So Why All the Lying About Russia?

[mudwhistle]

Sending classified information on an unauthorized device or server is a serious offense.

Jared Kushner used WhatsApp to talk with foreign leaders
Kushner used WhatsApp, personal email for gov't biz; McFarland used ...

So you're saying it's wrong to small talk or blog with people from other countries? We aren't allowed to talk to people from Canada or any other country if we have a job in the federal government?
This isn't Russia, China, or Venezuela. This is America.
You do understand that Hillary not only transmitted TS information in an unsecured server so that anyone could hack it.....but she destroyed evidence of it,.

He's conducting government business on Whatsapp moron

Sure. That's what's been reported.....but is it the truth? How many hoaxes have been passed off as truth by the left to date?
What do you consider government business?
Saying high to someone you know?

 

[Care4all]

Supposedly the Mueller Report says that there was no "collusion".

So why did all those people lie...about Russia and meetings with Russians?

Flynn
Pence
Don Jr
Kushner
Sessions
Papadopolous
Trump himself
I'm sure I missed a few...

Russia is a third rate economic power run by a Mafia cartel that has a second rate military and nukes. Putin is desperately trying to foment social discord and political discord, trying to break up the EU, backed right wing fascist groups in France, Eastern Europe, Spain, and throughout the world...

These people didn't lie about meetings with France. They didn't even lie about meetings with China (that we know of). They lied about Russia.

Why?

Some have said that these people are simply liars. They lie about everything. That in ITSELF is a problem but more than that...it's always Russia

WHY?

Hopefully the Mueller report answers that question

Not only that, we KNOW Trump Sr. wrote a letting aboard Air Force One for Don Jr.

Since the letter was supposed to hide collusion with Russia AND lie to the American people, it was both collusion and obstruction.

It's so obvious, who can't see it.

Off we go into the wild blue yonder....Crippled Ken has his pension to worry about! Russia is suffering for the death of over fifty million people in the 1930's and 1940's. You guys are the results of the warnings of Joe McCarthy. You are the Marxist Soviets who are pizzed at a former Soviet KGB agent when the Soviet Union existed, who is now a strong armed leader of a free and sovereign Russian nation.

He, (Putin) stole all of your Natural Resources in your country and divided them up and gave them to newly made Oligarchs, chosen by who gave Putin the largest cut of profits, under the table.

Why do you think Putin is the Richest Man in the Entire World, while only being paid $100 grand a year for his government job?

And you call this a FREE Nation? And praise him, for ROBBING HIS CITIZENS blind and keeping the most of them in poverty?

If you'rtalking about Putin, yeah, he owns Russia. I guess that means he has some skin in the game for them.

He stole what he owns in Russia, from the people who live there...

and these Natural resources like the country's oil, and aluminum, and natural gas that he is being given a monthly cut by the Oligarchs put in place by him to run the businesses, when under sanctions, hurts him personally in the pocketbook...

thus the whole effort by Putin to put in place, a President in the USA that he believed would lift the sanctions.

 

[mudwhistle]

Let's face facts. Not only was Hitlery caught using a private server, but she was using that server to pass along TS information.

HOGWASH

no such thing was ever said, nor was she ever in a million years accused of such.

You are such a liar.

Of course she's been accused of it, you fucking liar. Over and over and over again.

And yes, it has been said. Over and over and over again.

Fucking lying piece of filth.

"An FBI examination of Clinton's server found over 100 emails containing classified information, including 65 emails deemed "Secret" and 22 deemed "Top Secret". An additional 2,093 emails not marked classified were retroactively classified by the State Department."

Hillary Clinton email controversy - Wikipedia

She did not use her server to pass along top secret information to the enemy or in any kind of espionage way... her staff, who are the ones who were passing secret information back and forth about the drone program, all had TOP SECRET clearance.... they passed this information from their emails, to her.... in some cases, 2 years of them sending emails along to each other before they ever even sent it to her.

And yes, her staff was sending emails back and forth on secret info, but NONE of it was taken from its Proper Place.... none was from the gvt's top secret/secret files and server that held them, it was her staff simply discussing things....with each other.... loose lips for certain, but not taken from some secure server.

When she allowed that information to reside on her unsecured server, she was allowing information to be vulnerable that she was responsible to protect. Not really different from receiving a classified transmission on paper and leaving it on top of her desk in an unlocked office. True, it might not be found, but it's still negligence.

no doubt her staff and she was careless or negligent if you insist, but not the level of being GROSS negligence of the espionage act...

