Good Commentary on Hillary and Comney

[USA4ME]

RUSH: It's fascinating, literally fascinating watching the hearing going on right now. The committee in House Republicans and Democrats, conducting a hearing here with the FBI director, James Comey, over how he arrived at his decision that no reasonable prosecutor would bring the case against Hillary Clinton.

You know what, folks?  I was playing golf yesterday afternoon after the program, and this is not the first time this question's been asked of me, but it got me to thinking. The question basically was this:  "What does Obama have on all these people that makes them do what he wants them to do?"  Meaning the old story about the Clintons and they had their 900 FBI files and were able to blackmail people.

What does Obama have on Comey?  What in the world would make Comey switch and do a 180 on a dime from the guy he really is?  And the same with John Roberts.  The question was asked about Roberts back during the Supreme Court decision on Obamacare when Roberts basically rewrote it from the bench to make it constitutional.  My God, what does Obama have on these people?

It finally hit me that that question comes up a lot, and I reject it.  It's become too pat a question.  It's asked too often.  What is that old saying, Occam's razor.  Whatever is going on, the simplest explanation is probably the explanation.  Let me tell you what I think is going on.  And I'm sure many of you are gonna think this is simplistic and maybe even simpleton type.  But like everybody else, I'm trying to explain it.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're gonna get to the details.

Comey has been pretzeling himself every which way here to avoid uttering a sound bite negative to Hillary.  But some of the Republicans have done a bang-up job today in this hearing.  You'll hear coming up in a moment in the sound bites.  And the Democrats are predictable, led by Elijah Cummings of the Congressional Black Caucasians, Elijah Cummings: We really don't know why you're here.  We really respect the job you do.

Even Lacy Clay from Missouri, congressman from Missouri went so far as to say (paraphrasing), "I know you and your agents came to Ferguson, Missouri, to investigate what happened there, and I just want to tell the world here that your agents and your organization were above and beyond reproach."  I'm making up words. I'm paraphrasing 'cause I don't know exactly what he said, but it was essentially, "You're the greatest guy. You're the greatest investigator. You got down and into it. We got no problem with you whatsoever here."

So it's predictable the way these things are gonna go.  The Democrats lamenting the sad fact that Comey even has to come up here and explain himself with the Republicans trying to get to the bottom of it.  One of the things that the Republicans keep doing in asking their questions is: "Would a normal person, would an average person in the same situation," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  "Well, how about if this situation applied to a normal citizen or an average citizen?"  And that's not who we're talking about here.

We're not talking about an average citizen; we're not talking about a normal citizen and what an average citizen would know as it goes to intent or prior knowledge or gross negligence, and we're not talking about a normal person.  Clearly we're talking about Hillary Clinton, who is very well versed.  I think Trey Gowdy said it better than anybody today.  Trey Gowdy is saying that Hillary was not extremely careless.  She was extremely careful. That she had a well-thought-out plan that would allow her to do this and skirt the edges of the law and maybe break it, that she was not careless.

They're presenting her as some bumbling nerd -- no, not a nerd -- she's some bumbling person that doesn't understand computers. She doesn't understand the operation of computers. She doesn't know what servers are. She doesn't know any of the computer terminology.  She just wanted to be able to send and receive email and not have everybody see it.  That's BS.  That's how they're trying to portray her.

I find it fascinating. Here's the smartest woman in the world one day, yet today she's a neophyte. Today she doesn't know what she's doing. Today she's innocently wandering aimlessly through her job as secretary of state being unfortunately caught up in all these conflicting statutes and laws.  Poor Mrs. Clinton, she's trying her best but she just doesn't know what she's doing.  It's a crock.

But I'm gonna tell you this, too.  On social media, she's not getting away with this.  (interruption) What do you mean, she's not sophisticated?  She's not sophisticated.  She doesn't have a sophisticated understanding.  She couldn't have set it up on her own.  In fact, Comey said today it wasn't even her system, it was her husband's.  Yeah, it was Bill's server in the basement there and she said (imitating Hillary), "Hey, you got a server?  Cool.  You know what?  I want to put my stuff on your server."  And so they went and brought a guy in to do it and she didn't know, she didn't know.  That's how she didn't have intent.  She didn't know.

And I don't know about you, folks, but it doesn't wash with me that the smartest woman in the world doesn't know anything.  But isn't it convenient how often it is said that she's some bumbling idiot wandering aimlessly through some confusing world.  She knew how to delete them.  She knew how to get 'em off the server.  She knew how to move servers to different locations.  Of course she knew all that stuff.  Gowdy is right; she was being careful, not careless.  So we will delve into this in greater detail.

