Proof of Hillary Clinton’s Intent

FBI director, Jim Comey, announced that he would not recommend charges against President-elect Hillary Clinton concerning her exclusive use of a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State.  She was identified with being “extremely careless” but not “grossly negligent”. The primary reason for no charges was no proof of intent. The law does not require intent, but Comey stated that no reasonable prosecutor would accept  this case due a history of requiring intent for this crime.

Intent is rarely proved by a confession but by circumstantial evidence. I will present the case for intent using circumstantial evidence.

• Secretary Clinton set up her personal email server before she was sworn into office. She used this unsecured email system for all of her ­email: personal, work and classified.
• The law requires for all government departments to assign an Inspector General to independently oversee security issues. President Obama never nominated an IG during Secretary Clinton’s four-year tenure,  earning him the distinction as the only president not to appoint an IG since 1957.
• ­Lied under oath that:
  1. She never sent classified email on her server.
  2. She never sent any emails marked classified on her server.
  3. She testified that her lawyers read each email and were conservative in their deletion of private emails.
  4. She turned over all of her work related emails.
  5. She only used one email device.
• Hid her email system from congressional committees for over two years.
• Unilaterally had her lawyers delete emails that they decided were not work related. They followed by wiping the devices clean to ensure the least chance of recovery.
• Refused to turn over her server until the FBI requested it.
• The FBI found thousands of work-related emails on her server.
• The FBI found 110 emails, marked classified at the time of their origin, in 52 chains on the server. Who transferred the classified emails to a non-classified system? Who removed the classified markings from the emails?
• Brian Pagliano, the IT specialist that setup Secretary Clinton’s server, pled the 5^th when questioned about the server setup. The FBI negotiated immunity for his testimony.
• Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s chief of staff, was hired as Clinton’s personal attorney. She could invoke attorney/client privilege when questioned about her official duties as chief of staff.
• Clinton and her immediate staff, all employed the same attorney to represent them.
• Violated the Freedom of Information Act by not turning over all of her work related emails upon terminating her work at the State Department. They were turned over after 2-3 years, but only after over half of the emails were deleted by her lawyers.

 

This seems to be enough to prove intent with circumstantial evidence. I believe that a reasonable prosecutor could prove intent even though it’s not a requirement under the statute.