RUTHFULLY YOURS

Congresswoman to Air Force: Put down the tuba, pick up a gun

Rep. Martha McSally has this piece of advice for the Air Force: Ditch the bands and put musicians to work in jobs that boost U.S. national security.

McSally, R-Ariz., on Tuesday said that the service easily complains about its manning levels, and officials make it “their newest excuse” for prematurely retiring essential, close-air support aircraft like the A-10 Warthog, yet “we have hundreds of people playing the tuba and clarinet.”

“If we really had a manning crisis, from my perspective, we would really tell people to put down the tuba and pick up a wrench or a gun,” McSally said at a House Armed Services Committee hearing at which Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph Dunford testified. “But we’re not at that place, and I’m just concerned over these conflicting statements.”

The Air Force’s band programs have about 540 enlisted airmen, and almost 20 officers, according to the service. Officials and airmen have picked apart some of the service’s more unusual career fields — including amateur show band Tops in Blue — for using funds that could go for other platforms.

McSally, and other members of Congress who rally behind the A-10, have criticized the Air Force’s reasoning for putting the Warthog in the boneyard as early as 2018. The decision to retire the A-10 would require divesting two A-10 squadrons, or 49 planes, that year, 49 aircraft in fiscal 2019, 64 in fiscal 2020, and 96 in fiscal 2021, an Air Force spokeswoman told Defense News on March 17.

This at a time when the A-10 has been heavily used in the fight against the Islamic State group, throughout Europe and the Pacific.

“We’ve mothballed the equivalent of four A-10 squadrons since 2012, we have only nine remaining, and there are actually less airplanes in them than we used to have,” McSally, a former A-10 pilot, said.

Hillary Clinton broke the law, but she should not be charged with her crimes. That is the gist of FBI director James Comey’s surreal Tuesday-morning press conference, in which he explained how on hundreds of occasions Clinton and her support staff violated the law during and after her tenure as secretary of state — but announced that the FBI, nonetheless, is not recommending criminal charges.

Comey justified his decision on the grounds that the FBI found no “clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws.” But the applicable law, 18 U.S.C. §793(f), does not call for any. The standard is “gross negligence,” and Comey’s statement gives ample evidence of that.

Of the 30,000 e-mails Clinton turned over to the State Department in 2014, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains contained information that was classified at the time the message was sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was “Top Secret,” and seven contained “Special Access” intelligence, the most sensitive classification available. Messages containing classified information were also found among thousands of e-mails not provided by Clinton’s lawyers — who, Comey reports, deleted e-mails that were not in fact “personal” and “cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery.” It turns out, too, that Clinton set up not just one but “several” personal servers during her time at State.

Furthermore, there is no doubt that Clinton’s recklessness put national security at risk. According to Comey, the FBI knows for certain that “hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account” and that she “used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries.” And, says Comey, it’s entirely possible that our enemies gained access to Clinton’s personal e-mail account, since her use of one was “known by a large number of people and readily apparent.” “Any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position . . . should have known that an unclassified system was no place” for the e-mails she was sending and receiving, Comey said. “None of these e-mails should have been on any kind of unclassified system.”

And yet, according to Comey, “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring a case on the basis of the evidence above. If true, that’s a damning indictment of prosecutors as a class.

Notably, though, “reasonable prosecutors” have brought charges against persons accused of much less. U.S. Navy officer Kristian Saucier faces ten years in prison for taking pictures of the engine room of his submarine with his cell phone. Bryan Nishimura, a naval reservist who served in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2008, was fined and given two years of probation for downloading classified military information to his personal device and taking it back to his California home. And General David Petraeus received a $100,000 fine after he admitted sharing classified information with his mistress.

Legal, but Not Political, Clarity on the Clinton Emails
James Comey, the director of the F.B.I., may have relieved Hillary Clinton of a legal burden on Tuesday, but he left her with a substantial political one. While announcing that the bureau would not recommend criminal charges against Mrs. Clinton for her handling of classified material on nonsecure personal email servers, Mr. Comey issued a strong rebuke of her practices, which he called “extremely careless” — and for which she has never given the public a full explanation. He was right on both points.

Mr. Comey explained that there was no clear evidence Mrs. Clinton or her colleagues had intentionally broken any federal laws on classified information, and he said that “no reasonable prosecutor” would pursue an indictment in the case.

This legal decision is undoubtedly correct. The F.B.I. investigation, which began a year ago, examined tens of thousands of emails sent to and from Mrs. Clinton during her leadership of the State Department. It found that eight email threads contained information that was classified “top secret” at the time, the highest classification level. Several dozen more contained information that was either “secret” or “confidential,” the lowest level.