I'll explain my theory here to you.  Admittedly it's gonna sound simplistic to many of you who think there has to be something deep and dark to explain this.  And I think we can explain all of this in three words:  race, media, history.  Race, media, and history explain this.  And what I mean by that is this.  There isn't anyone, there isn't anyone in government, there isn't anyone on Capitol Hill, there isn't anybody in the Drive-By Media who wants to be the person who will be recorded in history and thus always known in history and forever attacked in the media. No one wants to be the one who denied the first African-American president his agenda or his choices.

John Roberts, I think, pretty much said: I'm not gonna sit here and be the guy that presides over a decision here that denies the first Africa -- well, the president.  He didn't say first African.  -- the president such a major, major please of legislation that was duly passed by the elected representatives of the people. He didn't want to go anywhere near it.

Nobody to this day, after almost seven and a half years, nobody lifts a finger to stop Barack Obama.  Nobody lifts a finger to deny Barack Obama.  Nobody lifts a finger to oppose Obama on the serious agenda items that are transforming this nation and are resulting in the implementation of his real agenda.  I don't think James Comey wanted to be the guy noted forever in history and attacked as such.  I don't think Comey wanted to be the guy known for torpedoing the candidacy of the first woman nominated by her party to seek the presidency of the United States.  So race, slash, gender, media, history.

Look at the IRS scandals.  Comey was running the FBI during all of that and nobody paid a price for any of that, either, because that's still Obama.  Nobody wants to go anywhere near it.  Well, the evidence is abundant.  It is everywhere that race has paralyzed all serious opposition and policy to Barack Obama.  You know as well as I do that if it were anybody but Obama and Hillary Clinton, the exact opposite would be happening here.

And I'll tell you this.  When Obama is gone, when he's no longer in the White House, and particularly if the Republicans win the White House, if it's Trump, you watch how quickly our laws once again revert to their former status and importance.  The media and the Democrats will easily hold Donald Trump accountable to the law for his agenda and do everything they can to stop it, everything they can to railroad it, everything they can to torpedo it.

But when it comes to, my gosh, what kind of secret information do they have on Comey that would turn him into this quivering mess that will not proceed, that question is asked so much and offered up so often as an explanation for the inexplicable, and I think it's not that complicated.  I think if you're doubting me -- I understand if you might, 'cause it does sound simplistic, but the evidence is abundant. And particularly if you live in Washington, and if you're already an accredited member of the establishment, you want to hold on to that more than anything else.

You know how the media is. You know you don't want to end up being pilloried. You know you don't want to be the first in history, with all the race problems existing in the country, you don't want to be the one guy noted forever for as long as history is written that ends up derailing or causing there to be a smear or black mark or what have you, on the Obama administration or Hillary Clinton as the first female.

And, by the way, the opposition to the Clintons predates even this.  If you have other ideas, I mean, have at it.  It could be a combination of things, but I think these are all real and relevant factors, because I've just seen too much evidence of it for the past seven and a half years.  There hasn't been any serious opposition to Obama and what he wants to do anywhere.  There haven't been a whole lot of people even stand up in Washington who are part of the official political elite and establishment.  You don't have anybody even standing up and criticizing Obama.

You've got some members of Congress who do who are relatively new arrivals and so forth, freshman second year, second term, what have you. But for the people that make things happen, the people that run the FBI, the people that run the State Department.  And of course over at Justice they're gonna circle the wagons for their guy anyway because they're circling the wagons for themselves.  And it boils down to, especially the Hillary situation, I mean, Comey works for who?  He works for the president. He's the FBI director, supposed independence, yeah.  But it was never gonna happen.

That's why I did the monologue last Friday we're being played.  I never for a moment believed that the Barack Obama administration would actually engage in action that would result in Hillary Clinton not being the presidential nominee of that party.  They're just not gonna do something that would damage her because they can't limit the damage to her, the damage to themselves.  You know, if they get Hillary on this, how many other people have skated on this?

In fact, there's a story here, US News & World Report: "Attorneys Intend to Ask for 'the Clinton Deal' -- Attorneys for people who allegedly mishandled classified information say the outcome of the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton could be good news for their clients. ... Mark Zaid, a defense attorney for national security whistleblowers and people accused of mishandling secrets, says he plans to ask for 'the Clinton deal' in the future. And Zaid says he probably can get it."

