Yes, Hillary's Server Was Criminal, And The DNC and Obama Could Use it to Totally Subvert Democracy

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OpEdNews Op Eds 5/30/2016 at 23:38:17

Yes, Hillary's Server Was Criminal, And The DNC and Obama Could Use it to Totally Subvert Democracy

By Rob Kall 


Related Topic(s): 2016 Democratic Convention; 2016 Presidential Primary Candidates; 2016 Presidential Race; Federal Agency FBI; Federal Records Act;HILLARY CONCEDES; Hillary Clinton; Hillary Server; James Comey, Add Tags Add to My Group(s)



There are a lot of reports and claims, analyses and interpretations of the latest findings from on Hillary's private server and emails.

Attorney and Hillary supporter Dan Metcalfe has written, for the law blog, LawNewz.com, a particularly credible and persuasive article, Hillary Clinton's Emails Now Might Finally Take Her Down, which suggests a nauseating, yet terrifying possibility. It all hinges on FBI Director Comey doing his job, and, most important, when.

FBI Director James Comey
(image by Wikipedia)   DMCA

Here's Metcalfe's bio:

Dan Metcalfe is a registered Democrat who has long said that he will vote for Hillary Clinton in November "if she escapes indictment and manages to become the Democratic presidential nominee." He served as Director of the Justice Department's Office of Information and Privacy for more than 25 years, during which time he handled information-disclosure policy issues on the dozens of Clinton Administration scandals that arose within public view, as well as two that did not. Since retiring in 2007, he has taught secrecy law at American University's Washington College of Law.

Metcalfe first discusses the legality of Hillary's private server, which we'll get to in a minute, but he then goes on to speculate what the DNC and Obama, through the FBI and the DNC could do, which is enough to make you grind your teeth and puke-- no teasing here, but get your barf bag out-- they'll wait until after the Philly convention to bring charges against Hillary, offer her a deal to go light on her if she drops out, then replace her, with John Kerry or Joe Biden.

So, let's first look at what Metcalfe says about Hillary's criminality. His assessment is damning:

"...knowing that there are no applicable penalties within the FRA (Federal Records Act) (or in the FOIA, for that matter, which Ms. Clinton also blatantly circumvented), the primary significance of the IG (State Department's Inspector General) report is that it so flatly and persuasively belies nearly every public "defense" that she has uttered on the matter...

"No, her self-serving email set-up was not "allowed" under the State Department's rules. No, she was not "permitted" to use a personal email system exclusively as she did. No, what she did was hardly just a matter of her "personal convenience." No, there is no evidence that any State Department attorney (other than perhaps Secretary Clinton herself) ever gave "legal approval" to any part of her special email system. No, everything she did was not "fully above board" or in compliance with the "letter and spirit of the rules," far from it."

Metcalfe says that Hillary was REQUIRED by the Federal Records Act to maintain all of her official emails in an official system so they could be properly reviewed delineated and retained when she left the State Department. He also says that her private server was subjected to multiple attempts at intrusion, in other words, hacker efforts, including ones by foreign nations.

Metcalfe offers an interesting exploration of how different players-- Sanders, Trump, the DNC, etc. would consider the risks of Hillary being indicted. Then he throws down the hammer that Hillary:

"...seriously wounded by this week's IG (inspector general) report, is manifestly vulnerable to a much greater wound in the form of a criminal indictment for misconduct that far transcends what the IG report dealt with.

"Former Secretary Clinton's intent (known in criminal law as mens rea), or lack of same, is not what matters in this case. Rather, the applicable legal standard is a mere "gross negligence" one, as specified in the standard national security non-disclosure agreement that she signed and its underlying criminal statutes.

And when you marry that to the fact that (among other things) her admitted failure to use the State Department's special classified email system for classified (or potentially classified) information constituted a clear violation of a criminal prohibition" And this is especially so given that Ms. Clinton did not just violate such laws inadvertently or even only occasionally -- she did so systemically. In other words, her very email scheme itself appears to have been a walking violation of criminal law, one with the mens rea prosecution standard readily met.
"....the ongoing investigation of Ms. Clinton's misconduct is being conducted by the FBI, under the leadership of FBI Director James Comey. Those of us who worked under him when he was the deputy attorney general during the George W. Bush Administration know him to be an exceptional man of utmost integrity, one who can be counted on to recommend a criminal prosecution when the facts and the law of a case warrant it, regardless of political circumstances. Given that the facts and law are so clear in Ms. Clinton's case, it is difficult to imagine her not being indicted, unless Jim Comey's expected recommendation for that is abruptly overruled at "Main Justice" (i.e., by Criminal Division Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell, by Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, or by Attorney General Loretta Lynch) or at the White House by President Obama (who customarily does not intervene in such things and would do so here either secretly or at no small political peril)."

