Below is my take on captioned matter. It is my belief that the FBI was politically manipulated to insure a particular outcome. I think there is substantial evidence to support my belief and the manner in which the investigation was handled tarnished the Bureau’s reputation for conducting impartial and apolitical investigations. I am not trying to influence how people vote. I could not care less. My concern is what those in authority did to our FBI. My reasons are set forth below.
Part One:
1. The statute that was used to judge HRC’s actions, makes it a criminal felony violation to mishandle classified information intentionally OR with gross negligence. Director Comey stated that HRC acted with “extreme carelessness” in the handling of classified info. Extreme Carelessness is Gross Negligence. She violated this statute which Congress, not Director Comey created. As an executive branch member, he has no authority to ignore the express language of a statute created by Congress. His mission is to follow the law, not abolish congressional statutory language that he does not like. He decided to arbitrarily modify the statute by de facto elimination of the “Gross Negligence portion of the statute. By doing so, he acted outside the scope of his authority.
2. In my 30 yrs in the FBI and total of 44 yrs in Law enforcement, I was never involved in or even heard of an investigation which ignored evidence of “other crimes” uncovered while investigating the original crime under investigation.` But in this case, the FBI began by investigating mishandling of classified info on a private email system – then recovered thousands of emails that HRC and her team destroyed (recovered from recipients' computers). Some of those emails disclosed that certain donors to the Clinton Foundation gave huge amts of money to the Foundation and in return rec’d meetings with HRC at the State Dept. Many of the donors were from Foreign Countries. While access alone is not criminal, it provides a “Reasonable Indication” (which is sufficient to open a new investigation under DOJ Guidelines,) into the likelihood of Quid Pro Quo/Bribery.
No one donates thousands/millions of dollars to a Private Foundation for a meeting with the Secretary of State to talk about the NFL football season/ or the weather forecast. What deals were made or discussed in those meetings? The FBI had blinders on and refused to widen the investigation when there was clear probable cause to do so. This my friends never happened when I was in the FBI. In my career, if we started with a stolen property case and it lead to drugs, guns and murder, we expanded to include all the new crimes. It is unprecedented that it did not happen with the HRC investigation. This is wrong. I don’t know whether DOJ ordered the FBI to ignore other avenues of investigation or whether the Bureau restricted itself to ignore these obvious avenues of inquiry.
3.) In all my 44 yrs of service, I never saw a case where deliberate destruction of evidence was ignored instead of thoroughly investigated. Deliberate destruction of evidence is not only felonious in and of itself (i.e. felonious per se) but also indicative of Knowledge that the original conduct of HRC and her Aides was intentional/deliberate. (This goes back to my point in section one above and is indicative of the fact that the handling of classified info was even more than gross negligent and was instead likely deliberate/intentional).--- Nevertheless when you find evidence that HRC’s lawyer Cheryl Mills called one of the private server operators after a Congressional subpoena was issued for the emails and ordered him to destroy thousands of emails relevant to the subpoena, this is prima facie evidence of obstruction of justice. Moreover, there is evidence that 13 of HRC’s phones were deliberately destroyed and /or “missing”—some of the phones were smashed with a hammer/ and bleach bit was used to destroy 33,000 emails.
I have never seen a case like this in all my yrs where deliberate destruction of evidence was simply ignored by the FBI and not investigated. Again, I don’t know whether this was ordered by DOJ or whether the FBI restricted itself. Either way, it is totally inappropriate.
4.) The DOJ/ apparently with FBI concurrence/ gave Cheryl Mills and HRC’s other lawyer so called “Act of Production” immunity for their computers which contained highly classified information. “Act of Production” immunity is strictly limited to the very act of turning over the computers. It is never given to include what is actually found on the computers –It is only given for the act of turning them over. In all other cases that I am aware of when this is done, the FBI agent receiving the computer cannot take the stand and testify that he/she rec’d the computer from the person receiving the immunity. If the FBI wants to use the info they find on the computer against the provider, they have to show that it belonged to the provider by means unrelated to the Act of Production. In the HRC investigation, the immunity grant, as I understand it was all encompassing, not limited to the act of production but extended to the contents of the computer and even included any contents the lawyers may have destroyed. This is both incredible and unprecedented.—I have never seen a case handled in this fashion. Immunity grants should be limited to what is necessary to obtain the needed evidence and not extended beyond what is absolutely necessary. The fact that there was no grand jury, subpoena power and Federal judge controlling the grand jury to hold recalcitrant witnesses in contempt probably contributed to these broad immunity grants. Ask yourself why no grand jury was convened?
