The Federal Records Act requires the preservation of any official “record,” which is defined functionally to require preservation whenever a record relates to the performance of a federal official’s duties. There is little question that Hillary Clinton was conducting official business on her private e-mail account...
...the law as it existed before Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state, were codified by National Archives Regulations in 2009, which required that any records created on private e-mail accounts must be saved to the federal-records system. And Congress confirmed that in 2013, by adopting a prohibition on the use of private e-mail, unless the employee forwards to or copies an official e-mail account within 60 days of the record’s creation...
...Mrs. Clinton did something here that went well beyond occasional or incidental use of private e-mail accounts. She eschewed the use of an official account entirely, and deliberately established a private e-mail account, apparently maintained on a server in the Clintons’ New York home. As a result, her e-mails were at no time during her tenure in office subject to the Federal Records Act ...
[Despite scores] of Freedom of Information Act requests that would have implicated her e-mails[,] they were never searched, even though a reasonable search of all responsive federal records must be made in response to FOIA requests. And the records would have been relevant to congressional inquiries as well, including continuing investigations of the Benghazi attacks.
Why does that matter? Well, a federal criminal law makes it a felony when any custodian of official government records “willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same.” The crime is punishable by up to three years in prison. And interestingly, Congress felt strongly enough about the crime that it included the unusual provision that the perpetrator shall “forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.”
I suspect that Lanny Davis just let loose a little dinky in his trunks.
As Flyovercountry observes, "Her crime, my fellow gentle snow flakes, had little to do with email, although that was the vehicle which she used to commit her transgression. Her crime was establishing a subpoena-proof system to hide her dealings on behalf of a public which has a legal right to know what their servant is up to, even before she held the job for which said email was to be used. She committed a covert act, three days before her confirmation hearing to cover up a crime she hadn’t even committed yet, but clearly was planning on committing in the very near future. The holder of the Guinness Wold Book of Records most sleazy crook has witnessed the exploits of Hillary Clinton and declared, “Hell’s Bells, that’s some sleazy stuff!”
Hat tip: BadBlue News
She isn't black, but she is a woman. We live in the age where politics of person trumps law. Not sure if they would arrest her no matter. Then again, she is on the skids. They eat their own at various times. The smell of blood in the water is one of those times. Still, doubtful. These are Democrats and politicians of whom we speak.
ReplyDeleteNot sure Bill would mind if she went away for a while. He wouldn't need to go on speaking tours to 'visit new and old friends'. Just invite them over for cigars and fashion shows.