CATCH ME IF YOU CAN – HILLARY CLINTON

POST 9

“The American people are tired of liars and people who pretend to be something they’re not.” – Hillary Clinton

“Freedom isn’t free. It shouldn’t be a bragging point that ‘Oh, I don’t get involved in politics,’ as if that makes someone cleaner. No, that makes you derelict of duty in a republic. Liars and panderers in government would have a much harder time of it if so many people didn’t insist on their right to remain ignorant and blindly agreeable.” – Bill Maher

“A storyteller makes up things to help other people; a liar makes up things to help himself.” – Daniel Wallace, The Kings and Queens of Roam

“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.” –
Friedrich Nietzsche

The FACTS

Hillary Clinton’s attitude is summarized by the phrase “Catch me if you can!” Frankly, her disdain for the law is as it pertains to her has been shown over many years of public office. However, this time she may have overstepped the bounds. On the other hand, I have a great deal of respect for the “Teflon coated lady”. Nothing seems to stick! She and her husband Bill have a way of dodging bullets – even honest ones aimed at corruption in office.
Today’s Wall Street Journal (03/17/15) opinion page has an opinion by Ronald Rotunda, professor of law at Chapman University school of Law and co-author with John Nowak of “Treatise on Constitutional Law”. In this opinion piece, he brings out a number of significant facts.
• Hillary admits destroying 30,000 emails after the subpoenas started coming in.
o She claimed that she only destroyed personal records.
o Team Clinton claims to have used keyword searches to separate personal emails from State Department emails.
o After the fact of the destruction, Hillary claims that “Every email” was read before deletion.
• There are a number of outstanding questions on these emails
o How did the person deleting the email define “personal”?
o As one example, if Hillary emailed a foreign government asking for a donation to her “Clinton foundation”, was that message “trashed”? It has been reported on the internet that the Clinton foundation took in $65 million while she was the Secretary of State. This Foundation is currently serving as the cornerstone for a presidential election campaign.

The LAW

The law is clear

“It is a crime (18 caps U. S.C. See section 1519) to destroy even one message to prevent it from being subpoenaed.”

In an article in Criminal Defense Lawyer, T. Marcus Folk states that the prosecutor

“Need only prove that the defendant shredded the documents, at least in part, to make life more difficult for future investigations, if in when they eventually appear.”

This is what is called “Anticipatory obstruction of justice

” And the law punishes it by up to 20 year’s imprisonment. The burden of proof is light. The Justice Department section 1519 refers to “any matters”. Specifically, “No corrupt persuasion is required”.

Most state courts have a Rule 3.4 which provides that an attorney shall not

”Conceal a document or other material from potential evidentiary value.”

Hillary Clinton, an attorney, is governed by these rules. So are any attorneys that advised her to destroy the emails.

RICHARD NIXON

In 2002, Nixon did not destroy the tapes since he knew these rules. He was an attorney. Both the committee and the special prosecutor subpoenaed these tapes. He would have been indicted for the destruction of the tapes.   At the time, Hillary was a member of the House Impeachment Committee. Further, when Congress enacted section 1519, in 2002, it purposefully made the crime easier to prove. It was part of the Sarbanes – Oxley act. As a senator, she voted for this law.

As an aside, I believe that the Sarbanes-Oxley act is a good law. It was enacted as a result of the Enron and WorldCom management dishonesty and theft. It set new standards for public companies to follow. The purpose was to enforce public records so that executives could not deny, obfuscate and destroy their participation in actions that were illegal and cost the stockholders money.

CONCLUSION

The law is clear. The act of destroying 30,000 emails after the subpoena was issued is admitted fact. The prosecution must prove that the defendant destroyed some emails either incoming or outgoing that the public viewed as sensitive, secret, top-secret or compartmentalized information. If information was lodged on the server, it is illegal. If it was potentially divulged because of non-secure communications, it was illegal.
A simple way to prove the above would be to survey any foreign governments and our foreign embassies that had traffic with Hillary during the period of the Benghazi and fast and Fast and Furious. Ask for copies of all email sent to Hillary or received from Hillary. These emails all ended up on her private server in her home, not the State Department server. A single email could indict and convict her.
Now we enter the realm of political reality. The current administration would never request such a thing from their embassies, nor from any government that was interfacing with Hillary. Why? This is a Democratic administration and they do not want to indict the front runner for the 2016 presidency election. Thus, we are left with Teflon Hillary, “Catch me if you can!”