OpenCDA

September 1, 2016

The ‘Co-equal’ Remedy

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: , — Bill @ 1:51 pm

HillaryFSBMany months ago I was discussing with a friend the unlikely success of Donald Trump’s and Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential runs.   Neither appeared likely to be even close to becoming his respective party’s nominee out of the conventions.

At the time however, I commented that if either Donald Trump or Senator Sanders would be his respective party’s nominee in the 2016 presidential election, my hope was that the other would also be his own party’s nominee.   Goofy as that sounds, I was serious.

My rationale was that if either Trump or Sanders was destined to be elected and inaugurated President of the United States, it would force our bicameral Congress to sober up, set aside partisan differences,  and take seriously for a change its duties to the country.   That would include using all of its various Constitutionally enumerated powers to minimize the damage either President Trump or President Sanders could do if unchecked.  That was precisely what the framers of the Constitution sought in creating three co-equal branches of government. (more…)

July 24, 2016

Oh, The Irony!

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: , , — Bill @ 12:37 pm

Hilary on SVROpen CdA wonders if our three or four loyal readers fully see the irony in the Democratic National Committee’s assertion that it was the Russians who hacked into the DNC’s emails and got embarrassing information revealing how the DNC sought to sabotage Senator Bernie Sanders’ primary campaign?

And yet if Attorney General Loretta Lynchpin and the Jefe Feeb are to be believed, they just couldn’t seem to find any indication at all that Russia’s SVR (the foreign intelligence service) or the FSB (counterintelligence) even knew about Clinton’s unsecured private email server which contained very sensitive national security information.

If it was funny, we would be laughing.  It isn’t, and we aren’t.

July 14, 2016

It’s a ‘Bigot List’

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: , — Bill @ 9:33 am

Clinton 100OpacityFox News is hyperventilating over what it calls a ‘gag order’ on the FBI agents involved in the Clinton email server investigation.  Some of the FBI employees involved in the investigation were required to sign a ‘Case Briefing Acknowledgement’ form, essentially a non-disclosure form.

This is, in fact, a practice dating back at least to World War II when it was little more than a list of persons who had been granted access to special compartments of extremely sensitive information.  It was first referred to as a ‘Bigot List’.  ‘Bigot’ was reportedly the codeword used to identify one particular compartment.  It has come to refer more broadly to a counterintelligence tool to simply keep track of who had authorized access to particularly sensitive national security information.

In his letter of July 6, 2016, to FBI Director James Comey,  Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley suggests the requirement for FBI employees to sign the acknowledgement form was done to thwart statutorily-permitted whistleblowing to Congress.  No, Chuck, it was intended to protect very sensitive national security information from unauthorized disclosure.   It was intended to remind those given access of their duty to protect that information.  Almost anyone who has been ‘read on’ for authorized access to certain types of sensitive compartmented information has signed a similar form.   That, by the way, almost certainly includes Hillary Clinton during her tenure as Secretary of State.

It is no surprise that some FBI employees were required to sign the acknowledgement.  For us on the outside who care to pay attention, it may partially reveal the reasons the FBI Director recommended to the Attorney General that Clinton not be prosecuted criminally for the various criminal violations that may have been associated with her private email server.

In its investigation of Clinton’s private email server, the FBI is between the dog and the fire hydrant.  It has two distinct roles:  criminal investigation and foreign counterintelligence.  Of the two, the latter affects our national security; the former affects Clinton’s liberty.

On criminal charges relating to the compromise of national security information, it would be horrendously challenging to secure a meaningful criminal conviction of Hillary Clinton without risking further compromise of our national security, including our ability to investigate and counteract future threats against it.

On the other hand,  removing the foreign counterintelligence violations by declining to prosecute them does not automatically preclude using evidence of non-national security crimes (e.g., perjury, bribery, lying to Congress, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, racketeering, wire and mail frauds, etc.) uncovered in the server investigation from being used in subsequent federal criminal prosecutions.  It would, however, make it more difficult for Hillary Clinton and her defense lawyers to use ‘graymail’ to impede her prosecution on federal crimes not requiring sensitive national security information or procedures as evidence.

Hillary Clinton’s continued access to national security information represents an exceptionally grave threat to the national security of the United States.  The threat it poses is in her utter indifference to her responsibilities to safeguard national security information entrusted to her.  It appears she considers national security information to be little more than another token to be exchanged to further her own attainment of political power and personal wealth.     President Obama who nominated her to be his Secretary of State and the 94 US Senators who for their own political purposes voted to confirm her share the responsibility for the damage she has done to the national security.

While many people want the satisfaction of seeing Hillary Clinton indicted, convicted, and imprisoned, the real power to forever prevent her from being able to continue further harm to the national security rests with the voters in November.  The voters can peacefully and lawfully deny her the presidency.  I’d argue that would also be a far more fitting and beneficial punishment for the harm she has done to the national security.

July 6, 2016

FBI Director’s Statement: What Does It Mean?

