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Trump falsely claims he never called for Hillary Clinton to be locked up (www.washingtonpost.com)

submitted 5 months ago by ZeroCool@vger.social to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world

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[–] rsuri@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

The sheer fact that she was allowed to use a self hosted email server instead of a secure .mail.mil address means a whole bunch of people should have faced charges

I gotta disagree on the facts with this one, I don't like Hillary either but the attempt to make the email thing criminal was in legal terms, bullshit. I agree that she broke the law, but there's civil law (that a court can order government officials to stop breaking, but you can't be thrown in jail for) and criminal law (that you can be thrown in jail for). The private email server was the former, not the latter.

This article around 8 paragraphs down goes through the specific criminal laws at issue, but the summary is these laws are clearly designed to punish actually stealing documents with the intent to conceal or distribute them (like say, if she took them to a private bathroom in Florida), not to dictate criminal penalties for an insecure email setup.

The reality of what happened is the FBI is a very Republican part of government, Comey is himself a lifelong Republican, and no one got more hate from Republicans than Hillary Clinton. They wanted to prosecute very badly, they just couldn't.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world -2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

but the attempt to make the email thing criminal was in legal terms, bullshit

It was literally criminal...

From your own sourced:

Under 18 U.S.C.§ 2071, anyone who “willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys,” public records, or attempts to do so, has committed a felony. Those found guilty can be fined, imprisoned for three years, and “disqualified from holding any office under the United States.”

According to 18 U.S.C.§ 1924, it is a misdemeanor for government employees to “knowingly” remove classified information “without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location.” Former CIA director and retired general David Petraeus pleaded guilty to this crime after providing notebooks containing classified information to his biographer and mistress, Paula Broadwell. Petraeus was sentenced to just two years of probation and a $40,000 fine, but the maximum sentence is one year in prison and a $100,000 fine.

Her only defense was essentially "I'm sorry officer, I didn't know I couldn't do that".

The frequent use of the words willfully and knowingly may help explain why the Clinton campaign keeps emphasizing that she never intentionally sent or received classified information via email. “Courts have required prosecutors to show that a defendant knew they were violating the law,” said Cox. “Given that it is unclear whether the State Department may have approved of, or at least acquiesced in, Clinton’s email arrangement; given that there is thus far no evidence that Clinton destroyed, or intended to conceal, emails that were properly government documents; and given that she willingly handed over the emails when requested, pursuing this charge would seem highly unlikely.”

Which is why I said everyone involved needed charges if they broke laws.

People had to sign off on this. Even if Hillary, who wouldn't shut up about how experienced she is, didn't know it, the person who forwarded the emails about it knew. Hell, there's annual training literally every fed has to take on this.

I'm not saying it's the worse crime ever, I'm saying we need to hold politicians accountable. And if you're doing shit like this openly in front of the rest of your coworkers, it shows you think your above the rules, and that is very dangerous for politicians to think they are.

Hell, Biden got in trouble for not turning records in, he just left boxes in a random university office he just abandoned. Precedent matters, if no one is held accountable, everyone stops giving a fuck.

I don't know why it's such an unpopular opinion these days.