"She didn't know. She didn't intend to." But they have clearly demonstrated, the Republicans on this committee have demonstrated that Hillary Clinton lied.  Now, Comey won't admit that she lied to the FBI, but he can't deny that she may have lied to Congress.  But there's another aspect of this, folks, and you know me.  I have learned by experience to temper my expectations, and I just have a sense that where maybe Hillary Clinton skated legally, I'm not so sure she is skating with the public, as the Clintons always have in the past.

There are too many people who use email who understand it, who are not falling for her excuses.  They're not being fooled by her lies.  And she's not that liked anyway.  She doesn't start out with a great likability quotient.  She doesn't have this deep connection and bond with a large group of her supporters that will circle the wagons and defend her for anything.

So I think she's more vulnerable than a Clinton has ever been in the past 25 years.  She may not be facing any sanction from the legal system, but I'm not so sure in the court of public opinion that she's skating.  We'll just have to see as things unfold

RUSH: Let's just go to the audio sound bites, get started here on the hearing.  By the way, before I do that I need to probably tell you one thing.  Andy McCarthy has weighed in.  We had him on the program yesterday.  He's well versed in these matters, as you know by now, and he posted a piece at National Review Online: "FBI Director Comey's Suggestion that Congress's Gross Negligence Statute Is Invalid."

He said, okay, now I understand it.  "Director Comey’s explanation is now clear, though he did not lay it out in his report earlier this week." He said Comey said some other stuff today in his opening statement.

"The statute criminalizing gross negligence in mishandling classified information is invalid because it does not require proof of intent to improperly transmit classified information to places it is not supposed to be or to people not authorized to have it.

"The director claims that the statute has only been used once since its enactment in 1917, and therefore its invocation as written in Mrs. Clinton’s case would be suspect. He implies that the only way to save the statute is for the Justice Department to do what prosecutors routinely tell judges that they are not permitted to do: rewrite the statute -- in this instance, to add a higher mens rea proof requirement. With due respect, this argument is very unconvincing, for at least two reasons," and goes on to say on so.

But the point of this is that Comey claims that the gross negligence statute didn't come into play here and he could have used it because she was grossly negligent, he didn't use it, it's invalid because it didn't require proof of intent. So he's continuing to hang his hat on the fact that she didn't intend to do any of this. And he made the point today that you can't find a case where somebody has been imprisoned absent their intent to traffic.  As I watched that, I thought, well, that isn't true.  But what do I know.  He's the FBI director.  And he's also former deputy attorney general.  So he's gotta know more than I do.

But it seems to me I've read about a sailor who inadvertently took pictures of a nuclear reactor on a sub to send back and show mom and dad, and he's in jail because that's classified, a nuclear reactor.  You can't do it.  And there clearly was no intent on the part of that sailor to send classified information to our enemies.  He was just sending a picture home to mom or dad or some friends or whatever, if I recall right.  Comey said you can't find a case where somebody has been put in jail or been convicted or been charged without the necessary intent.  I thought, it seems to me there's a couple of them, and they've been written about recently.

So, anyway, that's that.  Here is the first sound bite of Comey and his interchange here with Jason Chaffetz, who is the committee chairman.  They were trying to get to the nub of this right off the bat.  Chaffetz's question to Comey: "Did Hillary Clinton lie?"

COMEY:  To the FBI?  We have no basis to conclude she lied to the FBI.

CHAFFETZ:  Did she lie to the public?

COMEY:  That's a question I'm not qualified to answer.  I can speak about what she said to the FBI.

CHAFFETZ:  Did Hillary Clinton lie under oath?

COMEY:  Not to the FBI, not in a case we're working.

CHAFFETZ:  Did you review the documents where Congressman Jim Jordan asked her specifically, and she said, quote, "There was nothing marked classified on my emails either sent or received," end quote?

COMEY:  I don't remember reviewing that particular testimony.  I'm aware of that being said, though.

CHAFFETZ:  Did the FBI investigate her statements under oath on this topic?

COMEY:  Not to my knowledge, I don't think there's been a referral from Congress.

CHAFFETZ:  Do you need a referral from Congress to investigate her statements under oath?

COMEY:  Sure do.

CHAFFETZ:  You'll have one.  You'll have one in the next few hours.

RUSH:  "You'll have one in a few hours."  Next up is Comey making Chaffetz's point.  Chaffetz then says, "The FBI does background checks.  If Hillary Clinton applied for the job at the FBI, would the FBI give Hillary Clinton a security clearance?"