Metcalfe speculates how the prosecution will pan out. He suggests that

FBI director James Comey will do the right thing, but the question is When? He predicts it will happen shortly AFTER Hillary wins the nomination and has selected a VP who is confirmed, that Obama, as head of the Democratic party, will make it clear that Hillary is in serious trouble, declare an emergency and offer Hillary a lenient treatment, like Spiro Agnew was given, in exchange for stepping down. Joe Biden or John Kerry will be put in her place to run as President with the VP Hillary selected and the Convention approved running with Kerry or Biden.

I'm not sure Hillary would go willingly, but if Obama, who has not endorsed her this late in the campaign, sticks it to her, and makes a serious threat, this is possible.

Metcalfe thinks Bernie as candidate would be a disaster. Of course, I strongly disagree. I hope that Metcalfe is right about FBI director Comey, that he'll prosecute Hillary. But I hope he does the right thing for America, for democracy and justice and announces it before the Philly Convention. Anything less would be a betrayal of the American people.

Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback,inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and StoryconSummit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind.  Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives  one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big)  to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.  Rob Kall Wikipedia Page Over 200 podcasts are archived for downloading here, or can be accessed from iTunes. Rob is also published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com Rob is, with Opednews.com the first media winner of the (more...)

INDEPENDENT

What is TTIP? And six reasons why the answer should scare you

Have you heard about TTIP? If your answer is no, don’t get too worried; you’re not meant to have

• Lee Williams 

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is a series of trade negotiations being carried out mostly in secret between the EU and US. As a bi-lateral trade agreement, TTIP is about reducing the regulatory barriers to trade for big business, things like food safety law, environmental legislation, banking regulations and the sovereign powers of individual nations. It is, as John Hilary, Executive Director of campaign group War on Want, said: “An assault on European and US societies by transnational corporations.”

Since before TTIP negotiations began last February, the process has been secretive and undemocratic. This secrecy is on-going, with nearly all information on negotiations coming from leaked documents and Freedom of Information requests.

But worryingly, the covert nature of the talks may well be the least of our problems. Here are six other reasons why we should be scared of TTIP, very scared indeed:

1 The NHS

Public services, especially the NHS, are in the firing line. One of the main aims of TTIP is to open up Europe’s public health, education and water services to US companies. This could essentially mean the privatisation of the NHS.

The European Commission has claimed that public services will be kept out of TTIP. However, according to the Huffington Post, the UK Trade Minister Lord Livingston has admitted that talks about the NHS were still on the table.

UK: Day of Dissent in London tackles TTIP

2 Food and environmental safety

TTIP’s ‘regulatory convergence’ agenda will seek to bring EU standards on food safety and the environment closer to those of the US. But US regulations are much less strict, with 70 per cent of all processed foods sold in US supermarkets now containing genetically modified ingredients. By contrast, the EU allows virtually no GM foods. The US also has far laxer restrictions on the use of pesticides. It also uses growth hormones in its beef which are restricted in Europe due to links to cancer. US farmers have tried to have these restrictions lifted repeatedly in the past through the World Trade Organisation and it is likely that they will use TTIP to do so again.

The same goes for the environment, where the EU’s REACH regulations are far tougher on potentially toxic substances. In Europe a company has to prove a substance is safe before it can be used; in the US the opposite is true: any substance can be used until it is proven unsafe. As an example, the EU currently bans 1,200 substances from use in cosmetics; the US just 12.

3 Banking regulations

TTIP cuts both ways. The UK, under the influence of the all-powerful City of London, is thought to be seeking a loosening of US banking regulations. America’s financial rules are tougher than ours. They were put into place after the financial crisis to directly curb the powers of bankers and avoid a similar crisis happening again. TTIP, it is feared, will remove those restrictions, effectively handing all those powers back to the bankers.

4 Privacy

Remember ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement)? It was thrown out by a massive majority in the European Parliament in 2012 after a huge public backlash against what was rightly seen as an attack on individual privacy where internet service providers would be required to monitor people’s online activity.  Well, it’s feared that TTIP could be bringing back ACTA’s central elements, proving that if the democratic approach doesn’t work, there’s always the back door. An easing of data privacy laws and a restriction of public access to pharmaceutical companies’ clinical trials are also thought to be on the cards.

5 Jobs

The EU has admitted that TTIP will probably cause unemployment as jobs switch to the US, where labour standards and trade union rights are lower. It has even advised EU members to draw on European support funds to compensate for the expected unemployment.

Examples from other similar bi-lateral trade agreements around the world support the case for job losses.  The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the US, Canada and Mexico caused the loss of one million US jobs over 12 years, instead of the hundreds of thousands of extra that were promised.