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: , — Bill @ 12:16 pm

Clinton 100OpacityIn 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…)

July 5, 2016

FBI Director’s Statement Regarding Clinton Email Server

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: , — Bill @ 8:38 am

Clinton 100Opacity[

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

June 30, 2016

Boy, Were We Wrong!

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: , , — Bill @ 2:00 pm

Lynch copyIn our OpenCdA posts on November 18, 2014, and December 5, 2014, we expressed our unqualified support for the US Senate to quickly confirm President Obama’s nominee, Loretta Lynch, to be the new United States Attorney General.  Our support was based on her responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee and Lynch’s performance as a straight-up US Attorney in the Eastern District of New York.

But then yesterday in a television news report from ABC15 News Arizona in Phoenix, we first learned that Attorney General Lynch and former President Bill Clinton met privately for 15 to 30 minutes on her airplane at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport.  A few more details about the meeting were in today’s online Washington Post story headlined Attorney general meets with former president Clinton amid politically charged investigation into his wife’s email.

Both Lynch and Clinton denied that anything in their conversation was inappropriate.

Maybe, but we know that Lynch is obviously an experienced federal prosecuting attorney, and Clinton was at one time a practicing attorney.  Without any doubt, both Lynch and Clinton knew any private meeting between them would create an appearance of impropriety and be a very serious breach of legal ethics and professional conduct.  Conceivably, in Clinton’s case, his conduct could rise to the level of obstruction of justice.

OpenCdA would like to believe that AG Loretta Lynch was blindsided, that neither she nor her staff had agreed in advance to meet with Clinton.  Former president Clinton is a proven liar, so we do not believe his version of this story, that he just happened to be at Sky Harbor at the same time Lynch was and that he spontaneously decided to meet with her.

Unless there had been prior coordination of such a meeting, Lynch’s security detail should have stopped Clinton at the bottom of the stairs to her aircraft.  Clinton should never have been allowed to board her aircraft.  Lynch should have instructed her staff to politely but firmly decline to allow Clinton on board to meet with her and remind him of how such a meeting would appear.   It was the AG staff’s job to politely but firmly deliver that message to Clinton.  Once the AG’s staff had informed Clinton that the AG would not meet personally with him, it became the duty of the FBI SAs on her security detail to prevent his unauthorized boarding of her aircraft, physically if necessary.

AG Loretta Lynch had the duty, the authority, and the “muscle” to prevent former president Clinton from being in a position to  compromise her objectivity and integrity in making a charging decision about Hillary Clinton.  She failed.

Lynch’s failure of duty taints any decision she might be asked to make about Hillary Clinton’s alleged criminal conduct.

OpenCdA believed that after the fetid stench of Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch would be an ethical and professional breath of fresh air at the top of the US Department of Justice.

Boy, were we wrong!

June 14, 2016

She Hopes…

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: , — Bill @ 7:30 pm

Clinton 100OpacityThe 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 …

June 1, 2016

And In a Related Matter …

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: , — Bill @ 4:54 pm

Clinton 100OpacityIn 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.

April 5, 2016

‘… left the office with a briefcase full of reports…’

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: , — Bill @ 7:05 am

Clinton 100OpacityHistorical perspective can be very educational.

The British Broadcasting Company has recently found a film of British spy Harold “Kim” Philby giving a how-to class to the East German Ministry for State Security (MfS or StaSi). after his defection to the Soviet Union.  The linked film excerpt lasts about 3-1/2 minutes and is worth watching and hearing.

The newly-found film is noteworthy not for any clever spy tradecraft it reveals but how easily Philby “…got away with treachery…” because he had been “… born into the British upper class.”  Exposing someone of his social and political prominence would have caused a scandal in Britain.

Philby reveals how at night before he left work, he simply crammed his briefcase full of secret material, left the building, delivered the material to his case officer/handler who then photographed it.  The next morning, Philby retrieved the secrets from his case officer/handler and returned them to the office with no one the wiser.

If Philby were to be resurrected and reactivated today, his briefcase might conveniently be replaced by a private email server.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905)

March 26, 2016

Lesson Learned?

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: , — Bill @ 6:50 am

Clinton 100OpacityWhat’s the lesson here?

August 2013 – US Army Private First Class Bradley [now Chelsea] Manning convicted and sentenced to 35 years in federal prison for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to Wikileaks.

March 2016 – US Navy Captain Daniel Dusek convicted and sentenced to 46 months in federal prison “… for selling military secrets to an Asian defense contractor in exchange for prostitutes, stays at luxury hotel and other favors.”

March 2015 – US Army General and former CIA Director David Patraeus accepts a plea bargain and receives no jail time for leaking classified and codeword documents to his biographer – girl friend in return for sex.

January 20, 2017 – Former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton inaugurated as 45th President of the United States after voters ignore her successful efforts to solicit millions of dollars in foreign financial contributions and her placement of classified and compartmented national security information on her illegal private email server where it could be accessed by foreign intelligence services and terrorist organizations.

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