For at least two reasons, Mr. Comey said, this did not amount to criminal wrongdoing. First was the lack of evidence that Mrs. Clinton or her colleagues had intended to break any laws. Second, prosecutions of similar cases in the past have relied on some combination of elements that were missing in this case: the intentional mishandling of classified information, indications of disloyalty to the United States, and efforts to obstruct justice.

But Mr. Comey was clear that while these email habits weren’t criminal, Mrs. Clinton and her staff were “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.” He added that “any reasonable person” in Mrs. Clinton’s position should have known that she was playing with fire.

Mr. Comey’s remarks also contradicted Mrs. Clinton’s repeated assertion that she didn’t send or receive material that was “marked classified” at the time. She did.

He went on to say, “None of these emails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these emails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff.”

All these years we have been worried that Obama’s fundamental transformation of America was to Socialism, European Socialism. That is just one of the objectives of the transformation.

Yesterday, FBI Director James Comey revealed the real transformation. After listing all of the lies, deceit and laws broken by Hillary Clinton’s us of a private server, he recommended she not be charged. Of course, this was obvious from the actions of Bill Clinton meeting Attorney General Lynch at the Pheonix airport, Hillary joy at testifying on the July 4th weekend and Obama’s making arrangements to campaign with her before the decision to not prosecute her was announced by Comey.

What we are being transformed into is a monarchy. Our elected congressmen have exempted themselves from all kinds of laws including Obamacare. Now, the executive branch has gone a step further. They are exempt from consequences of breaking laws. They can do whatever we want.

If we fail to pay a $500 tax bill, we suffer penalties, penalties worse than Hillary is going to suffer from ignoring laws on the custodianship of secret information, endangering national security.

Does anyone think she will suffer from the obvious corruption of the Clinton Foundation?

This election is our last chance to stop this. The mass media is, by-and-large, supporting these moves of Clinto-Obama. The Democratic Base completely supports this. No matter what Obama and Clinton do, it is fine so long as it pushes their agenda.

Trump is far from an ideal candidate. Many Republican leaders are more than happy to support Hillary over Trump. People are afraid that Trump is a populist aiming to act like a dictator. Hillary, Obama and cohorts are the real populists who aim for autocratic rule.

I fear that the transformation to a monarchy will succeed.

Today we have witnessed a most frightening manifestation of the corruption of our political system. Doubly frightening because of what it augurs for all our futures if Hillary Clinton should prevail in the November elections. At the center of this corruption – but hardly alone – are the criminal Clintons – the Bonnie and Clyde of American politics – and their Democratic Party allies; but we should not fail to mention also the Republican enablers who would rather fight each other and appease their adversaries than win the political wars.

We knew they could fix the Department of Justice; we suspected they could fix the FBI. What we didn’t know was that the fixes would be this transparent: the secret meeting with a chief culprit and the DOJ head; the next day announcement by Justice that the Clinton bribery investigations would be postponed until well after the election; the suspiciously brief FBI interrogation of the former Secretary of State who during her entire tenure had recklessly breached national security protocols, deleted 30,000 emails; burned her government schedules; put top secret information onto a hackable server in violation of federal law; and topping it all the failure of the FBI director after enumerating her reckless acts to recommend a prosecution – all within a single week, and just in time for the Democrats’ nominating convention. It was, all in all, the most breathtaking fix in American history.

And it wasn’t ordinary criminal corruption. It was corruption affecting the nation’s security by individuals and a regime that have turned the Middle East over to the Islamic terrorists; that have enabled America’s chief enemy in the region, Iran, to become its dominant power; that allowed the Saudis, deeply implicated in the attacks of 9/11, to cover their crimes and spread Islamic hate doctrines into the United States; it was about selling our foreign policy to the high bidders at home and abroad, and about making America vulnerable to our enemies.

What can be done? First of all it’s a matter of deciding who you believe – the political elites who are telling you everything is normal, or your lying eyes? The political system is corrupt and cannot clean its own house. What is needed is an outside political force that will begin the job by putting the interests of our country first again. Call it what you will – nationalism or common sense – it is the most pressing need for the country now. Such a force would have to find its support outside Washington. Call that what you will – populism or democracy – no reforming leader can be elected without it. No political leader can begin to accomplish this task, without the support of ordinary Americans registered at the ballot box.

FBI Director James Comey has decided not to recommend that Hillary Clinton be indicted for violating security laws concerning the handling of classified information, among other offenses. By doing so he has compromised a fundamental principle of consensual government: that the laws apply equally to everybody, including those entrusted with the people’s power. Now it is up to voters come November to reaffirm that we are a nation of laws, not men.