6 Democracy

TTIP’s biggest threat to society is its inherent assault on democracy. One of the main aims of TTIP is the introduction of Investor-State Dispute Settlements (ISDS), which allow companies to sue governments if those governments’ policies cause a loss of profits. In effect it means unelected transnational corporations can dictate the policies of democratically elected governments.

ISDSs are already in place in other bi-lateral trade agreements around the world and have led to such injustices as in Germany where Swedish energy company Vattenfall is suing the German government for billions of dollars over its decision to phase out nuclear power plants in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan. Here we see a public health policy put into place by a democratically elected government being threatened by an energy giant because of a potential loss of profit. Nothing could be more cynically anti-democratic.

There are around 500 similar cases of businesses versus nations going on around the world at the moment and they are all taking place before ‘arbitration tribunals’ made up of corporate lawyers appointed on an ad hoc basis, which according to War on Want’s John Hilary, are “little more than kangaroo courts” with “a vested interest in ruling in favour of business.”

So I don’t know about you, but I’m scared. I would vote against TTIP, except… hang on a minute… I can’t. Like you, I have no say whatsoever in whether TTIP goes through or not.  All I can do is tell as many people about it as possible, as I hope, will you. We may be forced to accept an attack on democracy but we can at least fight against the conspiracy of silence.

Conceived While the Public Slept, Obama/Clinton's Monstrous Global Siamese Twins of TPP and TTIP Leaks

The TTIP Leaks

by Binoy Kampmark / May 6th, 2016

The monstrous Siamese twin of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), has been in a growing puddle of dispute after 248 pages of its content were leaked.

The organisation behind the measure, Greenpeace Netherlands, had done its best to shed light on a document that remains obscured, clandestine and hidden.  The TTIP leaks were initiated prior to the commencement of the 13th round of TTIP negotiations between the EU and the US held in New York (April 25-29).  According to the organisation, the final document will consist of 25 to 30 chapters with extensive annexes.

The leaked and hefty portion constitutes roughly half to two-thirds of the text under negotiation, providing more than a decent snifter as to what European and US diplomats are up to.  They have met 13 times over three years in situations that were far from transparent. Topics traversed are bound to worry any individuals with even the slightest leanings to democratic representativeness.  “Whether you care about environmental issues, animal welfare, labour rights or internet privacy, you should be concerned about what is in these leaked documents.”

A few pointers from the leaks are worth noting.  None of the chapters in the released portions make reference to the principle of General Exceptions permitting states to regulate trade “to protect human, animal and plant life or health” for “the conservation of exhaustible natural resources”.  The omission suggests who, and what the negotiators are really barracking for.

Similarly to the TPPA, matters of climate change get short shrift, notably in the chapter covering National Treatment and Market Access for Goods.  Showing yet again that a privileged corporate interest is inherently hostile to the commonweal, trade is deemed a domain outside the impact of climate change.

Overwhelming floor room is given to corporate agents who are noted in the negotiations as important partners in the determination of foreign policy. While that position has been clearly articulated by US negotiators, the EU remains coy about industry influence.  The strongmen and women of capitalism are never far away. Little wonder, then, that popularity for such an arrangement is as low as 39 per cent in Germany and 50 per cent in France.

Those at the European Commission, a body that has been historically indifferent to concepts of sovereignty, has taken the view that they were open all along, the true doyens of transparency.  EU trade commissioner Cecelia Malmström seemed to find the fuss over the leaks amusing.  “In the past year, the European Commission has opened up the negotiations to make our positions on all matters in the negotiations public.  After each negotiation round, we publish round reports as well as our position papers and textual proposals.  So the positions of the EU are well-known and nothing new.”

Malmström is certainly right in so far as the Commission has been spouting fact sheets, making assumptions that these are perfect in conveying pictures of accuracy to constituents across Europe.  As aspirational as they are, such publications only give a sense about some of the essential fault lines in the negotiations.  For one, they show that Malmström’s stance that no “EU trade agreement will ever lower our level of protection of consumers, or food safety, or of the environment” seems unduly confident.

The leaks sent ripples through various parliaments in Europe. France’s François Hollande decided on Tuesday to make his opposition clear.  “We will never accept questioning essential principles for our agriculture, our culture and for the reciprocity of access to public [procurement] markets.”  France’s trade secretary, Matthias Fekl, even went so far as to suggest that the agreement, in its current form “would be a bad deal,” one which needed to be suspended.  Even prior to the release by Greenpeace, German Deputy Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel had suggested that negotiations had moved into a glacial state.

