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Comment by jswny | Hacker News Reader

It seems to me like Comey is basically saying that the FBI does not believe that there is enough evidence to suggest that Clinton's intent was to violate the law. Therefore, regardless of the effects of her actions which might have had consequences in a different context, the evidence is not substantial enough to prosecute her.

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You don't need intent. From the press release [emphasis mine]:

> Our investigation looked at whether there is evidence classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on that personal system, in violation of a federal statute making it a felony to mishandle classified information either intentionally or in a grossly negligent way, or a second statute making it a misdemeanor to knowingly remove classified information from appropriate systems or storage facilities.

Given the small number of emails, I'd assume they reckoned it to be negligent but not grossly negligent.

Keeping mind that HRC's attorneys screened the original emails collection for examination by the FBI. Seems she might need some better attorneys if they let 130 get through that screen.

The entire thing seems fishy, sure, but playing devil's advocate, you'd wonder if they wouldn't screen out all the confidential emails. Of course, Comey did say even with the filtering, he did not see intentional obfuscation.

The only thing in question now is how the public will view this, and I'm pretty sure the only people who will be convinced are Hillary supporters.

Enough to say "Yeah, but everyone else did it, and it wasn't that many, so..."

...and here we are.

So they were "extremely careless" (his words) but not "grossly negligent"? Does anyone know what legal principle is supposed to separate those?

Therein lies the fault. An investigation by the FBI is not a courtroom, so "legal principles" aren't their job, but determining whether they could move forward with a prosecution or not is. I suppose the two are not linearly independent, but IANAL so I don't know enough to make a judgement on it.

It's hard really to tell from here whether this means Clinton is above the law or not, but I can definitely say this gives the appearance of it. Moreover, Trump won't give a shit what the FBI uses, he'll use it against her anyway and big portion of the American public, Trump supporters and non-supporters (ie., disaffected Bernie supporters) will agree with him on this anyway.

I'm going to have to "up classify" your comment and get back to you later on that.

My understanding is there is the statute and then there is the evaluating if a prosecution would be successful. From what I can tell, no one has been successfully charged for just gross negligence here.

That being said I don't understand entirely why that is at play -- if past convictions under a statute were required to prosecute, then no one would ever be prosecuted for anything.

Last year a Folsom engineer and retired Navy commander was fined $7,500 and placed on two years of probation for transferring classified data from a government computer to a personal computer. The investigation “did not reveal evidence that Nishimura intended to distribute classified information to unauthorized personnel.”

http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article29506825.html

There's no question she intended to use a personal email server to exchange classified information--that's the violation of law.

Not only that, but there is mountains of evidence that she deleted emails that should have been turned over to the state. In the Judicial Watch case there's been plenty of emails attached to deposition's that weren't included in the public email release, so unless they simply "forgot" to release these emails or they were some of the few that were withheld due to containing "confidential" information then she deliberately worked to withhold these emails, who knows what else she considered "personal" and decided to not turn over to the State Department.

"I'm the most transparent person I know how to be", well, just because frosted glass is semi-transparent doesn't mean it does a good job at it.

Right, but they need criminal or treasonous intent, or gross negligence. "Broke the law" isn't enough, in the same way that old jaywalking charges don't generally get brought up against you, even if somebody can prove it with security camera footage. The bar gets higher when you're digging up old stuff.

He is saying more than that though:

All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.

You've listed one thing she didn't do, he's actually listed 4 different things that have previously resulted in a recommendation to prosecute that she didn't do, deliberate intent/wilfulness, scope of breach, obvious disloyalty or a subsequent attempt at coverup.

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