5.DOJ/apparently with FBI acquiescence agreed to limit the scope of their inquiry to a date prior to when the major destruction of evidence occurred. How could this be agreed to unless the fix was in? There was reason to believe that massive obstruction occurred and the FBI/DOJ not only declined to investigate it but also inexplicably agreed to stop the investigation before the dates when the destruction occurred. I have never seen or heard of anything like it. Moreover, knowing full well that a multitude of Congressional inquiries were ongoing with respect to these matters, the FBI agreed to destroy the contents of the computers rec’d from HRC’s 2 lawyers. When have you ever seen or heard of anything like this?
6. The DOJ/apparently with FBI acquiescence refused to use a grand jury to investigate this case. The FGJ could have issued subpoenas and compelled witness testimony under oath. It was not done here. With respect to gathering evidence from HRC’s Private Server Company, the State Dept and HRC’s staff, including her lawyers, search warrants could have been obtained before critical evidence was destroyed. None of this was done. All of these steps would have been taken in every other case but not this one.
7.) According to published news reports, President Obama, using a pseudonym was the sender/receiver of several emails containing classified info that went thru HRC’s non secure set up. Even Cheryl Mills was horrified when she read one of the emails without knowing it came from Obama.
8.) DOJ or the FBI decided to permit Cheryl Mills to be present during the questioning of HRC. Mills at that time was an immunized Subject of the investigation. Probable cause existed to believe that Mills had ordered the destruction of numerous HRC emails. This decision was simply amazing and beyond the pale.
My guess is that a lot more negative info will trickle out before this is over. I am upset with Director Comey for allowing the apolitical reputation of the FBI to come under question. What happened is a severe blight upon the reputation of an agency that we served with distinction for so many years. It will take many years to reconstruct our reputation.
Part Two:
I appreciate that Director Comey held a press conference in July, explaining the FBI investigative findings, which was unprecedented. What he did was necessary but not sufficient to protect the reputation of the Bureau. I also believe that he was under enormous pressure from the President/AG to limit the scope of the investigation. President Obama’s public commentary during his “60 minutes” interview gave us a preview of how this was all going to come out. He said HRC made a mistake but basically it was not a big deal. (Now we know that he was communicating with HRC on the unsecured server using a pseudonym). We are supposed to be a Nation of Laws/not men. It is often said that No man (or woman) is above the law. This ideal was abandoned in this case. Anyone else would have been prosecuted. Expediency rather than honor was the winner here.
By refusing to convene a Federal Grand Jury, DOJ placed the FBI into a World Series Game without a bat and a glove. This eliminated sworn witness testimony and subpoena power (as you are well aware, these are some of the absolute main investigative methods necessary to break open a case where cooperation is limited or non existent/It allows recalcitrant witnesses to be brought before a Federal Judge and be held in contempt and jailed for refusal to cooperate after an immunity grant). Have FBI Agents conducting a major investigation ever in Bureau history been so handcuffed in conducting that investigation?
Director Comey was faced with a very difficult choice. He could either send his team onto the field without bats and gloves in front of the entire nation/world or tell Lynch to go to hell and threaten to resign. He chose the former. He should have chosen the latter and called their bluff.----I am sorry that he did not do so. His resignation, if required, would have preserved the integrity and reputation of the FBI. The reputation of the FBI has been severely damaged in the process not just among many xagents but also many outside the FBI family as well.
Copyright © 2016 Boston Chapter-Former Special Agents of the FBI
Mike Callahan, among FBI positions he held, was the Principle Legal Adviser (PLA) to the Special Agent in Charge of each FBI Division.
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