Such sentiments do little to deflate such ideologues as US Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, who puts such suspicions down to matters of misunderstanding.  “I think,” she explained to the German magazine Der Spiegel, “we have to do a better job of educating our peoples about the importance of trade.”  In this cosy universe of commercial dealing, trade is all, trade is good – why fight it?

The “TTIP,” pushes Pritzker, “is a geostrategic choice to strengthen the trans-Atlantic bonds between two regions that share the same values and standards.”  She proves deaf to questions about concerns of re-enforcing corporate market power at the expense of accountability, insisting on altering “rules and regulations that are standing in the way of doing more business together.”  US President Barack Obama similarlyintoned on his recent visit to the UK that the TTIP would eliminate “regulatory and bureaucratic irritants and blockages to trade”.

To that end, the Commission has attempted to give the impression that pitfalls can, in time, be papered over with the good sense of compromise.  As diversely opposed as the parties are, movement, of the negative sort, is possible.  Positions can, as was all too evident in the TPPA negotiations, bend.  In some cases, they can be abandoned altogether.  That remains the greatest danger: the document continues to flicker, and it will take more than Gallic opposition, Germanic scepticism, and general European stubbornness, to sink it.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne and can be reached at:bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

This article was posted on Friday, May 6th, 2016 at 7:50am and is filed underEU, France, Germany, TPP, Trade, United Kingdom.

Armory of the Revolution

Trump is the Least of Our Problems. We Could Have a President Clinton.

Roland Vincent / 2 days ago

Democrats hoping for a progressive president winning the White House this year will be sorely disappointed unless Bernie Sanders is nominated and elected.

If Hillary is nominated and elected we will not have anything close to a progressive president.

The differences between the progressive Sanders and Hillary Clinton are profound.

Merely donning the cloak of a Democrat in no way means one is a progressive.

Hillary supports a belligerent foreign policy. Bernie does not.

Hillary embraces trade agreements. Bernie does not.

Hillary accepts bribes from Wall Street. Bernie does not.

Hillary opposes universal healthcare. Bernie supports it.

Hillary supports military interventionism. Bernie does not.

Hillary supports regime change. Bernie does not.

Hillary opposes raising the cap on Social Security contributions. Bernie does not.

Hillary opposes banning corporate money from politics. Bernie does not.

Hillary supports the revolving door between industry and government. Bernie opposes it.

Should Bernie be unsuccessful in winning the Democratic nomination, he has said he would support Hillary Clinton. But he has also said that she would have to earn the votes of his supporters.

Here are some of the problems she faces in winning our votes:

Like the general public, Berners do not trust Hillary.

Berners are not persuaded that they must fall in line behind Hillary in order to keep Donald Trump out of the White House.

Most Berners do not like Trump, but he is actually closer to Bernie than is Hillary on trade, military adventurism, corporate control of government, the revolving door, and lobbyists.

If Hillary wins the White House, she will face a divided Congress and gridlock in government, just as Obama has in his second term. In all probability her negatives will continue to grow and she will be perceived as a failed president. As such, it is probable that the Republicans will sweep elections in 2018 and 2020, assuring that Democrats are unable to control reapportionment after the 2020 Census. Just as occurred in 2010, the Republicans will be able to gerrymander congressional districts in 2020, denying Democrats a majority in the House of Representatives until at least 2030.

If Trump is elected president, the exact opposite result occurs, as Democrats will be running against a failed and unpopular President Trump. They would sweep statehouse races in 2018 and win down ballot contests across the country in 2020. After the 2020 Census, Democrats would draw fair and representative districts, and would be assured of a Democratic majority in Congress for a decade.

With Trump as the Republican nominee, the choice between him and Hillary isn’t even close. Trump is the overwhelmingly better choice, on policy issues alone.

When reapportionment is factored in, Trump looks positively attractive.

But the most important consideration is what a Hillary vs Trump outcome would mean for the political revolution we have started.

If Hillary is president, Bernie’s revolution will stall at best, unravel and fail at worst. Hillary and her cohorts at the DNC will do all they can to stop insurgent Democrats from challenging Wall Street Democrats in office. With the power of the presidency at her disposal, Hillary will block Bernie at every turn. Her allies in Congress will make life hell for Bernie Sanders. And for all us progressives hoping to change the system.

If Hillary is defeated, however, Bernie will be the most influential Democrat in the party. The revolution will continue at full speed. No pesky Hillary-bots to interfere with our progress or our agenda.

The establishment is terrified of Donald Trump because they cannot control him, and have no hold over him. That panic is driving the nationwide propaganda campaign against him by politicos, media talking heads, political pundits, and lobbyists.

Hillary is using their propaganda to frighten voters. If she is not elected, that Big Bad Bogeyman Trump will win!

If it comes to her and Trump, I hope he does win.

I will certainly be working for him.

Author’s Notes:

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