RUTHFULLY YOURS

In questioning by Congressman Trey Gowdy (R., S.C.), Director Comey seemed to concede that the statute criminalizing the mishandling of classified information through gross negligence may well be constitutional. That cuts against his testimony throughout the hearing, during which he argued that prosecuting a serious offense without requiring proof of an intent to cause harm would violate American tradition and, quite possibly, the Constitution.

The director maintains, however, that using the statute to prosecute Mrs. Clinton would be inappropriate even if the statute is valid. This, he reasons, is because the statute has only been used once since its enactment in 1917. The idea is that using it against her would amount to unlawful selective prosecution.

I am puzzled by this argument for several reasons, but I will limit this post to just one of them: The fact that the statute has been used repeatedly in military prosecutions – and that at least one military court decision undermines arguments Director Comey has made about the state-of-mind proof required.

The military prosecutions for gross negligence in the mishandling of classified information were discussed by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey in a Wall Street Journal column following Director Comey’s press conference on Tuesday. While it is certainly true that the FBI does not handle such investigations, the military courts are part of the United States justice system. Military cases litigate many of the same statutes and precedents (especially, Supreme Court precedents) that are applicable in the civilian justice system.

One relevant military case, United States v. McGuinness, is from 1992 – hardly ancient history. It involved a navy operations specialist sentenced to two years’ confinement (and other penalties) because, over his years of service, he retained 311 “classified items” unsecured in his home. While he was charged under Section 793, it was not under subsection (f) – the subsection of the statute most relevant to Mrs. Clinton, involving the grossly negligent mishandling of classified information – but under subsection (e), which criminalizes willful mishandling of classified information. Nevertheless, the case is highly relevant to our consideration of Director Comey’s recommendation against prosecution.

The defendant in McGuinness claimed that he merely intended to keep the classified items as personal reference materials, not to improperly disseminate them. Thus, he contended that willfulness, the mens rea (state of mind) proof requirement in Section 793(e), was legally insufficient. It was not enough, he insisted, for the prosecution to prove he had knowingly violated a legal duty regarding the safekeeping of classified information; the government needed in addition to prove bad faith – meaning: that he intended to do harm.

Obviously, this is very similar to Director Comey’s theory that, in a Section 793(f) case, it is not enough for the prosecution to prove mere “gross negligence,” even though that’s what subsection (f) says. The director claims the statute should be read to require additional proof of an intent to cause harm.

FBI Director Comey’s legal theory that gross negligence is constitutionally suspect as a mens rea (state of mind) element of a criminal statute – such as Section 973(f) of the federal penal code, the statute at the heart of Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information – was shown to be flawed by the questioning of Rep. Thomas Massie (R., Ken.).

Rep. Massie made the point (explained in my earlier post) that every state in the United States has a law criminalizing negligent homicide – i.e., causing death by negligent conduct in the absence of an intent to cause death. Director Comey quibbled over whether all 50 states have such laws (and I plead guilty to assuming this is the case but not taking the time to check it). Eventually, though, Comey acknowledged that, yes, it is very common for prosecutors to charge and courts to sustain negligent homicide cases in which there is no requirement to prove that the defendant intended the harm caused.

In earlier questioning, another member of the committee pointed out that there is strict liability – no need to prove intent to violate the law – in a number of petty offenses (e.g., speeding). But Comey replied that petty offenses were in a different category from grave offenses like mishandling classified information. While this is true, he extravagantly implied that what makes them different is that all serious offenses require proof of intent to cause harm.

Yet, as I pointed out earlier, homicide is a grave offense; yet, negligent homicide is routinely charged. Defendants are routinely convicted. Courts routinely uphold the convictions.

When Rep. Massie made this point, Director Comey’s response was that he was more familiar with the federal system, while negligent homicide cases are state offenses.

FBI Director James Comey declined to comment on a possible ongoing Clinton Foundation corruption probe during his testimony today before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Asked by Chairman Jason Chaffetz if he had “looked at the Clinton Foundation,” Comey answered, “I’m not going to comment on the existence or non-existence of any other investigations.”

Asked if the Clinton Foundation was tied into the email investigation, Comey simply said, “I’m not going to answer that.”

In January, Fox News reported: “The FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of private email as secretary of state has expanded to look at whether the possible ‘intersection’ of Clinton Foundation work and State Department business may have violated public corruption laws, three intelligence sources not authorized to speak on the record told Fox News.”

The possibility of an ongoing public corruption probe was reportedly one of the issues Chaffetz questioned the FBI director about after Comey’s statement on Tuesday. He was brushed off at that time, too: “I can’t tell you about that yet,” Comey told Chaffetz.

UPDATE 4 a.m. EST: The suspect holed up in the parking garage is dead and two “suspicious devices” have been found, per NBC5 in Dallas-Forth Worth.

Dallas’ police chief told reporters after midnight local time that they have three people in custody and were in a bullet-ridden standoff with another — but the shooters have given no indication of their motive for ambushing police officers at a downtown march.

Chief David Brown said the death toll was up to four officers after one more died at the hospital.