Using your example, Gross negligence, would have been leaving stacks of top secret papers, gotten from its PROPER storing place from the gvt's top secret server, and leaving them on a table in a Chinese Restaurant or in a Russian Embassy.

the Gross Negligence law in the espionage act requires the high level of negligence that I described.

Gross negligence is easy to define. The DoJ simply changed the definition....in Hillary's case.
But it goes beyond negligence in her case.
She went against the law and set up a private server to avoid detection. This is Espionage. She passed classified information on an unsecured device. Mishandling classified information. Then she destroyed evidence when they couldn't avoid it anymore. Obstruction of Justice. Then she lied under oath in front of Congress. Perjury.

These are just the crimes we know of and have evidence of.

 

[Marion Morrison]

Supposedly the Mueller Report says that there was no "collusion".

So why did all those people lie...about Russia and meetings with Russians?

Flynn
Pence
Don Jr
Kushner
Sessions
Papadopolous
Trump himself
I'm sure I missed a few...

Russia is a third rate economic power run by a Mafia cartel that has a second rate military and nukes. Putin is desperately trying to foment social discord and political discord, trying to break up the EU, backed right wing fascist groups in France, Eastern Europe, Spain, and throughout the world...

These people didn't lie about meetings with France. They didn't even lie about meetings with China (that we know of). They lied about Russia.

Why?

Some have said that these people are simply liars. They lie about everything. That in ITSELF is a problem but more than that...it's always Russia

WHY?

Hopefully the Mueller report answers that question

Not only that, we KNOW Trump Sr. wrote a letting aboard Air Force One for Don Jr.

Since the letter was supposed to hide collusion with Russia AND lie to the American people, it was both collusion and obstruction.

It's so obvious, who can't see it.

Off we go into the wild blue yonder....Crippled Ken has his pension to worry about! Russia is suffering for the death of over fifty million people in the 1930's and 1940's. You guys are the results of the warnings of Joe McCarthy. You are the Marxist Soviets who are pizzed at a former Soviet KGB agent when the Soviet Union existed, who is now a strong armed leader of a free and sovereign Russian nation.

He, (Putin) stole all of your Natural Resources in your country and divided them up and gave them to newly made Oligarchs, chosen by who gave Putin the largest cut of profits, under the table.

Why do you think Putin is the Richest Man in the Entire World, while only being paid $100 grand a year for his government job?

And you call this a FREE Nation? And praise him, for ROBBING HIS CITIZENS blind and keeping the most of them in poverty?

If you'rtalking about Putin, yeah, he owns Russia. I guess that means he has some skin in the game for them.

He stole what he owns in Russia, from the people who live there...

and these Natural resources like the country's oil, and aluminum, and natural gas that he is being given a monthly cut by the Oligarchs put in place by him to run the businesses, when under sanctions, hurts him personally in the pocketbook...

thus the whole effort by Putin to put in place, a President in the USA that he believed would lift the sanctions.

I know the 1st part is true..the 2nd part, not so much. If anything, Hillary was already in bed with Russia.

 

[Lesh]

If you'rtalking about Putin, yeah, he owns Russia. I guess that means he has some skin in the game for them.

WTF? He STOLE the National Treasury of Russia..and protecting those spoils is your idea of "skin in the game"?

Funny man

 

[Lesh]

And yet we have Kushner and Ivanka STILL using private e-mail and phones...

It's not like they weren't aware of the issue.

They don't CARE and they know Trump's BASE doesn't really care.

The e-mail thing was nothing but a weapon to attack Hillary with. They know that weapon would never be turned on them

Gross negligence is easy to define. The DoJ simply changed the definition....in Hillary's case.
But it goes beyond negligence in her case.
She went against the law and set up a private server to avoid detection. This is Espionage. She passed classified information on an unsecured device. Mishandling classified information. Then she destroyed evidence when they couldn't avoid it anymore. Obstruction of Justice. Then she lied under oath in front of Congress. Perjury.

Oh...

 

[Marion Morrison]

If you'rtalking about Putin, yeah, he owns Russia. I guess that means he has some skin in the game for them.

WTF? He STOLE the National Treasury of Russia..and protecting those spoils is your idea of "skin in the game"?

Funny man

I ain't wrong.

What Putin did may not be right, but I ain't wrong.

 

[Crepitus]

They lied to Congress

They lied to the FBI

They lied to the American people.

