Hillary's Free Judicial Ride: E-Mails

Gary North - September 28, 2016

This is on Cornell University's law site.

(a) Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term "office" does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.

The Snopes site pooh-poohed the suggestion that Clinton is ineligible to hold public office. We read: "A chain message claims that Hillary Clinton is disqualified from holding public office under U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2071, but the application of that law to her is doubtful." But it did not deal at all with this:

. . . shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

The central issue is criminal behavior, not eligibility to hold public office.

The key word is "obliterates," as in "wipes clean."

This is one more example of how the establishment is covering for her. If you are high enough on the totem pole, the negative sanctions do not reach you. This is true in all societies. But in her case, the failure of the Department of Justice to prosecute her is indicative of how the whole judicial system works. It's different strokes for different folks.

She got away with it. The FBI cleared her. She stayed out of jail. She tried to blame Colin Powell, whose opinions on her strategy got leaked.

We should never expect federal law to be applied to high-level politicians. That's not what it's for. It's for keeping low-level bureaucrats in check.