AND RIGHTFULLY SO …
A federal appeals court panel has overturned a lower court ruling that effectively blocked the U.S. State Department and National Archives from referring Hillary Clinton’s email scandal to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Two Washington, D.C. watchdog organizations filed lawsuits against these federal agencies in the hopes of uncovering additional messages from Clinton’s extra-legal private server – but were rebuffed in their efforts by U.S. district court judge James Boasberg, an appointee of Barack Obama.
Now their case is moving forward …
“Absent a showing that the requested enforcement action could not shake loose a few more emails, the case is not moot,” circuit court judge Stephen Williams wrote in his opinion.
Interesting …
Politically the issue is quite moot because Clinton not only lost the 2016 election, but the man who beat her – Republican Donald Trump – seems willing to forgive and forget.
During her tenure as U.S. Secretary of State from 2009-13, Clinton was required by law to keep a record of the business she conducted. She didn’t. Instead, she maintained an “off the books” email server – the contents of which she later deleted.
The existence of this server was uncovered during a U.S. House of Representatives’ investigation into the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya.
The FBI investigated Clinton’s alleged mishandling of classified information on this server – but declined to prosecute her.
Our view?
We believe Clinton’s email system was a deliberate effort to hide her pay-to-play crony capitalist deal-making and warmongering. We also believe she destroyed evidence and perjured herself in an effort to evade accountability for her actions.
The fact she lost the election doesn’t negate any of this behavior … nor does it mean efforts to uncover all of her deleted emails should be stopped.
Obviously the case doesn’t have anywhere near the same urgency it would have had if Clinton had won the election, but the appeals court is correct: Justice must still be allowed to run its course.
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