Comey chose to do what I suggested on May 20 as a possible scenario: “There are any number of ways the Bureau could spin such a recommendation [not to indict] in a way to let Hillary off the hook: no proof of intent, evidence of carelessness but not criminality, or throwing some staffers and aides under the bus.” Comey in his announcement chose two out of three. He scolded Hillary for being “extremely careless,” but said there was no evidence of intent.

Both statements raise suspicions. First, the statute in question proscribes “gross negligence.” How is “extreme carelessness” different from “gross negligence”? Is there a firm legal distinction between these two? Black’s Law Dictionary defines “negligence” in law as “The omission to do something which a reasonable man, guided by those considerations which ordinarily regulate the conduct of human affairs, would do, or doing something which a prudent and reasonable man would not do.” Here is the definition for “carelessness”: “Negligence: failure to act with the prudence that a reasonable person would exercise under the same circumstances.” See any difference?

A prudent and reasonable person would not pass classified materials over an unsecured email server. A prudent and reasonable person would also consider Comey’s apparent fine distinction between “gross negligence” and “extreme carelessness” to be a sophistry worthy of Bill Clinton’s metaphysical ruminations on the meaning of “is.” As for “intent,” res ipsa loquitur, as the lawyers like Comey say. The very fact that Hillary set up a private server on which to conduct government business, much of it concerning classified materials, is itself a violation no matter the intent. But Comey knows that “intent” is not an issue in determining “gross negligence” according to the statute. A drunk driver doesn’t “intend” to kill anybody, but he’s still going to be charged with a felony for his “gross negligence.” So too Hillary “intended” to shelter her communications from Freedom of Information Act inquiries that might turn up information detrimental to her political ambitions, not to endanger government secrets. That doesn’t affect the criminality of her actions.

Just ask General David Petraeus. In 2012 he didn’t “intend” to “mishandle classified materials” that he shared with his girlfriend. The FBI recommended a felony indictment anyway, which AG Eric Holder reduced to a misdemeanor. A prudent and reasonable person would conclude that the only distinction between Hillary and Petraeus is that the latter didn’t have Hillary Clinton’s political mojo. I’m reminded of Jonathon Swift’s observation that “Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.” We should wonder what has happened at the FBI in the last few years that has made a relatively minor breach of security protocol worthy of punishment, and then suddenly made a much more serious and consequential breach not worthy of indictment.

It is galling the day after July 4th to be greeted by yet one more official at the highest level of government, who has declined to respect the rule of law in favor of giving a free pass to the Obama Administration.

FBI Director Comey indicted Hillary Clinton in the court of public opinion by laying out before the TV cameras, step by step, her gross negligence in handling classified material, including Top Secret information that would compromise our national security if made accessible to our enemies. He told us Clinton sent classified information over servers not as safe as a simple gmail account. He told us it is impossible for the FBI to ascertain what foreign hostile actors may have accessed her account, but there is good evidence to believe that the information was hacked.

We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account. We also assess that Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account.

He told us that it is a federal felony “to mishandle classified information …in a grossly negligent way.”

He told us a second statute makes “it a misdemeanor to knowingly remove classified information from appropriate systems or storage facilities.”

He then described in clear, specific detail how Sect. of State Clinton knowingly removed classified information from appropriate systems and storage facilities. He concluded “there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”

According to former New York Mayor Giuliani the legal definition of gross negligence is to be extremely careless.

The definition of gross negligence under the law is extreme carelessness…the FBI clearly found a direct violation of 18 United States code section 793 which does not require intent — it requires only gross negligence in the handling of anything relating to the national defense. …It’s the first definition that comes up in the law dictionary…It’s the definition the judges give to juries when they charge injuries on gross negligence. Negligence equals carelessness. Gross negligence equals extreme carelessness. So that is a clear absolutely unassailable violation of 18 United States Code, section 793, which is not a minor statute, it carries ten years in prison.

“The big loser is the #NeverTrump movement. Instead of driving Hillary Clinton out of the race and enabling a Democrat with integrity to run, James Comey — perhaps terrified at the ramifications of indicting the presumptive nominee of a major political party just weeks before its national convention — has helped to bring an ignorant, unhinged, bigoted, lying, demagogue ever closer to the White House.”

With his announcement that he will recommend against prosecution of Hillary Clinton for her email peccadilloes, FBI Director James Comey has set off a political IED, with shrapnel flying in all directions.

The most severely injured is the #NeverTrump movement, of which I am a proud member.