They risked JAIL for these lies.

Why would they do that?

Perhaps some zanax would help you and stop watching cnn the lying network .

Supposedly the Mueller Report says that there was no "collusion".

So why did all those people lie...about Russia and meetings with Russians?

Flynn
Pence
Don Jr
Kushner
Sessions
Papadopolous
Trump himself
I'm sure I missed a few...

Russia is a third rate economic power run by a Mafia cartel that has a second rate military and nukes. Putin is desperately trying to foment social discord and political discord, trying to break up the EU, backed right wing fascist groups in France, Eastern Europe, Spain, and throughout the world...

These people didn't lie about meetings with France. They didn't even lie about meetings with China (that we know of). They lied about Russia.

Why?

Some have said that these people are simply liars. They lie about everything. That in ITSELF is a problem but more than that...it's always Russia

WHY?

Hopefully the Mueller report answers that question

To hide their cooperation with them.

The Mueller report is a shame, the investigation a fake at least in the end. I suppose it's possible Barr shut it down and dictated the conclusions, but I really think it was never meant to go anywhere to start with.

Supposedly the Mueller Report says that there was no "collusion".

So why did all those people lie...about Russia and meetings with Russians?

Flynn
Pence
Don Jr
Kushner
Sessions
Papadopolous
Trump himself
I'm sure I missed a few...

Russia is a third rate economic power run by a Mafia cartel that has a second rate military and nukes. Putin is desperately trying to foment social discord and political discord, trying to break up the EU, backed right wing fascist groups in France, Eastern Europe, Spain, and throughout the world...

These people didn't lie about meetings with France. They didn't even lie about meetings with China (that we know of). They lied about Russia.

Why?

Some have said that these people are simply liars. They lie about everything. That in ITSELF is a problem but more than that...it's always Russia

WHY?

Hopefully the Mueller report answers that question

To hide their cooperation with them.

The Mueller report is a shame, the investigation a fake at least in the end. I suppose it's possible Barr shut it down and dictated the conclusions, but I really think it was never meant to go anywhere to start with.

Your really butt hurt my my lets face it you wouldnt be happy unless a judge wearing a kangaroo costume with a jury all wearing hillary costumes found trump guilty of spitting on the side walk and he was sentenced to hanging in public on the white house lawn on election day.and steele was the hangemen and only cnn was allowed to report

What was that about my butt and your face?

My face is cute your ass is streched out so much it sounds like a train entering a tunnel

That's not what you said in the previous post.

 

[nat4900]

So you're saying it's wrong to small talk or blog with people from other countries? We aren't allowed to talk to people from Canada or any other country if we have a job in the federal government?
This isn't Russia, China, or Venezuela. This is America.

Yep......above the type of "conclusion" that a dumb, Trump ass-kisser would certainly make.....Congrats.....LOL

 

[Care4all]

HOGWASH

no such thing was ever said, nor was she ever in a million years accused of such.

You are such a liar.

Of course she's been accused of it, you fucking liar. Over and over and over again.

And yes, it has been said. Over and over and over again.

Fucking lying piece of filth.

"An FBI examination of Clinton's server found over 100 emails containing classified information, including 65 emails deemed "Secret" and 22 deemed "Top Secret". An additional 2,093 emails not marked classified were retroactively classified by the State Department."

Hillary Clinton email controversy - Wikipedia

She did not use her server to pass along top secret information to the enemy or in any kind of espionage way... her staff, who are the ones who were passing secret information back and forth about the drone program, all had TOP SECRET clearance.... they passed this information from their emails, to her.... in some cases, 2 years of them sending emails along to each other before they ever even sent it to her.

And yes, her staff was sending emails back and forth on secret info, but NONE of it was taken from its Proper Place.... none was from the gvt's top secret/secret files and server that held them, it was her staff simply discussing things....with each other.... loose lips for certain, but not taken from some secure server.

When she allowed that information to reside on her unsecured server, she was allowing information to be vulnerable that she was responsible to protect. Not really different from receiving a classified transmission on paper and leaving it on top of her desk in an unlocked office. True, it might not be found, but it's still negligence.

no doubt her staff and she was careless or negligent if you insist, but not the level of being GROSS negligence of the espionage act...

Using your example, Gross negligence, would have been leaving stacks of top secret papers, gotten from its PROPER storing place from the gvt's top secret server, and leaving them on a table in a Chinese Restaurant or in a Russian Embassy.

the Gross Negligence law in the espionage act requires the high level of negligence that I described.

