LONG ARMS OF JUSTICE NOT LONG ENOUGH
Imagine living in a world where “gross negligence” and “extremely careless” mean different things and all federal prosecutors are “reasonable.”
FBI Director James B. Comey described that odd place yesterday morning — a strange legal universe where presidential candidates are treated with kid gloves even in a system that is rife with prosecutorial overreach.
Comey said his agency would not recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server as secretary of state. He said there was no clear evidence that she “intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information.”
But Comey and his staff weren’t just looking for direct intent but rather if “through gross negligence” the emails were “removed” from their “proper place of custody.” That’s from 18 U.S.C Sec. 793(f) of the federal code, the section of federal law under which Clinton could be prosecuted.
Gross negligence means acting with a “reckless disregard for the safety or lives of others,” according to Cornell’s Legal Information Institute dictionary.
According to Comey, Clinton should have known not to have top secret conversations via her private server. And she never should have used her personal email outside the country “in the territory of sophisticated adversaries.”
Comey chastised Clinton and her staff for failing in her duties. But then he said all of that didn’t add up to a crime, even though they were “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”
What an odd choice of words. Let’s go back to the law dictionary, and look at the first definition for careless: “Negligent.”
You can grab any old dictionary to figure out that “extremely” and “grossly” are synonyms.
“Our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case,” Comey said.
Criminal defense lawyers, civil rights activists and anyone who has ever had the weight of the federal government in the opposite corner can have a good laugh at that line.
Federal prosecutors have an uncanny ability to stretch statutes to encompass crimes that may not comfortably fall under their shadow. It’s called overreach, and it isn’t a rare, subtle occurrence behind closed doors. It is exhibited in sweeping indictments that promise huge jail time for actions that may not exactly seem like federal offenses. Think federal allegations that the Walsh administration strong-armed a musical festival into hiring union stagehands.
But when it comes to Clinton, even the long arms of justice fell short.
Comey’s statement brought to mind an old, frustrating saw: Some people are outside the law’s reach even when they’re within its grasp.