[Zagadka]

U.S. appeals court revives Clinton email suit

In a new legal development on the controversy over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails, an appeals court on Tuesday reversed a lower court ruling and said two U.S. government agencies should have done more to recover the emails.

The ruling from Judge Stephen Williams, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, revives one of a number of legal challenges involving Clinton's handling of government emails when she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.

Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, used a private email server housed at her New York home to handle State Department emails. She handed over 55,000 emails to U.S. officials probing that system, but did not release about 30,000 she said were personal and not work related.

The email case shadowed Clinton's loss to Republican Donald Trump in the Nov. 8 presidential election. Trump, who had repeatedly said during the bruising campaign that if elected he would prosecute Clinton, said after the election he had no interest in pursuing investigations into Clinton's email use.

While the State Department and National Archives took steps to recover the emails from Clinton's tenure, they did not ask the U.S. attorney general to take enforcement action. Two conservative groups filed lawsuits to force their hand.

A district judge in January ruled the suits brought by Judicial Watch and Cause of Action moot, saying State and the National Archives made a "sustained effort" to recover and preserve Clinton's records.

But Williams said the two agencies should have done more, according to the ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Since the agencies neither asked the attorney general for help nor showed such enforcement action could not uncover new emails, the case was not moot.

"The Department has not explained why shaking the tree harder - e.g., by following the statutory mandate to seek action by the Attorney General - might not bear more still," Williams wrote. "Absent a showing that the requested enforcement action could not shake loose a few more emails, the case is not moot."

The State Department does not comment on pending litigation, a spokesperson said.

Williams noted that Clinton used two nongovernmental email accounts at State and continued using the Blackberry account she had while a U.S. senator during her first weeks as the nation's U.S. diplomat. She only switched to the email account hosted on her private server in March 2009, the ruling said.

"Because the complaints sought recovery of emails from all of the former Secretary’s accounts, the FBI's recovery of a server that hosted only one account does not moot the suits, the judge wrote.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Leslie Adler)

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSKBN14G1M4

[Godstud]

More wasted money. When are Americans going to understand that you still aren't going to find any criminal liability, no matter how many investigations you do. How many have already been done? Americans still seeking to go after the Clinton's are from the shallow end of the gene pool.

American mentality:

[jeremy.knepfler]

Shallow end of the gene pool! The Clintons are as corrupt as they get. The failure to admit this is pure idiocy!

[Doug64]

More wasted money. When are Americans going to understand that you still aren't going to find any criminal liability, no matter how many investigations you do.

First, Comey already admitted that Clinton was criminally liable when he stated that she was "extremely careless." Second, according to the judge the State Department failed to follow the "statutory mandate" to seek action by the Attorney General.

[Godstud]

No. Comey never said she was criminally liable or they'd have pressed charges. He said she should be up for internal discipline for mishandling the e-mails. He never said she should be charged. "Extremely careless" is meaningless, really. Him saying it means exactly that. It's not a crime to be "extremely careless", however.

Intent is a crucial element in determining if certain acts were criminal. Perhaps Comey, and others, decided that proving this would be impossible, so no charges were laid?

People make a lot of assumptions about the investigations. I am sure if there was something they could prosecute Clinton on, they would have laid charges.

[Drlee]

We have quite enough to do without this bullshit. It will not serve the incoming administration to be seen as mean and vindictive. President Obama should pardon her for any and all of this. IF Trump is going to have a chance at succeeding with his agenda it would not be wise to have more people than voted for him mad at him right from the start.

[One Degree]

People make a lot of assumptions about the investigations. I am sure if there was something they could prosecute Clinton on, they would have laid charges.

Obviously, there was never going to be any prosecution or Hillary would not have been given the time to decide which emails to turn over and then delete the rest. Most of the evidence is gone. I hate not knowing the truth, but it is time to put it to rest. The only way I would think otherwise is if people in government come forward with information they were ordered to conceal. This will not happen until several months into Trump's administration, if it ever does.

[Doug64]

No. Comey never said she was criminally liable or they'd have pressed charges. He said she should be up for internal discipline for mishandling the e-mails. He never said she should be charged. "Extremely careless" is meaningless, really. Him saying it means exactly that. It's not a crime to be "extremely careless", however.

Intent is a crucial element in determining if certain acts were criminal. Perhaps Comey, and others, decided that proving this would be impossible, so no charges were laid?