Gross negligence is easy to define. The DoJ simply changed the definition....in Hillary's case.
But it goes beyond negligence in her case.
She went against the law and set up a private server to avoid detection. This is Espionage. She passed classified information on an unsecured device. Mishandling classified information. Then she destroyed evidence when they couldn't avoid it anymore. Obstruction of Justice. Then she lied under oath in front of Congress. Perjury.

These are just the crimes we know of and have evidence of.

no, you don't have that evidence

Now go start another thread on it, instead of hijacking this thread topic!!!

 

[Marion Morrison]

You foul lying skank, you said that nobody had ever suggested it ,that nobody had ever breathed it.

You're a liar and a treasonous, baby killing whore. Go back to your rock and stuff yourself under it. You are nothing but flapping cocksucking lips for the enemies of the US and humanity.

Holy shit. You're batshit crazy.

You think because some moron uttered some crazy shit in a closet somewhere that it vindicates your insane accusations?

Oh...

You must be a care sock, you're trying to float the same lie.

I don't believe Care socks.. nope.

 

[nat4900]

nd yet we have Kushner and Ivanka STILL using private e-mail and phones...

It's not like they weren't aware of the issue.

They don't CARE and they know Trump's BASE doesn't really care.

The e-mail thing was nothing but a weapon to attack Hillary with. They know that weapon would never be turned on them

After their daddy's campaign chant of "lock her up"......one would think that the kiddies would be a bit more careful..........BUT, when these self-centered idiots think that they're above ANY law because they have morons who have joined their cult......one would guess that they feel immune; laws are for the "little people."

 

[Care4all]

HOGWASH

no such thing was ever said, nor was she ever in a million years accused of such.

You are such a liar.

Of course she's been accused of it, you fucking liar. Over and over and over again.

And yes, it has been said. Over and over and over again.

Fucking lying piece of filth.

"An FBI examination of Clinton's server found over 100 emails containing classified information, including 65 emails deemed "Secret" and 22 deemed "Top Secret". An additional 2,093 emails not marked classified were retroactively classified by the State Department."

Hillary Clinton email controversy - Wikipedia

She did not use her server to pass along top secret information to the enemy or in any kind of espionage way... her staff, who are the ones who were passing secret information back and forth about the drone program, all had TOP SECRET clearance.... they passed this information from their emails, to her.... in some cases, 2 years of them sending emails along to each other before they ever even sent it to her.

And yes, her staff was sending emails back and forth on secret info, but NONE of it was taken from its Proper Place.... none was from the gvt's top secret/secret files and server that held them, it was her staff simply discussing things....with each other.... loose lips for certain, but not taken from some secure server.

When she allowed that information to reside on her unsecured server, she was allowing information to be vulnerable that she was responsible to protect. Not really different from receiving a classified transmission on paper and leaving it on top of her desk in an unlocked office. True, it might not be found, but it's still negligence.

no doubt her staff and she was careless or negligent if you insist, but not the level of being GROSS negligence of the espionage act...

Using your example, Gross negligence, would have been leaving stacks of top secret papers, gotten from its PROPER storing place from the gvt's top secret server, and leaving them on a table in a Chinese Restaurant or in a Russian Embassy.

the Gross Negligence law in the espionage act requires the high level of negligence that I described.

Gross negligence is easy to define. The DoJ simply changed the definition....in Hillary's case.
But it goes beyond negligence in her case.
She went against the law and set up a private server to avoid detection. This is Espionage. She passed classified information on an unsecured device. Mishandling classified information. Then she destroyed evidence when they couldn't avoid it anymore. Obstruction of Justice. Then she lied under oath in front of Congress. Perjury.


These are just the crimes we know of and have evidence of.

NO NO NO NO NO All wrong on all accounts!

read this article please.... the WHOLE thing, then maybe you will understand the law!

Why Intent, Not Gross Negligence, is the Standard in Clinton Case


On July 5, FBI Director James Comey announced that he was not going to recommend the filing of criminal charges against Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server. Comey said there was insufficient evidence to show Clinton had malicious intent. Comey reasoned:

All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information, or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct, or indications of disloyalty to the United States… We do not see those things here.

Many commentators have criticized Comey’s decision, arguing the statute Clinton was accused of violating, 18 U.S.C. § 793(f), requires only “gross negligence,” not intent. Former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy has gone so far as to say that replacing the words “gross negligence” with “intent” rewrites that statute to serve political ends.

