FBI, defense contractors and hedge funds

I've been curious about why FBI director James Comey reached the decision he did based on the evidence he described. For example, it's unbelievable that although Hillary destroyed 30,000 emails that, by statute, should have been public records, in such a way that they could never be recovered, in a scenario when she had violated several national security statutes, and this is not considered obstruction of justice.

I was also curious about why Comey, the #2 Justice Department official under George Bush, would be appointed FBI director by Barack Obama.

So I looked into Comey's background. The Wikipedia entry is pretty straightforward, except it doesn't mention the Clinton Foundation connections to the companies Comey worked for. He left DOJ to become General Counsel for Lockheed Martin, and then left Lockheed to become General Counsel at Bridgewater, one of the largest hedge funds in the world, where he made over $33 million in 2012 alone. In 2013 Obama appointed him head of the FBI.

This stuff is more corrupt than a Robert Ludlum novel.

James Brien Comey, Jr. (born December 14, 1960) is an American lawyer. He is the seventh and current Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

He was the United States Deputy Attorney General, serving in President George W. Bush's administration. As Deputy Attorney General, Comey was the second-highest-ranking official in the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and ran the day-to-day operations of the Department, serving in that office from December 2003 through August 2005. He was U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York prior to becoming Deputy Attorney General.

In December 2003, as Deputy Attorney General, Comey appointed the U.S. Attorney in Chicago, close friend and former colleague Patrick Fitzgerald, as Special Counsel to head the CIA leak grand jury investigation after Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself. In August 2005, Comey left the DOJ and he became General Counsel and Senior Vice President of Lockheed Martin. In 2010, he became General Counsel at Bridgewater Associates. In early 2013, he left Bridgewater to become Senior Research Scholar and Hertog Fellow on National Security Law at Columbia Law School. He also joined the London-based board of directors of HSBC Holdings. In 2013, Comey was appointed as the director of the FBI by President Barack Obama.

One web page summarized the situation as follows:

The FBI and Justice Department have stubbornly refused to prosecute heinous criminal acts of the Obama Administration. They include Benghazi, Fast and Furious gun running, Hillary’s private server, 2008 bank bailout, social networking patent theft, illegal NSA snooping, energy company subsidies, IRS targeting of conservatives, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) confiscations, baby parts trafficking, LIBOR rigging, open borders, overstayed visas of more than one million people, religious persecution and so on.

More equal

Orwell said it best in Animal Farm:

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

As is often the case, zerohedge gets real:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-05/peak-fbi-corruption-meet-bryan-nishimura-found-guilty-removal-and-retention-classifi

Peak FBI Corruption? Meet Bryan Nishimura, Found Guilty For "Removal And Retention Of Classified Materials"

In a scandalous announcement, FBI director James Comey moments ago said that "although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information" and he gave extensive evidence of just that, "our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case." He added that "prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before bringing charges. There are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent. Responsible decisions also consider the context of a person’s actions, and how similar situations have been handled in the past."

What is shocking is that the FBI director was clearly ignoring the US code itself, where in Section 793, subsection (f),"Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information", it makes it quite clear that intent is not a key consideration in a case like this when deciding to press charges, to wit:

Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer— Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

What is even more shocking is that according to Comey, "we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts."

Well, we did. Here is the FBI itself, less than a year ago, charging one Bryan H. Nishimura, 50, of Folsom, who pleaded guilty to "unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials"without malicious intent, in other words precisely what the FBI alleges Hillary did (h/t@DavidSirota):

U.S. Magistrate Judge Kendall J. Newman immediately sentenced Nishimura to two years of probation, a $7,500 fine, and forfeiture of personal media containing classified materials. Nishimura was further ordered to surrender any currently held security clearance and to never again seek such a clearance.

According to court documents, Nishimura was a Naval reservist deployed in Afghanistan in 2007 and 2008. In his role as a Regional Engineer for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, Nishimura had access to classified briefings and digital records that could only be retained and viewed on authorized government computers. Nishimura, however, caused the materials to be downloaded and stored on his personal, unclassified electronic devices and storage media. He carried such classified materials on his unauthorized media when he traveled off-base in Afghanistan and, ultimately, carried those materials back to the United States at the end of his deployment. In the United States, Nishimura continued to maintain the information on unclassified systems in unauthorized locations, and copied the materials onto at least one additional unauthorized and unclassified system.

Nishimura’s actions came to light in early 2012, when he admitted to Naval personnel that he had handled classified materials inappropriately. Nishimura later admitted that, following his statement to Naval personnel, he destroyed a large quantity of classified materials he had maintained in his home. Despite that, when the Federal Bureau of Investigation searched Nishimura’s home in May 2012, agents recovered numerous classified materials in digital and hard copy forms.The investigation did not reveal evidence that Nishimura intended to distribute classified information to unauthorized personnel.

This case was the product of an investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant United States Attorney Jean M. Hobler prosecuted the case

Here is Nishimura, this man charged after committing the same crimess as Hillary:

It doesn't end there.

Here is former FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker who told CNBC moments ago, that in his view Comey should have brought charges as "he seemed to be building a case for that and he laid out what I thought were the elements under the gross negligence aspect of it, so I was very surprised at the end when he said that there was a recommendation of no prosecution and also given the fact-based nature of this and the statement that no reasonable prosecutor would entertain prosecution, I don't think that's the standard."

His conclusion: "The facts are the facts, and in this case I think there are a lot of things that are very unusual about this."

And then there is Ian Bremmer who said that "it's very clear that in trying to make it go away actually lied, repeatedly, about whether or not these materials were classified at the time. And it's the cover up frequently that gets people in trouble, it's not the actual misdeed. This was very badly mishandled by Hillary all the way through."

But then she got some much needed help from the FBI to complete the cover up.

In retrospect, perhaps former Attorney General Eric Holder said it best when he justified with the US DOJ simply refuses to bring up criminal cases against those it deems "too big to prosecute": 

if you do bring a criminal charge it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps world economy

And just like that, Hillary is "systemically important", if mostly for her countless Wall Street donors.

The ministry of Truth on Trump

Trump: "I want to secure the border and follow immigration laws."

Media response: Trump is a racist, sexist, homophobe, Islamaphobe, bigot, fascist.

Trump: "I want to make good trade deals to bring jobs back to America."

Media response: Trump is a racist, sexist, homophobe, Islamaphobe, bigot, fascist.

Trump: "I want to make America Great Again."

Media response: Trump is a racist, sexist, homophobe, Islamaphobe, bigot, fascist.

From a comment on http://spectator.org/64643_when-trump-fought-racists/

The article describes how Trump fought the establishment in Palm Beach because he allowed Jews and Blacks into his club when they were barred from other clubs.