Yesterday Front Page Magazine posted a story related to the Fox News “Scandalous” television series. I guess I really wasn’t paying a lot of attention during the Clinton years–I didn’t realize that in some cases, the same names keep appearing in matters related to the Clintons.
The article includes a number of names we have heard lately:
Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal has recently emerged in the DNC dossier affair. Republican James Rogan, a hawk for the impeachment of Bill Clinton, has given way to Democrat Adam Schiff, whose evidence of Russian collusion has an existential problem. Other links emerged in the 140 pardons Bill Clinton issued on his last day in office.
President Clinton pardoned his brother Roger, busted for distributing cocaine, and Whitewater crony Susan McDougal. He pardoned former HUD boss Henry Cisneros and Patty Hearst who became a partisan of the murderous Symbionese Liberation Army. Clinton also pardoned fugitive financier Mark Rich, but this was not the president’s most controversial last-day reprieve.
John Deutch had been CIA director in 1995 and 1996 and the White House said he was pardoned “for those offenses described in the information dated January 19, 2001.” The precise nature of the DOJ charges remained unclear but, as it emerged, the man in charge of the nation’s secrets had mishandled classified information.
According to ABC News, Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder was unaware of the pending presidential pardon when “Attorney General Janet Reno gave the approval for investigators to make a deal with Deutch.” The former CIA boss had been “under investigation for sloppy handling of secret files.”
…As Hans A. von Spakovsky recalled in National Review, the IG did not let Deutch pick and choose what information he was going to hand over. Instead they sent in a team to grab everything and found that Deutch “continuously processed” classified data “for unclassified use.” This took place on computers that were “vulnerable to attacks by unauthorized persons,” and the information included “Top Secret communications intelligence,” and information on the “National Reconnaissance Program.”
That was a violation of 18 U.S.C. §793, which makes it a criminal offense “through gross negligence” to allow classified information “to be removed from its proper place of custody.”
As von Spakovsky notes, “no intentional misconduct is required; just gross negligence,” and offenders can be fined or imprisoned for violations.
The article continues:
Deutch duly returned to his teaching post at MIT and more than two years later was stripped of his security clearances. What classified information might have been stolen by hostile actors remained uncertain, but with the pardon from Clinton the grossly negligent Deutch would not be taking a fall. This all proved instructive to former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
She kept government information, including classified materials, on a private, unsecured server in her home, and POTUS 44 emailed her through that unsecured network. Hillary Clinton said it was all about Chelsea’s wedding, yoga classes, and no classified material was involved. When government investigators wanted to have a look, Clinton promptly destroyed more than 30,000 emails, bleached the server clean, and smashed up electronic devices.
Trump-hating James Strzok of the FBI changed “gross negligence” to “extremely careless” and FBI boss James Comey said no reasonable prosecutor would bring charges. In similar style, as a deputy attorney general, Comey cut a sweetheart deal with former Clinton national security advisor Sandy Berger, who stole and destroyed classified documents.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch told Comey to call whole thing a “matter” and Hillary Clinton paid no penalty. After she lost the 2016 race, her FBI-DOJ team set about framing the winner, Donald Trump, on the charge that he colluded with Russia to steal the election.
I had forgotten that James Comey had made the deal with Sandy Berger after Berger was caught with classified documents in his socks. This was attributed to sloppiness on Berger’s part!
An article at the Conservative Base posted on November 16, 2016, states the following:
Several law-enforcement officers believe the documents stolen told the true story about the LAX plot, but the Clintons sent their henchman Sandy Berger to get rid of the evidence.
“The Clintons have a history of playing by their own rules which means committing acts that would get anyone else — including Berger — convicted of malfeasance,” said former police detective sergeant Walter Fendner. “Berger fell on his sword for the Clintons and he was rewarded with probation and a slap on the wrist,” Fendner added.
As luck would have it, before the FBI or Justice Department prosecutors could talk to him, Sandy Berger died on Dec. 1, 2015. The cause of death was listed as cancer. He was 70-years-old, said a statement by his consulting firm, the Albright Stonebridge Group.
The article at the Conservative Base includes evidence that Sandy Berger had been acting as an advisor to Hillary Clinton during her time as Secretary of State.
The article at The Conservative Base reports:
His (Sandy Berger) email correspondence with Clinton was stored on her private server and it’s yet to be reported whether or not he — a convicted thief of classified documents — had access to emails containing classified intelligence.
The release of the Clinton/Berger email was part of a batch of email messages released by the State Department.
Again, James Comey was the person who made the deal with Sandy Berger–Berger was sentenced to community service and probation and fined $50,000 for illegally removing highly classified documents from the National Archives and intentionally destroying some of them.
Hillary Clinton wasn’t even charged for mishandling classified information. I guess she learned from the mistakes of those who came before her.