As a purely legal matter, Comey had the stuff to nail the former Secretary of State to the wall of a federal penitentiary. Top-secret information is officially defined as material the unauthorized disclosure of which could be expected to cause “exceptionally grave damage” to national security.
Hillary Clinton sent and/or received such ultra-sensitive information using her homebrew servers, exposing it to hacking. If that is not the “gross negligence” in handling classified materials defined and punishable by statute, then nothing is.

Yet Comey, relying on prosecutorial discretion, recommends against indicting Clinton, distinguishing her case from other security-violation prosecutions in the past.

Four factors were involved in those, he says, that were absent here: obstruction of justice, disloyalty to the United States, disclosure of “vast quantities” of secrets in a way that supports an inference of “intentional misconduct,” and, finally, “clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information.”

It seems that the FBI found no trace of the first three. But what about the last? Comey reports evidence that Clinton and her associates “were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.” But, relying on a remarkably pinched conception of “intentional and willful,” he lets them off the hook.The players here are all highly experienced national-security hands who had been briefed innumerable times on information security regulations. If setting up a private server to handle official communications was not an intentional and willful act, what was it, somnambulism?It cannot be disputed that if any rank-and-file foreign service officer had done a scintilla of what Team Hillary did to circumvent security, he or she would be looking at a long stay behind bars.

WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton and her team clearly skirted the most basic rules for the handling of classified information, and their actions as outlined Tuesday by the director of the FBI went well beyond carelessness to an open flouting of known practices, security experts inside and outside the administration said Tuesday.

Experts were especially disdainful of the FBI’s finding that highly classified information turned up in emails that Clinton sent and received on her unsecured server. That alone was in violation of the Foreign Affairs Manual, a comprehensive set of State Department policies, that, among other restrictions, require that a different computer system be used when dealing with classified documents and that a physical distance, or “air gap,” separate it from other computers.

“If she didn’t want to carry two systems, she could have had a staffer or one of the agents assigned to her protective detail hand her the (other) system,” said Scott Stewart, vice president of tactical analysis for Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based global security consultancy. Stewart is a former Diplomatic Security Service special agent for the State Department.

Failing to maintain that dual system “is just unconscionable, especially if we are putting code-word material on an unclassified system,” Stewart said, referring to the practice of compartmentalizing classified cables or documents with code words that ensure access only on a “need-to-know” basis. Seven of the emails found on Clinton’s email server were classified Top Secret/Special Access Program, FBI Director James B. Comey said.

“That’s not carelessness. That was intentional,” Stewart said.

Comey said that Clinton also used her personal email extensively “in the territory of sophisticated adversaries,” a practice he said made it “possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal email account.”

He did not name the countries — Clinton traveled to 112 nations while in office — but the U.S. government has warned repeatedly in recent years about the dangers of cyber intrusions throughout the world. Last year, President Barack Obama stopped staying at the iconic Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan for the annual United Nations General Assembly session because the property had been sold to an insurance company in China, a nation that would certainly qualify as a “sophisticated adversary.”

Here’s the good news for Hillary Clinton: The FBI has recommended no charges be broughtfollowings its investigation of the former secretary of state’s private email server.

Here’s the bad news: Just about everything else.

FBI Director James Comey dismantled large portions of Clinton’s long-told story about her private server and what she sent or received on it during a stirring 15-minute news conference following which he took no questions. While Comey exonerated Clinton legally speaking, he provided huge amounts of fodder that could badly hamstring her in the court of public opinion.

Most importantly, Comey said the FBI found 110 emails on Clinton’s server that were classified at the time they were sent or received. That stands in direct contradiction to Clinton’s repeated insistence she never sent or received any classified emails. And, it even stands in contrast to her amended statement that she never knowingly sent or received anyclassified information.

Comey condemned Clinton and her top aides as “extremely careless” in how they handled classified information during her time as the head of the State Department, adding: “Any reasonable person … should have known that an unclassified system was no place” for that sort of information.

There was more — much more. Comey said Clinton had used not one but multiple private email servers during her time at State. He said Clinton used multiple email devices during that time. (She had offered her desire to use a single device for “convenience” as the main reason she set up the private server.) He noted that the lawyers tasked by Clinton with sorting her private emails from her professional ones never actually read all of the emails (as the FBI did in the course of its investigation). Comey said that while the FBI found no evidence that Clinton’s private server was hacked by foreign governments, it was “possible” that it had been. He argued that the Clinton lawyers had deleted emails as personal that contained professional content and that while the FBI found some of those emails in its investigation, it was certainly possible more existed that they were unable to track down.