I was a federal agent for over a decade. During that time, I was the lead investigator in a number of federal criminal-investigations. In my experience, I have never seen or heard about a criminal case handled like the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Here are just a few of the puzzling anomalies that should leave you scratching your head:
- Why is the FBI seizing computers now from the Weiner household and why didn't they seize all of the potentially incriminating evidence at the start of the investigation? If it was a genuine investigation into the transfer of classified information electronically, and otherwise, why not seize ALL of the computers from the start? I used to enjoy working counterfeit currency cases and cannot imagine a scenario where we would initiate a counterfeit investigation but NOT seize the counterfeit printing devices. It’s illogical.
- Why agree to forgo prosecuting potential co-conspirators Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin — and destroy the computer evidence they possess — before charging them with a crime? That's not the way the process works. In order to build leverage against a criminal conspirator, a federal agent would typically draw up a federal complaint or seek an indictment. Second, an agent would get an arrest warrant from a judge pursuant to a probable cause ruling and then, AFTER THE ARREST, he or she would ask if the arrested individual wished to cooperate, potentially using their cooperation against co-conspirators. Third, if the cooperation is substantive, then a 5k letter is issued to a judge, which indicates the subject's level of cooperation and how that should be considered in sentencing the cooperating defendant. None of that was done in this case. They essentially said to Hillary's co-conspirators, “Help us, pretty please, or else we’ll have to ask you again.”
- Why would you allow a co-conspirator in a criminal case to act as a lawyer for another co-conspirator? There is NO attorney-client privilege if the attorney is a part of the investigation. Allowing Cheryl Mills in the room for the questioning of Hillary Clinton when Mills was also part of the investigation allowed both Clinton and Mills the opportunity to coordinate their stories. It's difficult to coordinate a false story if you're questioned separately and that's why we rarely, if ever, put multiple subjects in the same interview room.
- Why did FBI Director Comey, along with a number of Clinton campaign surrogates, insist that this investigation wasn’t worthy of prosecution due to a lack of criminal “intent”? The criminal law that Hillary Clinton and her surrogates appear to have violated, 18 USC 793, doesn’t require intent. It requires only “gross negligence” in the improper removing, handling, and transferring of classified information under section (f) of the law. Surely the FBI Director knows this. Surely Clinton’s surrogates, assuming they can read, know this as well. You should be asking yourself: If the FBI Director knows this, then why did he publicly state that the FBI was not recommending prosecution based on misleading information about the elements of the crime in question? Would you get the same deference if you committed these acts? I don’t think so, because I’ve arrested people, and seen them prosecuted, for far less.
