In a prepared statement to the media yesterday FBI Director James Comey declared the FBI has determined “…no charges are appropriate in this case.”  He’s referring to Hillary Clinton’s private email server having been improperly used to store and communicate national security information.

So what does Director Comey’s declaration mean?  It means exactly what it says and nothing more:  The FBI does not recommend to the Department of Justice (DoJ) that any criminal complaints relating to the email server be filed or indictments sought against anyone in that matter.

Ultimately the decision to seek indictment or an arrest warrant rests entirely with the DoJ in its role as prosecuting attorney over federal laws.

If they choose, the layers of lawyers at Main Justice can accept the FBI’s recommendation, reject it, or after evaluating the results of the FBI’s investigation, direct the FBI to investigate further before DoJ makes its charging decision.

So is it over?

No.  Not until the DoJ lawyers say it’s over.  If and when the feds decide prosecution is warranted and most appropriate, it is still on the table as long as the actions commence within the statutes of limitations on the crimes alleged.

As we’ve commented in previous OpenCdA posts on this matter, criminal prosecution is not the most important or even the most desirable result of the FBI’s investigation. (more…)

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Here is the text of the entire statement FBI Director James Comey made at a press briefing a few minutes ago:

Statement by FBI Director James B. Comey on the Investigation of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s Use of a Personal E-Mail System

The Hill article titled Russian hackers stole DNC’s research on Trump reveals that, “Two separate Russian government hacking groups that did not appear to be working together infiltrated the DNC’s systems.”  “… hackers also targeted the campaigns of Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee; and Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee; as well as several GOP political action committees.”

But according to the Associated Press article titled Russian hackers breached Democratic Party’s computers, “Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state raised questions of how well her personal system was protected from intrusions; her campaign has said there’s no evidence it was breached.” [emphasis ours]

Unquestionably the Clinton private email server was targeted.   Unquestionably Clinton ordered that some and maybe all its content was erased; better yet from her viewpoint if it had been securely wiped.

Clinton is not stupid.  It seems reasonable that her effort to delete information on the server was to have also hidden  any evidence of a hostile breach as well.  The absence of evidence of hostile penetration bolsters her case which first professed there was no classified information on the server.  Evidence of hostile penetration increases the likelihood that valuable intelligence had been gleaned from her email traffic.

It is a fallacy that only classified information has value.  Open-source information, unclassified information, that reveals thought processes, personal weaknesses, chronic illnesses, behavioral disorders, medications, and personal desires and failures can often be of as much value as information with seemingly stratospheric classifications and compartments.

Some of our earlier posts on the Clinton email server issue explained the importance of the damage assessment being conducted by the Intelligence Community.

As much as Hillary Clinton hopes that little or none of the classified and compartmented information on her unlawful private email server will be retrieved by the Intelligence Community investigators, she also hopes that any evidence of outside penetration by other nations’ intelligence services will have been obliterated by her actions.  That’s part of the plan to conceal the damage her illegal use of the private email server has done to national security.  She hopes …

In a report headlined Survey:  More than half of corporate CEOs prefer Clinton over Trump, The Hill website is reporting “More than half of Fortune 500 CEOs [who responded to the survey] say they would prefer Hillary Clinton to win the White House instead of Donald Trump.”

And in a related matter, a note left scribbled on the wall of a McEuen Park porta-potty by an occasionally sober source informed OpenCdA that acting on a recommendation from the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton has engaged the services of the often used but rarely mentioned Cayman Islands consulting firm of Bakhshesh, Baksheesh, Mordida, and Hùi Lù.   Apparently the State Department Inspector General’s report about Hillary Clinton’s email server has renewed the candidate’s concern about her criminal liability.  B-B-M & H has been retained to act as Clinton’s negotiator with the US Department of Justice.