces. This was illegal, but hardly nefarious.

Nonetheless, Saucier was prosecuted for unauthorized possession of defense information. He pled guilty, spent one year in federal prison, and is undergoing six months of house arrest. He is now a garbage collector, and his home is in foreclosure.

This farce is the polar opposite of equal justice under law. It will remain so until Clinton, her henchpersons, and her FBI fan club are all locked up.

This story was originally published January 6, 2018 at 4:57 AM with the headline "Deroy Murdock: FBI probe of Clinton e-mails was spa of special treatment."