And that was where Comey pulled his bait-and-switch, because gross negligence doesn't need intent (as criminally defined). Comey said as much at the beginning of his statement last summer: "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 ..." (emphasis added) But by the time he gets to the end of his statement, the "gross negligence" part had vanished and he stated that because -- in spite of the law clearly applying a standard of gross negligence as well as intent -- all previous prosecutions had only been based on intent, therefore no "reasonable prosecutor" would choose to prosecute Clinton: "In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. 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." So basically, Comey has given anyone in the future that might behave similarly to Clinton a free pass on criminal prosecution, the standard called for in the law of "gross negligence" might as well not exist.

As for what Comey did say about Clinton's behavior: "Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information." (emphasis added) So until someone can explain to me the difference between "extremely careless" and "grossly negligent," other than one means you get charged with a crime and the other doesn't, it is my opinion that Clinton violated the law and Comey gave her a free pass.

[Dagoth Ur]

American politics are so fucking lame.

[jeremy.knepfler]

American politics are so fucking lame.

Explain?

[Dagoth Ur]

This is a bad carnival.

[Godstud]

Yes, Dagoth Ur, it certainly is a shit-show.

[Albert]

Lock her up! Let liberals get the message that their bullshit will not be toletated anymore.

If they want to fight back, have resistance or force people out of business because they dont want to serve cakes to gays. Then we will fight back as well!

[XogGyux]

If the 1269th time does not find proof of wrong doing, I bet the 1270th will. Lets go guys! WOOOT

[jeremy.knepfler]

@XogGyux

It's hard to find the proof when she's deleted most of it, but rest assure they will find it. If it were anyone else, they would be in prison right now. Hell, there's people in prison for less!

[Doug64]

If the 1269th time does not find proof of wrong doing, I bet the 1270th will. Lets go guys! WOOOT

The FBI already found evidence that Clinton was grossly negligent, but Comey declined to call for prosecution.

[Albert]

We have quite enough to do without this bullshit. It will not serve the incoming administration to be seen as mean and vindictive. President Obama should pardon her for any and all of this. IF Trump is going to have a chance at succeeding with his agenda it would not be wise to have more people than voted for him mad at him right from the start.

Obama with CIA tried to throw the election not to long ago. Do you forget the media blitz before Dec 19? These type of people dont see nothing wrong with ruining peoples lives because they are not "politically correct". Let them have the taste of their own medicine. See how they like it.

[Dagoth Ur]

Are you still a virgin plaro?

[XogGyux]

@XogGyux

It's hard to find the proof when she's deleted most of it, but rest assure they will find it. If it were anyone else, they would be in prison right now. Hell, there's people in prison for less!

Conspiracy conspiracy conspiracy. For the record since 2005 every time I get a new phone i delete and smash my old ones. This is the country of identity theft and even a nobody like myself has to (or should) do such things. So for someone far more important than myself, that has the whole fucking world watching over to try to get the next big story I do not see it particularly suspicious that she did it. The fact that all those leaked emails content amount to absolutely nothing of content and that the media still had a field day about what Clinton's aids thought about her spoiled child and so on proves my point.

I know Clinton is corrupt, I do not need evidence to know that. I know she is corrupt because every fucking single politician is corrupt. That is a job requirement (Trump is also corrupt for that matter). But I also know she is very smart, the evidence was not going to be lying inside her blackberry. It takes a moron to talk incriminating conversations in emails and we can agree to nothing but we can agree that moron she is not.

This is what it was before. Just a circus for points, politics and to give us a bone.

And you said so, even if you are right you also said she deleted the "supposed" evidence so... we are back to square one... the 200000th investigation with the same evidence, the same dubious investigators against the same powerful people will get exactly to the same place.
Meanwhile you are applauding how they are wasting our taxpayer money. Money for healthcare or education hell no. Money to investigate Benghazi a 7th time and clinton's email a 5th time. Sure sign me in.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expect different results.

The FBI already found evidence that Clinton was grossly negligent, but Comey declined to call for prosecution.

Still waiting for that UFO bro?

[jeremy.knepfler]

@XogGyux Yeah, they waste so much taxpayer money that im happy to pay for further investigations if it means she will eventually get caught. How much did we just give to Iran? pointless recounts? military jet that doesn't fly properly? our ridiculous defense budget? oh and dont forget the pentagon is stealing money from us as well. The evidence was right there, she mishandled classified papers. First she said there wasn't any classified papers! and you know what, maybe they did have her, maybe that's why Bill and Lynch had a private meeting before the end of the investigation. or maybe Comey thought he would get promoted if he kept it hush hush. I know she's guilty, you know she's guilty the world knows shes guilty. And i'll happily pay for any investigation. take the wasted taxpayer issue up elsewhere.