RUTHFULLY YOURS

The legal dodge used by James Comey to exonerate Hillary Clinton from her prima facie crimes in using an unsecured server for official business won’t be any help to the Clinton Foundation as it faces charges coming from whistleblowers.

Clinton Inc. criminal defense lawyers trying to hide behind the word “intent” won’t work because the Clintons were previously warned early and often about improper compliance:

.. internal legal reviews that the foundation conducted on itself in 2008 and 2011.

Those reviews flagged serious concerns about legal compliance, improper commingling of personal and charity business and “quid pro quo” promises made to donors while Hillary Clinton was secretary of State.

“With a cloth?”

There is a great line in the fun movie, National Treasure, spoken by the accomplished, former Marine, Harvey Keitel, who was playing a very solid FBI Special Agent “Someone has to go to prison Ben.”

Sadly, as both the first Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Public Affairs and then in a reorganization  as being in charge of  Public and Intergovernmental Affairs for the Veterans Administration, I did experience many scammers and real criminal types that actually did not go to prison but  walked away without being charged after running truly horrific veteran charity scams.

The lesson I learned in trying to bring many veteran charity scams to justice was, sadly, that a legal strategy adopted by defendants often worked. Two FBI Special Agents who were investigating a $ 6 million scam out of the $ 7 million collected said DOJ Attorneys prosecuting charity cases have to respect the power of the word “intent”. Thus the cases were often dropped.

But now the  FBI/DOJ does not have that excuse to withhold a prosecution going forward.

One of the elements of a crime is that the criminal behavior has to be documented as being undertaken knowingly and purposeful which is exactly what the whistleblower documents prove.

Often, charity scammers walk away clean because the Government cannot prove “intent”  because the defendant if taken to court will simply say; look at our good work we are just bad managers.

Anyone watching cable shows have by now seen Clinton, Inc. supporters focus on all the “good works” the Clinton Charity supposedly has accomplished. However, whistleblowers now tell us it was willful criminal conduct on the part of the Clintons, thus legally spiking the no criminal intent defense.

I know that the “no criminal intent but we are just bad managers”, would be an audacious defense strategy by a former governor and president and his wife, a former Senator and Secretary of State. However, I have learned in over two decades of investigating all things criminal with Clinton, Inc, to never ever count them out in their powering through real criminal behavior. It is almost like a big game to them.

One can finally hope that the recent whistleblower revelations will tell us that a legal prosecution fuse has finally been lit to embrace the legitimate campaign chant of Trump Nation supporters to “Lock Her Up,”

Finally one can only hope that Bill and Hillary Clinton may legally have no way out.

Edward  Timperlake was the Co-author of NYT Best Seller; Year of the Rat: How Bill Clinton Compromised U.S. Security for Chinese Cash