After the press conference, one more of the wounded officers died. Six officers were wounded.

Brown said police were in negotiations with a suspect on the second floor of the El Centro College parking garage — but the suspect had been firing at officers for the past 45 minutes.

The chief said the suspect was “exchanging gunfire with us and not being very cooperative in negotiations.”

Brown said the suspect “told negotiators the end is coming,” that gunmen were “going to hurt and kill more of us” and “that there are bombs all over the place in the garage.”

Police have in custody one female found in the area of the El Centro garage. Officers also followed and apprehended a Mercedes with two suspects who had camouflage bags.

All of those in custody and being interviewed were not being cooperative, Brown said.

“We still don’t have a complete comfort level that we have all the suspects,” he added, stressing that police would be searching downtown for an undetermined period of time.

Pressed on what the motive of the shooters was or whether they were associated with any group, he replied, “At this point we don’t have a lot of cooperation to find those answers.”

Brown added police aren’t getting answers on “motivation” or “who they are.” CONTINUE AT SITE

“I knew I was different before I knew what different meant,” Mike said with a slight smile. “When I was just four, I would talk to God. I would ask God if He made me different because I was being punished.” Mike said that he came from a loving family and a very protective mother and a happy childhood. “I loved going to church. Nobody treated me differently. I didn’t think about sex. I didn’t know anything about being gay – just that I was different, and I kept asking God why.”

Mike said that when he was eight years old, God gave him an answer that somehow satisfied him. God told him, “I don’t make any mistakes. To Me you are perfect. But Mother Nature makes mistakes – some big mistakes and some little mistakes. She just made a little mistake; don’t worry about it.” Mike smiled broadly at the idea that God made him perfect, even though Nature is not perfect. It relieved his mind, and he stopped asking for an answer. He was bullied in school, but the consciousness of being different predated by years any bullying or mistreatment.

The idea that homosexuality may be an “oops” of nature is considered intolerable bigotry by the LGBT hegemony. The truth is that consciousness of being different in an unchosen way, especially regarding the profound and pervasive mental dimension of sexuality, is a source of distress, fear, and anger independent of social conditioning or prejudice. The belief that sex minority problems do not arise primarily from discrimination, but rather from internal psychological processes, is heretical. A recent article in the online Journal of the American Medical Association underscores this prejudice.

Mike was a participant in the survey the article describes. It was conducted by Gilbert Gonzales, Ph.D. of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Dr. Gonzales, a homosexual, is an LGBT activist whose research interests have focused on the LGBT political agenda such as same-sex marriage.

Overall, 69,000 participants were surveyed. Sixty-seven thousand one hundred fifty were reported to be heterosexual, 525 lesbian, 624 gay, and 515 bisexual. Dr. Gonzales’s research concluded that lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults are more likely to report impaired physical and mental health, heavy alcohol consumption, and heavy cigarette use, “stressors that LGB people experience as a result of interpersonal and structural discrimination.”

Three days after James Comey’s soliloquy absolving Hillary Clinton of criminal misuse of classified information, the big winner is—James Comey. Washington’s elite are hailing the FBI director as a modern King Solomon for avoiding a political crisis while telling the truth.

Forgive us if we don’t join the beatification. Now that we’ve had more time to digest Mr. Comey’s legal reasoning, and after his appearance on Capitol Hill Thursday, his actions are all the more troubling and set a dangerous precedent. He often poses as the deliverer of “hard truths,” and the hard truth is that he has helped himself politically but not the cause of equal treatment under the law.

Mr. Comey criticized Mrs. Clinton’s “extremely careless” handling of classified materials and found “evidence of potential violations” of the law but then recommended no charges. He conceded that his job is not to decide on criminal prosecutions, but he then contradicted himself by declaring that “no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”

Mr. Comey’s public pronouncement that he would not recommend charges is highly unusual, and not a credit to the FBI. The bureau and its director are not the last word in the U.S. justice system. Their time-honored role is to uncover the facts, build a case, and leave the decision on prosecution to Main Justice.

Law-enforcement officials are also not supposed to talk beyond the “four corners” of an indictment, much less about an ongoing investigations except when disclosing information necessary to protect public safety. Their evidence and theories are meant to be adjudicated in adversarial courts, which is in part why Mr. Comey ought to have presented his findings and recommendation privately.

Regular order was even more important given President Obama’s multiple media interviews in which he effectively exonerated Mrs. Clinton, and Bill Clinton’s meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch on an airport tarmac last week. Mr. Comey justified violating Justice Department norms because of “intense public interest.” But if he really believed that such a politically charged case required a public presentation of the facts, then he should have simply presented the facts and not editorialized about the merits. CONTINUE AT SITE

In 2009 Congress passed the Service Dogs for Veterans Act, or SDVA, with bipartisan sponsorship as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.

SDVA included a $5 million appropriation for the Department of Veterans Affairs to conduct a comprehensive study to determine the efficacy of dogs in easing post-traumatic stress disorder among veterans.

Seven years after the Service Dogs for Veterans Act was passed, where do things stand? You may not be surprised to learn that the VA bungled its task.