McCarthy and others are mistaken. The issue of mens rea, or intent, is not as simple as it seems on the surface, and intent is the correct standard. Comey was right not to recommend filing charges and to base his decision on the absence of evidence that Clinton had the necessary intent.

Section 793(f) makes it a felony for any person “entrusted with… information relating to the national defense” to allow that information to be “removed from its proper place of custody” through “gross negligence.” On its face, the law does not appear to require intent, but it turns out the key phrase in 793(f) is not “gross negligence.” The key phrase is “related to the national defense.”

Section 793(f) is a subsection of the Espionage Act, a controversial statute enacted during World War I in order to combat efforts by German agents to undermine the American war effort. The Act has been amended and renumbered many times, but its core provisions have not substantively changed. The Espionage Act has only sparingly been used to file criminal charges, but when it has been used it is often in high-profile cases. Eugene Debs was jailed under the Espionage Act for anti-war activities during World War I. The Rosenbergs were charged under the Espionage Act when they sold nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. More recently, both Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden were charged under the Espionage Act for providing classified material to WikiLeaks.

The law has been controversial since its inception and prosecutions under the Act have been challenged as unconstitutional in several instances. The most famous of these cases is probably Schenck v. United States (1919), where the government charged two men with obstructing registration for the military draft by distributing leaflets urging young men not to register. The Supreme Court heard the case and unanimously upheld the convictions and the statute. It was in Schenck that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously wrote that it is not protected speech to “yell fire in a crowded theater.”

But as time went by, feeling towards the Espionage Act began to sour. Later in 1919, the Supreme Court heard Abrams v. United States. That case involved the distribution of leaflets by anarchists who urged factory workers to refuse to participate in production of war materiel. In Abrams, the Court again upheld the convictions, but this time the decision was not unanimous. Holmes, who had written the majority opinion in Schenck, was one of the dissenters. Two years later, the Sedition Act, a 1918 amendment to the Espionage Act that imposed criminal sanctions for anti-war speech, was repealed by Congress in its entirety.

The Espionage Act was left on the books, however, in the years after the war it was used only sparingly. When it was used, it was often controversial because it resulted in prosecutions that civil libertarians believed infringed on press freedom and the right to political protest. Perhaps the most famous of these cases is the prosecution of Daniel Ellsberg for leaking the Pentagon papers The courts too grew wary of the Espionage Act and as a result their readings of it narrowed the scope of the law and limited when it could be used.

This helps provide context as to why James Comey insisted that intent was required to satisfy the requirement of 793(f). Even though the plain language of the statute reads “gross negligence,” the Supreme Court has essentially rewritten the statue to require intent to sustain a conviction.

In Gorin v. United States (1941), the Supreme Court heard a challenge to a conviction of a Navy intelligence official who sold classified material to the Soviet Union on Japanese intelligence operations in the United States. In that case, the defendant was charged with selling information “relating to the national defense” to a foreign power. The defendant argued on appeal that the phrase “relating to the national defense” was unconstitutionally vague, so much so that the defendant was deprived of the ability to predetermine whether his actions were a crime.

Justice Stanley Reed wrote the majority opinion and disagreed that the law was unconstitutionally vague, but only on the very narrow grounds that the law required “intent or reason to believe that the information to be obtained is to be used to the injury of the United States.” Only because the court read the law to require scienter, or bad faith, before a conviction could be sustained was the law constitutional. Otherwise, it would be too difficult for a defendant to know when exactly material related to the national defense. The court made clear that if the law criminalized the simple mishandling of classified information, it would not survive constitutional scrutiny, writing:

The sections are not simple prohibitions against obtaining or delivering to foreign powers information… relating to national defense. If this were the language, it would need to be tested by the inquiry as to whether it had double meaning or forced anyone, at his peril, to speculate as to whether certain actions violated the statute.

In other words, the defendant had to intend for his conduct to benefit a foreign power for his actions to violate 793(f).

Without the requirement of intent, the phrase “relating to the national defense” would be unconstitutionally vague. This reading of the statute has guided federal prosecutors ever since, which is why Comey based his decision not to file charges on Clinton’s lack of intent. This is also why no one has ever been convicted of violating 793(f) on a gross negligence theory.

