Hillary Clinton lawyer acquitted in Durham probe

Maj Kevin "Mac" McLaughlin - You're showing your bias now. I see no difference between what both of them did. Both mishandled classified information. The fact that other Presidents may have kept classified material after leaving office doesn't make it right that Trump did that. The fact that Trump could have declassified that material isn't proof that he actually declassified it. And, he did destroy material, as has been widely reported through many media outlets, and confirmed by people working in the WH. You're pole vaulting over mouse turds to say that Hillary's actions were wrong but Trump's actions were not. Both were wrong, and whenever someone tries to split hairs to justify their angst against one while sanitizing the other, I'll call it out.

Finally, don't get me started on a major hoax being propagated for the sake of gaining/retaining the Presidency.

I do agree with you that neither deserve to ever be anywhere near the White House.

SPC David S. - Finding one spouse that worked for a political campaign is no tall order in DC. That's far from being a smoking gun. And, any federal judge appointed by a Democrat was very likely appointed by either Obama or Bill Clinton. That's also hardly a smoking gun.

LTC Kevin B. - I feel Durham dropped the ball a bit on this one in rushing to get an indictment.

On falsity, the government must establish beyond a reasonable doubt that an untrue statement was made. The prosecutors had a text message – a statement, directly from Sussmann, in which he falsely claimed he was not representing any client in purveying to the FBI derogatory information about Donald Trump. There was a smoking gun however that is not how the case was indicted.

Durham did not have the text message when the charge was filed in September 2021. Consequently, in March 2022, when he obtained a copy of the text from James Baker (the FBI’s former general counsel who received the text from Sussmann), Durham could not go back to the grand jury to add a new charge or substantially change the indictment. As such the evidence was there however jurors were instructed not to use the text message in their reasoning - so don't look at the smoking gun.

Despite the technicalities this exposes the inner workings of the Clinton campaign and how a true disinformation campaign works in creating a narrative and then creating the circular references to support a crafted narrative.

How do you figure? Please feel free to break down the two events as I have done extensively. There's no pole vaulting here. Have you ever been involved in any of these events (records management, FOIA, classified incidents)? I was pretty much recognized as an expert in this within the DoD in my 27 years of service within these fields. I have come out and specifically stated that IF Trump acted maliciously and knowingly against the law, I am all too happy to see him go down. How is that biased? My bias is to demand we comply with policy and the law, but to look at the context and circumstances when this is not done. Otherwise, there would be a lot of careers ruined and people in jail for mistakes, accidents, and just plain stupidity. The laws on Records Management are not there to automatically send someone to jail for 5 years with a hefty fine. It all depends on the severity, which is what I am referring to when comparing Trump's actions to Clinton's.

I pointed out the fact that Trump was the classification authority to highlight the difference between what he was compared to Clinton (she was not of several of the items found on her server, to include Top Secret files from other departments/agencies). This was not to say that he declassified them in a proper manner. However, it was an excuse the Clinton supporters tried to use until it was pointed out that they couldn't because she wasn't the authority. At no time did I say what Trump did wasn't wrong, which only tells me you are not reading my statements. I am, however bringing in context and my own speculation of possibilities to counter the speculation we've read in the reports from Democrat leaders trying to compare it to Clinton's actions. The (you) miss out on the fact we know SO much more about what Clinton did compared to Trump's actions.

The reporting on the destruction of papers was in the context of ripping up letters out of frustration, anger, or his feelings getting hurt. Nothing has been suggested he was destroying records for the sake of hiding information and official decisions, correspondence, etc. Intent matters and so far the only thing anyone is accusing Trump of doing is the act, not the intent, regardless of whether it was done for nefarious reasons or just plain disregard for the rules on records management. Having done thing for years, I can assure you that leaders at all levels have destroyed official records, not realizing they need to be retained, that there isn't a copy, or that they simply feel the rules don't apply to them and other people take care of that "stuff." I've seen it all. But it was clear this was not the case for Clinton. Her DOS IT team warned her against it, gave her options and advice on the policy and laws, and she still did it. We have no idea if Trump ripped up a letter to avoid having it retained or just out of frustration. What was Clinton's excuse for wiping her servers after being handed a court order to release them to Gov authorities? Where is the similarity to Trump's actions?

Finally, on the major hoax... Have at it. Feel free to start your posts about election fraud and Trump's claims it was stolen. I'm not propagating that position, nor do I wish to. Do I think people took advantage of the confusion and crisis of COVID to get away with affecting the election? Sure. But I have yet to see to what degree and whether it did in fact work in Biden's favor (which is why you won't see me making claims the election was stolen). But having been assigned as a team lead to respond to DHS augment requests for cybersecurity events during the 2018 election, I have extensively studied as much as I could from a cyber perspective on how elections could be interfered with. Our focus on the voting machines is a red herring and I am more concerned with the human element where questionable actions were taken, policies made, and lack of chain of custody examples were noted. Needless to say, regardless of party, our election process needs to be secured better and in various means. But look at the numbers and tell me it doesn't look the least bit suspicious that Biden got record numbers, well over the first Black President (when arguably there was more hype and excitement to vote on the Democrat side then there possibly could have been for Biden), and on top of it, Trump also received record votes (which confirms he didn't exactly lose votes to Biden). While I find it suspicious, I don't see the need to push election fraud and stolen election claims without significant evidence (of which I have not seen). It does motivate me to demand more election security and accountability. Now, with that said, do you think it was proper, ethical, and possibly (not definitively...yet) illegal for the Clinton team to propagate a Russian Hoax in October of 2016 to win an election? A hoax which has been the focus for far too many of our FBI, Congress, countless expensive investigations. All based on a premise that was known to be false. I don't have to like Trump to see that something stunk here.

But hey, we agree... No more Clinton or Trump. The problem is, I have issues with the current guy too (as does a significant number of Americans). Should Trump come along again (even without Clinton) I am once again torn.

CW4 Guy Butler Not Like I Understand? When I Served on Bill Clinton's Flagship, He was President and 50th Ranked Lawyer in the Country, Pretty Impressive. Hillary was Ranked #25 Lawyer in the Country. He Married Up!