Explaining Hillary's Sin to The Post

I don't know what it is about Hillary Clinton's defenders that protects them from the truth, or of seeking the truth, regarding her use of a private server and private, non-secure email address to communicate classified information -- as of today, well over 2,000 such emails, ranging up to levels beyond Top Secret.

Ruth Marcus, in Wednesday's Washington Post, is a perfect example.  Her op-ed piece was as much about the need to get information out to the public on the investigation, as it was about the actual offense but even so, she can't help flash her ignorance.  Early on in the piece, she drops this one on unwary readers:

"There is a school of people — a big school, judging from my email — for whom there are only two possibilities:

Either Clinton is charged with a crime for mishandling classified information on her private server — an outcome, this group thinks, that should be devastatingly obvious to anyone with half a brain. Or the Justice Department will squelch the indictment out of a politically motivated desire to protect the likely Democratic presidential nominee. The only disagreement here involves whether Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch will act on her own or under orders from President Obama."
 

Here is the thing.  It is the reference to her mishandling classified information (which should read "exposing national secrets, as an indirect part of a criminal effort to protect her communications from legitimate FOIA inquiries").  In Mrs. Marcus's words, we "indict-Hillary" folks feel it should be obvious that she should be indicted to anyone "with half a brain."

But it isn't about intellect here; it is about intelligence -- in the "seeking information" meaning.  In other words, it is not just that we are smart that we are calling for her indictment, it is because we understand the laws governing the handling of classified information, and others -- specifically including Ruth Marcus -- apparently do not.

I have written this time after time.  People who handle such information are instructed each and every year on how to handle such information.  Every individual with a clearance is re-instructed, each and every year, as a requirement to hold a clearance.  That included Hillary Clinton.  And the instructions specifically warn you not to do what Hillary Clinton did, and that it is a Federal offense to do what she did.

Ruth Marcus is looking for all the wiggle room she can find in an absurd defense of the indefensible actions of the former first lady.  I get that; indictment would not be a good thing for liberals, including reporters and columnists at the Post.  But there is a difference among people, and it is not between those who have at least half a brain and those who don't.

No, the difference is between those who actually hold clearance to handle classified information and those who do not.  The former know the law because they are taught it first and re-taught it every year.  The latter, like Ruth Marcus, are not.  This apparently gives them "clearance" to try to minimize an offense about whose details and whose laws they are completely unfamiliar.

Every single American with a clearance knows what she did and that she should be indicted.  The FBI investigators are equally familiar with the rules, which is why information has been occasionally leaked out to ensure that we are all aware of what she did, and that those familiar with the law see at once that she acted criminally.  The FBI agents are not going to be corrupted, but will seek the facts -- and they know the law.  And they will not be happy if a lawbreaker is politically protected.

It would be a heck of a good idea if Ruth Marcus would traipse over to a Federal agency or contractor site and get a briefing on the actual law, the exact one given all the time to those who handle classified information.  I'd like to think she is honorable enough to gasp loudly by the end of the briefing and say -- and write -- what we all know:

Hillary Clinton clearly violated Federal law and should be indicted.  Promptly.


Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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