Only one person has even been charged under a gross negligence theory: FBI Agent James Smith. Smith carried on a 20-year affair with a Chinese national who was suspected of spying for Beijing, and Smith would bring classified material to their trysts, behavior far more reckless than anything Clinton is accused of. But Smith was not convicted of violating 793(f). He struck a plea agreement that resulted in a conviction to the lesser charge of lying to federal agents. Smith was sentenced to three months of home confinement and served no jail time.

Members of the U.S. military have been charged with the negligent mishandling of classified material, but not under 793(f). Criminal charges in military court are brought under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, not the Espionage Act (although violations of the Espionage Act can be charged under Article 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in military court). The military has extensive regulations that govern the handling of classified material and the failure to follow these regulations is a criminal offense. Negligence can result in a conviction under Article 92 because the test is whether the service member “knew or should have known” they were violating the regulation. But these rules do not apply to any civilian personnel at the State Department and can only be applied to DoD civilians in very limited circumstances.

Despite what may appear to be the plain meaning of 793(f), the negligent mishandling of classified material is not a civilian criminal offense. A civilian can face many consequences for negligently mishandling classified material, including the loss of their clearance and probably with it their employment, but they would not face criminal charges. For anyone who thinks negligence should be a crime their argument is not with Director Comey but with Justice Reed, the author of the Gorin opinion. Because of that decision, the correct standard is intent, not gross negligence, and the director was right not to recommend a criminal case.



John Ford is a former military prosecutor and a current reserve U.S. Army Judge Advocate. He now practices law in California. You can follow him on twitter at @johndouglasford.

 

[mudwhistle]

So you're saying it's wrong to small talk or blog with people from other countries? We aren't allowed to talk to people from Canada or any other country if we have a job in the federal government?
This isn't Russia, China, or Venezuela. This is America.

Yep......above the type of "conclusion" that a dumb, Trump ass-kisser would certainly make.....Congrats.....LOL

I'm just by the facts as presented, not reading into it the way you are.

 

[koshergrl]

You are such a liar.

Of course she's been accused of it, you fucking liar. Over and over and over again.

And yes, it has been said. Over and over and over again.

Fucking lying piece of filth.

"An FBI examination of Clinton's server found over 100 emails containing classified information, including 65 emails deemed "Secret" and 22 deemed "Top Secret". An additional 2,093 emails not marked classified were retroactively classified by the State Department."

Hillary Clinton email controversy - Wikipedia

She did not use her server to pass along top secret information to the enemy or in any kind of espionage way... her staff, who are the ones who were passing secret information back and forth about the drone program, all had TOP SECRET clearance.... they passed this information from their emails, to her.... in some cases, 2 years of them sending emails along to each other before they ever even sent it to her.

And yes, her staff was sending emails back and forth on secret info, but NONE of it was taken from its Proper Place.... none was from the gvt's top secret/secret files and server that held them, it was her staff simply discussing things....with each other.... loose lips for certain, but not taken from some secure server.

When she allowed that information to reside on her unsecured server, she was allowing information to be vulnerable that she was responsible to protect. Not really different from receiving a classified transmission on paper and leaving it on top of her desk in an unlocked office. True, it might not be found, but it's still negligence.

no doubt her staff and she was careless or negligent if you insist, but not the level of being GROSS negligence of the espionage act...

Using your example, Gross negligence, would have been leaving stacks of top secret papers, gotten from its PROPER storing place from the gvt's top secret server, and leaving them on a table in a Chinese Restaurant or in a Russian Embassy.

the Gross Negligence law in the espionage act requires the high level of negligence that I described.

Gross negligence is easy to define. The DoJ simply changed the definition....in Hillary's case.
But it goes beyond negligence in her case.
She went against the law and set up a private server to avoid detection. This is Espionage. She passed classified information on an unsecured device. Mishandling classified information. Then she destroyed evidence when they couldn't avoid it anymore. Obstruction of Justice. Then she lied under oath in front of Congress. Perjury.


These are just the crimes we know of and have evidence of.

NO NO NO NO NO All wrong on all accounts!

read this article please.... the WHOLE thing, then maybe you will understand the law!

Why Intent, Not Gross Negligence, is the Standard in Clinton Case


On July 5, FBI Director James Comey announced that he was not going to recommend the filing of criminal charges against Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server. Comey said there was insufficient evidence to show Clinton had malicious intent. Comey reasoned:

All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information, or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct, or indications of disloyalty to the United States… We do not see those things here.

