Hillary's crime was not a "technical violation." She set up and used her own server in order to keep private her shakedown of contributors to the Clinton Foundation. Then she destroyed the evidence of her shakedown. As a criminal defense lawyer, I represent people who took cars just to ride around in them a little bit; they were charged with UUV (unauthorized use of a motor vehicle). Others took or stole cars in order to use them to commit other crimes--drugs sales, drive-by shootings, kidnappings, homicides. Hillary's conduct falls into the second category: she committed one crime in order to facilitate another. Comey's recitation of her conduct was completely improper and I believe it fatally wounded her candidacy. My hunch is that Comey wanted to show that his bureau, the FBI, did a real investigation, not a whitewash, even though he knew the Obama DOJ would never indict her. It, not the FBI, convenes grand juries and controls charges emanating from them. He, in my view, wanted to keep the administration from stating that the investigation cleared her. The fancy footwork he did (apparently at Peter Strzok's suggestion) was to change the element of the offense to "extremely careless," which does not imply a duty or obligation, from "grossly negligent," which does. This is basic tort law from the first year course in law school. I believe that without Comey's intervention, she likely would have won the election. That doesn't mean this was an unfair or unjust result: it was her criminal conduct (first revealed by the the New York Times) that set in motion the investigation that led to Comey's exposition of her crimes.
If there is evidence that establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that Clinton set up her own server for the purpose of keeping private the shaking down of anyone then, certainly, her violation was more than a technical violation.
Hillary's crime was not a "technical violation." She set up and used her own server in order to keep private her shakedown of contributors to the Clinton Foundation. Then she destroyed the evidence of her shakedown. As a criminal defense lawyer, I represent people who took cars just to ride around in them a little bit; they were charged with UUV (unauthorized use of a motor vehicle). Others took or stole cars in order to use them to commit other crimes--drugs sales, drive-by shootings, kidnappings, homicides. Hillary's conduct falls into the second category: she committed one crime in order to facilitate another. Comey's recitation of her conduct was completely improper and I believe it fatally wounded her candidacy. My hunch is that Comey wanted to show that his bureau, the FBI, did a real investigation, not a whitewash, even though he knew the Obama DOJ would never indict her. It, not the FBI, convenes grand juries and controls charges emanating from them. He, in my view, wanted to keep the administration from stating that the investigation cleared her. The fancy footwork he did (apparently at Peter Strzok's suggestion) was to change the element of the offense to "extremely careless," which does not imply a duty or obligation, from "grossly negligent," which does. This is basic tort law from the first year course in law school. I believe that without Comey's intervention, she likely would have won the election. That doesn't mean this was an unfair or unjust result: it was her criminal conduct (first revealed by the the New York Times) that set in motion the investigation that led to Comey's exposition of her crimes.
Thanks for the comment.
If there is evidence that establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that Clinton set up her own server for the purpose of keeping private the shaking down of anyone then, certainly, her violation was more than a technical violation.