COMEY:  I don't want to answer a hypothetical.  The FBI has a robust process in which we adjudicate the suitability of people for employment in the Bureau.

CHAFFETZ:  Given the fact pattern you laid out less than 48 hours ago, would a person who had dealt with classified information like that, would that person be granted a security clearance at the FBI?

COMEY:  It would be a very important consideration in a suitability determination.

CHAFFETZ:  You're kind of making my point, Director, the point being, 'cause I injected the word "Hillary Clinton" you gave me a different answer.

RUSH:  See, this is what I meant when I told you earlier that Comey is bending over backwards, he's pretzeling himself here, if you will, to avoid creating an anti-Hillary Clinton sound bite.

Now, I want to go back to my original theory here.  I was asked on the golf course yesterday, I get asked this question all the time, "What does Obama have on these guys?  What does Hillary have on these guys?  What do they have on John Roberts?"  I don't think that's it.  I don't think that's it at all.  I think it's race, slash, gender, history, and media.

I just don't think Jim Comey wants to be noted in history books for the next 2,000 years, and you know this is how it would go down, if Comey had recommended she be charged, do you know what they'd be doing to him today?  You know what would have happened to him in the media?  You might say, "Well, hey, he signed up, he knows, you gotta be able to take these hits."

Folks, I understand that sentiment, and it may describe you.  You may think that that's what you would do.  But I don't see anybody doing it.  I don't see anybody trying to stop Obama's agenda, not seriously.  And I don't see anybody trying to stand in the way of Hillary Clinton.  Bernie Sanders is the closest we got to it, and Obama in 2008, and Obama had cover because race counts for more than gender when you start talking politically correct things in American politics today.

So Obama was never gonna be guilty of denying Hillary Clinton the quest to become the first female president because he was on the way to becoming even more historical.  But can you imagine what they'd write about James Comey?  They wouldn't say the FBI.  They wouldn't say the Department of Justice.  James Comey, as director of the FBI.  And can you imagine what they would accuse him of?

You know what left would be doing?  "Who did he collude with on the Republican side?  What did they promise Comey?  What did the Republicans promise Comey?  Did they promise him a Supreme Court nomination?  Did they promise Comey the VP slot?"  If he'd gone after Hillary, if he'd recommended charges, and then by the time the Drive-Bys start writing the immediate history and then your typical left-wing historians start writing long-term history, can you imagine how Comey would be treated by them?

And to say that he's not aware of that, that's not true.  To say that, "Come on, Rush, these people are adults.  They take the heat.  That's what this is all about."  That's what you think.  That's what you would think they'd do.  But it doesn't happen, does it?  In every one of these seemingly slam dunk incidents, be it John Roberts at the Supreme Court with a clearly unconstitutional Obamacare, and everybody under the sun knows that Hillary Clinton was trafficking in classified information and violating the law doing it.  Everybody knows it.  It's just that some people think she should get away with it.  They are Democrats.

There are some people who think she shouldn't be held accountable for it because it's the Republicans trying to nail her.  But nobody denies that what she did here is things they couldn't get away with.  Everybody knows this.  And yet nobody wants to take the action that would force her to face accountability before the law, do they?

By the way, who does Hillary know?  What do they know about Comey?  Nothing.  All there has to be is a reasonable fear.  If you're talking about the Clintons and you're in Washington, you have a 25-year history of those people getting away with everything.  You have a 25-year history of those people successfully punishing their political enemies.  You see what they did to Ken Starr.  You see what they have done to anybody that's tried to come after them.

I don't think it's a stretch here.  And the fact that Comey was bending to avoid creating what would end up being a sound bite in a political add that would be run by the Republicans is just more evidence for me, for my simplistic theory on all of this.  Let's take a break.  We'll get into Trey Gowdy next.  Gowdy was good, and this is what he does.

RUSH:  And here we go.  This is Trey Gowdy now.  Again, Gowdy is under the impression that we all know that Hillary Clinton conspired to break numerous laws.  And this is not the first time, by the way, this email business, her server.  I mean, the intent... Comey was even asked (paraphrased exchange), "Didn't you find any intent in her having an off-site server?  Didn't you find any intent in her setting up a server off site?  Didn't you find any intent?  And she lied about only having one device!" He said, "Well, no.  I found convenience.  She just wanted a more convenient setup.