“The implementation of the study,” Richard Weinmeyer wrote in the American Medical Association’s Journal of Ethics last year, “has been hampered by numerous setbacks.” Three service-dog providers were recruited, but two had dropped out by 2012, the journal reported, and “the entire project was suspended from January to June 2012 after a child was bitten by one of the study dogs.” Then the study was halted again amid the VA’s worries that a hospital in the study was endangering the dogs’ health. A revamped project was launched in 2014, but progress appears scant.

I wondered how such a well-intentioned effort could have gone so wrong for so long. For instance, how were the service-dog providers selected? I filed a Freedom of Information Act request late last year—and have yet to receive anything other than promises that information would be forthcoming. CONTINUE AT SITE

When President Obama in 2013 named James Comey to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the president must have sensed that he had picked someone who could be trusted to have his back, even if Mr. Comey had served in the George W. Bush administration. This week, Mr. Obama’s bet paid off when the G-man let Hillary Clinton skate.

Not that Mr. Comey had an explicit understanding with the White House. It’s just that Mr. Obama and his savvy political team must have known from the start that Mr. Comey was no John Adams.

Not the Adams of Founding Father fame, but John Adams when he was a younger man, who in 1770 agreed to defend British soldiers accused of massacring Boston colonists. The legal task was so unpopular, so dangerous, that nobody else would do it. Yet Adams believed that the law trumped politics, and that the men deserved a fair trial. In taking the case, he risked both his economic and political future. He took it anyway.
Mr. Obama announced Mr. Comey’s appointment by praising his “fierce independence and deep integrity.” And the press drooled over several episodes in his history that had given the former Justice Department official a reputation as tough and impartial. What this missed was that Mr. Comey had risen through the ranks precisely by being the opposite of tough. Washington rewards officials who are best at currying public favor, best at surviving, best at creating unfounded legends. And Mr. Comey had been steadily rising in Washington a long time. CONTINUE AT SITE

DALLAS—Eleven police officers were shot by at least two snipers here Thursday night during a protest over police brutality, leaving five officers dead and wounding six, throwing the city into chaos and turning parts of downtown into a massive crime scene by Friday morning.

Dallas Police Chief David Brown said the snipers had opened fire on officers from “elevated positions” during the protests. A civilian was also wounded.

By early morning Friday, three suspects were in custody, including a woman. A fourth was hunkered down in a city garage, exchanging gunfire with police.

The suspect told police negotiators that “the end is coming,” and that bombs have been placed around the garage and downtown with the aim of killing more law-enforcement personnel, Chief Brown said, adding that he had asked his staff for a plan to end the standoff.

Police are working on the assumption that all four may have been involved in the attack. It appeared the suspects had knowledge of the protest route, allowing them to take up “triangulated” positions above the march and target officers.

Police were still searching for other suspects over night, just hours before thousand of workers would fill offices, restaurants and shops in the downtown.

“We still don’t have a complete comfort level that we have all the suspects,” Chief Brown said, adding a search of the area was continuing.

Police and city officials said that large areas of downtown would be closed Friday as police continued their investigation.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings told Dallas residents to check with a city website and their employers to see if they would have access to their workplaces. Parts of the city are “an active crime scene,” Mayor Rawlings said, “and we are asking you to stay away from that area.” CONTINUE AT SITE

This administration has consistently acted in ways that show utter contempt for the Constitution and the Rule of Law as well as the separation of powers. In so doing, this administration has created an environment of mistrust by the citizens of the United States that go to the very heart of our Democratic Republic.

Our nation’s immigration laws are among its most fundamental because they were enacted to protect national security and the lives and livelihoods of Americans. Politicians from both political parties have found every excuse imaginable, and indeed, some excuses that defy logic and reason to explain why our immigration laws cannot, will not or must not be enforced.

The Obama administration has done the most damage to the immigration system, making a mockery of our immigration laws and sending a clear and dangerous message to people from around the world- in the United States violations of our laws will not only be tolerated but rewarded. The sheer statistics are staggering and provide irrefutable evidence of the level of anarchy created by this administration.

The consequences of the failures of our immigration laws have repeatedly enabled terrorists to enter the United States and embed themselves as they went about their deadly preparations to launch deadly terror attacks inside the United States.

Criminal aliens ply their “trades” with impunity in towns and cities across our nation that cost thousands of innocent people their lives.

Those who advocate for the effective enforcement of our immigration laws are not “Anti-Immigrant” but are “Pro-Enforcement.” To be “Pro-Enforcement” is taking a “Pro-Immigrant” position because under our current immigration laws our nation admits more lawful immigrants than all of the other countries on this planet. Our current immigration laws are utterly blind as to race, religion and ethnicity and must finally be effectively enforced!

Tactics of intimidation and deceptive use of language are the stock and trade of the open borders anarchists. Anyone who would dare suggest that our government must exercise caution in admitting aliens into the United States to protect the safety and security of America and Americans are quickly branded “racist” and “nativist.” Their objective is to shut down debate and discourse- the hallmarks of true democracies.