Many commentators have criticized Comey’s decision, arguing the statute Clinton was accused of violating, 18 U.S.C. § 793(f), requires only “gross negligence,” not intent. Former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy has gone so far as to say that replacing the words “gross negligence” with “intent” rewrites that statute to serve political ends.

McCarthy and others are mistaken. The issue of mens rea, or intent, is not as simple as it seems on the surface, and intent is the correct standard. Comey was right not to recommend filing charges and to base his decision on the absence of evidence that Clinton had the necessary intent.

Section 793(f) makes it a felony for any person “entrusted with… information relating to the national defense” to allow that information to be “removed from its proper place of custody” through “gross negligence.” On its face, the law does not appear to require intent, but it turns out the key phrase in 793(f) is not “gross negligence.” The key phrase is “related to the national defense.”

Section 793(f) is a subsection of the Espionage Act, a controversial statute enacted during World War I in order to combat efforts by German agents to undermine the American war effort. The Act has been amended and renumbered many times, but its core provisions have not substantively changed. The Espionage Act has only sparingly been used to file criminal charges, but when it has been used it is often in high-profile cases. Eugene Debs was jailed under the Espionage Act for anti-war activities during World War I. The Rosenbergs were charged under the Espionage Act when they sold nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. More recently, both Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden were charged under the Espionage Act for providing classified material to WikiLeaks.

The law has been controversial since its inception and prosecutions under the Act have been challenged as unconstitutional in several instances. The most famous of these cases is probably Schenck v. United States (1919), where the government charged two men with obstructing registration for the military draft by distributing leaflets urging young men not to register. The Supreme Court heard the case and unanimously upheld the convictions and the statute. It was in Schenck that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously wrote that it is not protected speech to “yell fire in a crowded theater.”

But as time went by, feeling towards the Espionage Act began to sour. Later in 1919, the Supreme Court heard Abrams v. United States. That case involved the distribution of leaflets by anarchists who urged factory workers to refuse to participate in production of war materiel. In Abrams, the Court again upheld the convictions, but this time the decision was not unanimous. Holmes, who had written the majority opinion in Schenck, was one of the dissenters. Two years later, the Sedition Act, a 1918 amendment to the Espionage Act that imposed criminal sanctions for anti-war speech, was repealed by Congress in its entirety.

The Espionage Act was left on the books, however, in the years after the war it was used only sparingly. When it was used, it was often controversial because it resulted in prosecutions that civil libertarians believed infringed on press freedom and the right to political protest. Perhaps the most famous of these cases is the prosecution of Daniel Ellsberg for leaking the Pentagon papers The courts too grew wary of the Espionage Act and as a result their readings of it narrowed the scope of the law and limited when it could be used.

This helps provide context as to why James Comey insisted that intent was required to satisfy the requirement of 793(f). Even though the plain language of the statute reads “gross negligence,” the Supreme Court has essentially rewritten the statue to require intent to sustain a conviction.

In Gorin v. United States (1941), the Supreme Court heard a challenge to a conviction of a Navy intelligence official who sold classified material to the Soviet Union on Japanese intelligence operations in the United States. In that case, the defendant was charged with selling information “relating to the national defense” to a foreign power. The defendant argued on appeal that the phrase “relating to the national defense” was unconstitutionally vague, so much so that the defendant was deprived of the ability to predetermine whether his actions were a crime.

Justice Stanley Reed wrote the majority opinion and disagreed that the law was unconstitutionally vague, but only on the very narrow grounds that the law required “intent or reason to believe that the information to be obtained is to be used to the injury of the United States.” Only because the court read the law to require scienter, or bad faith, before a conviction could be sustained was the law constitutional. Otherwise, it would be too difficult for a defendant to know when exactly material related to the national defense. The court made clear that if the law criminalized the simple mishandling of classified information, it would not survive constitutional scrutiny, writing:

The sections are not simple prohibitions against obtaining or delivering to foreign powers information… relating to national defense. If this were the language, it would need to be tested by the inquiry as to whether it had double meaning or forced anyone, at his peril, to speculate as to whether certain actions violated the statute.

In other words, the defendant had to intend for his conduct to benefit a foreign power for his actions to violate 793(f).

Without the requirement of intent, the phrase “relating to the national defense” would be unconstitutionally vague. This reading of the statute has guided federal prosecutors ever since, which is why Comey based his decision not to file charges on Clinton’s lack of intent. This is also why no one has ever been convicted of violating 793(f) on a gross negligence theory.