"She found out that her husband had a server in the basement of their home and decided to use that."  But Trey Gowdy, his point was that Hillary Clinton's not been careless at all, that she has been extremely careful.  So we are up to audio sound bite number four.  And Gowdy starts out by saying, "Look, I'm gonna ask you to put on your old hat."  Meaning: I want to take you back to where you're in the Department of Justice -- you're not the FBI director -- and you were a prosecutor.  "False exculpatory statements, they are used for what?"

COMEY:  Either for the substantive prosecution or for evidence of intent in a criminal prosecution.

GOWDY:  Exactly.  Intent and consciousness of guilt, right?  Is that right?

COMEY:  Right.

GOWDY:  Consciousness of guilt and intent.  In your old job, you would prove intent, as you just referenced, by showing the jury evidence of a complex scheme that was designed for the very purpose of concealing the public record. And you would be arguing in addition to concealment, the destruction that you and I just talked about or certainly the failure to preserve.  You would argue all of that under the heading of "intent."  You would also be arguing the pervasiveness of the scheme, when it started, when it ended, and the number of emails whether they were originally classified or up-classified. You would argue all of that under the heading of intent?

RUSH:  So Gowdy is walking everybody through this. Look, Comey's answer to this was to not acknowledge any of this.  What Gowdy is doing, his audience is not Comey.  His audience is us.  His audience is the American people.  His audience is social media.  His audience is the Drive-By Media. It's anybody who wants to pick this up because this is really good what he did here.  Because Comey says there wasn't intent; you can't find any intent.  And Gowdy walks him through how, in his old job as a prosecutor, he could not have missed intent.

He would show the jury evidence of a complex scheme designed for the very purpose of concealing the public record.  That's what the server in her basement is.  The server in her basement is an effort to conceal her work.  Everybody knows she did this.  Everybody knows the purpose was to keep out prying eyes.  The Clintons are paranoid. They're excessively private. They don't want people investigating, and they don't want Freedom of Information Act requests to be able to produce anything.  Government records are public by law.  That's why the fact that she didn't use a State Department server is the beginning of suspicions in this.

So the very fact that she creates a server at home -- the purpose of which is to conceal the public record (i.e., her work that is represented on that computer) -- and then he says to Comey, "You would be arguing in addition to concealment, the destruction that you and I just talked about."  She had 60,000 emails.  She threw 30,000 away.  She only turned over half of those 60,000. And in the 30,000 that were thrown away, Comey admitted that they found 110 that dealt with secure information, classified and otherwise, with 56 different threads in it.  So Gowdy is saying (summarized):

"In addition to the obvious intent of concealing by having her server, she threw away the evidence. She threw away half of the content of that server.  That is intent!  The failure to preserve.  All of that would come under the heading of 'intent.'  And you're also arguing the pervasiveness of the scheme, when it started, when it ended, the number of emails."  So he walked everybody threw here, how everything she did comes under the heading of intent to hide, intent to shade, intent to prevent disclosure.  And he wasn't through.  He continued with this...

GOWDY:  You mentioned there's no prescient for criminal prosecution.  My theory is, there still isn't.  There's nothing to keep a future secretary of state or president from this exact same email scheme, or their staff.  And my real fear is this, this double-track justice system that is rightly or wrongly perceived in this country that if you are a private in the Army and you email yourself classified information, you will be kicked out, but if you are Hillary Clinton and you seek a promotion to commander-in-chief, you will not be.

RUSH:  And, again, Comey, he really... There was not a question here.  So Comey was not... We don't have what he said in response, since there wasn't a question.  He didn't say, "Gowdy, you know what? You're right! You're right! You're absolutely right; I was the wrong, and I'm gonna go back."  He didn't do any of that, 'cause remember, now, Gowdy's purpose here... I mean, nobody thinks Comey's gonna change his mind.  Don't think that's what this is about.  This is for people to get on the record what really happened and to try to explain how Comey was wrong in their opinion.  And that's what Gowdy laid out here.  And then he went on to say after all this that to him, this is not any evidence of carelessness.  She wasn't careless or negligent whatsoever.  She was careful, and in being careful -- in structuring this to keep it hidden -- we have intent out the wazoo.

I can't argue against any of this likely being the case. In fact, I would say this is exactly why Comey did what he did.

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[thundley4]

I can't argue against any of this likely being the case. In fact, I would say this is exactly why Comey did what he did.

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I'll say it in a much, much shorter way. Obama has Black Privilege, and no one is going to make him shoulder any blame for his failures.