Only one person has even been charged under a gross negligence theory: FBI Agent James Smith. Smith carried on a 20-year affair with a Chinese national who was suspected of spying for Beijing, and Smith would bring classified material to their trysts, behavior far more reckless than anything Clinton is accused of. But Smith was not convicted of violating 793(f). He struck a plea agreement that resulted in a conviction to the lesser charge of lying to federal agents. Smith was sentenced to three months of home confinement and served no jail time.

Members of the U.S. military have been charged with the negligent mishandling of classified material, but not under 793(f). Criminal charges in military court are brought under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, not the Espionage Act (although violations of the Espionage Act can be charged under Article 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in military court). The military has extensive regulations that govern the handling of classified material and the failure to follow these regulations is a criminal offense. Negligence can result in a conviction under Article 92 because the test is whether the service member “knew or should have known” they were violating the regulation. But these rules do not apply to any civilian personnel at the State Department and can only be applied to DoD civilians in very limited circumstances.

Despite what may appear to be the plain meaning of 793(f), the negligent mishandling of classified material is not a civilian criminal offense. A civilian can face many consequences for negligently mishandling classified material, including the loss of their clearance and probably with it their employment, but they would not face criminal charges. For anyone who thinks negligence should be a crime their argument is not with Director Comey but with Justice Reed, the author of the Gorin opinion. Because of that decision, the correct standard is intent, not gross negligence, and the director was right not to recommend a criminal case.



John Ford is a former military prosecutor and a current reserve U.S. Army Judge Advocate. He now practices law in California. You can follow him on twitter at @johndouglasford.

Remember when you said nobody had ever even implied that Hills had shared top secret information on her server?
I do.
It was yesterday.

You're a fucking lying piece of shit.

 

[koshergrl]

So you're saying it's wrong to small talk or blog with people from other countries? We aren't allowed to talk to people from Canada or any other country if we have a job in the federal government?
This isn't Russia, China, or Venezuela. This is America.

Yep......above the type of "conclusion" that a dumb, Trump ass-kisser would certainly make.....Congrats.....LOL

I'm just by the facts as presented, not reading into it the way you are.

i.e. not making up shit and pretending it's real.

 

[playtime]

Trump Tower in Russia.

No Trump Tower in Russia. That was cooked up by Lanny Davis.

trump signed a letter of intent for that very same moscow tower.

so? is that illegal? show me the statute he violated.

i never said it was illegal............ i am pointing out the big fat lie that there was 'No Trump Tower. That was cooked up by Lanny Davis'.

Not sure your point?

i am quoting tipseycatlover who said there was no such endeavor to build a trump tower in moscow. i am also pointing that is a big fat orange LIE
you seem to think i claimed it was illegal to have such an endeavor. i didn't not say that cause it isn't illegal.

get it? got it? good. now fuck off.

 

[jc456]

No Trump Tower in Russia. That was cooked up by Lanny Davis.

trump signed a letter of intent for that very same moscow tower.

so? is that illegal? show me the statute he violated.

i never said it was illegal............ i am pointing out the big fat lie that there was 'No Trump Tower. That was cooked up by Lanny Davis'.

Not sure your point?

i am quoting tipseycatlover who said there was no such endeavor to build a trump tower in moscow. i am also pointing that is a big fat orange LIE
you seem to think i claimed it was illegal to have such an endeavor. i didn't not say that cause it isn't illegal.

get it? got it? good. now fuck off.

well you emphasized Moscow. And last I looked Americans do business in moscow. I bet there are Mickey D's there.

 

[playtime]

trump signed a letter of intent for that very same moscow tower.

so? is that illegal? show me the statute he violated.

i never said it was illegal............ i am pointing out the big fat lie that there was 'No Trump Tower. That was cooked up by Lanny Davis'.

Not sure your point?

i am quoting tipseycatlover who said there was no such endeavor to build a trump tower in moscow. i am also pointing that is a big fat orange LIE
you seem to think i claimed it was illegal to have such an endeavor. i didn't not say that cause it isn't illegal.

get it? got it? good. now fuck off.

well you emphasized Moscow. And last I looked Americans do business in moscow. I bet there are Mickey D's there.

good. they can all die from heart disease too.

 

[Lesh]

Remember when you said nobody had ever even implied that Hills had shared top secret information on her server?
I do.
It was yesterday.

And who did that?

Some moron blogging from Mom's basement?

Oh