POLITICIANS FALL INTO TWO CLASSES: THOSE WHO LIE WITH A CONSCIENCE AND THOSE WHO LIE WITHOUT A CONSCIENCE. Those Who Lie Without A Conscience See Lying As An Art Form. To quote one previous occupant of the White House:"I tried to walk a fine line between acting lawfully and testifying falsely, but I now recognize that I did not fully accomplish this goal and that certain of my responses to questions about Ms. Lewinsky were false,"

—a quote from the Washington Post

Once Upon A Time

In a Deal, Clinton Avoids Indictment

By John F. Harris and

Bill Miller

January 20, 2001

With just hours left in office, President Clinton reached a deal with the independent counsel yesterday that ensures he will avoid indictment for his misleading statements about Monica S. Lewinsky. In exchange, Clinton offered prosecutor Robert W. Ray something he had never before been willing to give: a forthright admission that he gave false testimony under oath.

As a separate part of Clinton's effort to put the legal aftershocks of a sex scandal behind him, he reached an agreement with Arkansas authorities that spares him the humiliation of being stripped of his law license. Clinton agreed to pay $25,000 in fines and, in a symbolic penalty for a man with no plans to return to the bar, accepted a five-year suspension of his license.

"I tried to walk a fine line between acting lawfully and testifying falsely, but I now recognize that I did not fully accomplish this goal and that certain of my responses to questions about Ms. Lewinsky were false," Clinton said in a statement, which closed by saying, "I hope my actions today will bring closure and finality to these matters."

The timing was not incidental: Ray, sources said, had during weeks of negotiations insisted that Clinton acknowledge wrongdoing while still president, though neither side anticipated that the deal would come on his last full day in office. Clinton also agreed that he will not seek government reimbursement of his legal bills, which total several million dollars, as people who are cleared of wrongdoing during independent counsel inquiries are allowed to do.

Clinton did not meet his own deadline for dealing with a host of other legal controversies: the scores of pardon requests before him, including some from key Whitewater figures, including Susan B. McDougal and former Arkansas governor Jim Guy Tucker. White House officials said Clinton would make pardon announcements this morning, just hours before heading to the Capitol for President-elect Bush's inauguration.

Yesterday's flurry of last-minute legal bargains seems to guarantee that the scandals that shadowed so much of Clinton's time in office -- and led to his impeachment -- will not live beyond his presidency. Ray had said he was considering whether to indict Clinton for committing perjury in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case, and questions about the merits of a pardon were stirring controversy for Bush.

"I think it's a collateral benefit to the country that the new president be given a fresh start if that can be achieved," Ray said in an interview last night. "The best interests of the country would be achieved by letting the past be the past."
The twin bargains with Ray and the Arkansas Supreme Court Committee on Professional Conduct were reached during extensive negotiations with the president's private attorney, David Kendall. "This is an appropriate closure for the country and the president," Kendall said.

Neither Ray nor Kendall would say who initiated the talks. But there was plainly an element of brinkmanship on all sides. Clinton had repeatedly stated in public that he did not fear indictment or want a pardon.

But the prospect of fighting a criminal charge that sources said looked increasingly likely -- even if he won acquittal -- was unpalatable. The possibility of an indictment appeared to increase in early December after Ray initiated a meeting with Lewinsky and told her she might be called before a grand jury, her lawyer Plato Cacheris said yesterday.

Ray was eager to bring closure to a case that has taken years and cost millions of dollars, but he found no provable lawbreaking by the Clintons beyond coverup of an affair. However, he also wanted to uphold the principle that even presidents face consequences for misleading a judicial proceeding. So both sides got a measure of what they wanted.

"Ray got an admission of what everybody knew all along, and got the law license," Cacheris said. "And Clinton avoided getting indicted."
But, for Clinton, at considerable cost. His aides said he agreed to the five-year license suspension reluctantly and believes it is more severe than the circumstances deserve. On a symbolic level, one last day of overshadowing legal developments -- during an eight-year tenure filled with such moments -- was hardly the way he wanted to close his presidency.

Even so, with the White House walls and many offices empty and Clinton busy in the residence packing up his personal belongings, there was a haunting sense of coming full circle. It was nearly nine years ago, in his first presidential campaign, that Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton were first buffeted by questions about their investment in a failed land development called Whitewater. Following a tortuous path across the years, the questions about financial dealings spawned an independent counsel and eventually transmuted into a case about sex -- specifically whether the president committed perjury and sought to obstruct justice in the Jones sexual harassment case.
It was three years ago this week, in a sworn deposition with Jones and U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright in attendance, that Clinton denied having a sexual relationship with Lewinsky (who, after conversations with Clinton and presidential friend Vernon Jordan, also submitted an affidavit denying an affair). He also denied having been alone with her. Ten months later, in a nationally televised speech, he acknowledged an "inappropriate" relationship with Lewinsky and angrily condemned Ray's predecessor, Kenneth W. Starr, for invading private lives.

Yesterday, he went further than he ever had in a succession of statements and apologies, conceding that his wrongdoing was of a legal nature, not merely a personal lapse.

For instance, at the time his lawyers were laboring to prevent impeachment before the House they acknowledged that "reasonable people" might conclude that Clinton's evasions in the Jones case crossed the line into falsehood. But Clinton never said that, much less acknowledged falsehood. Earlier this year, he paid a contempt fine of $90,000 levied by Wright, he said, solely to dispense with the matter, not because he agreed that he had lied.

In yesterday's statement Clinton effectively acknowledged that there is no reasonable interpretation by which his testimony was anything but false.
Clinton, moreover, had previously maintained that his efforts to evade being pinned down about Lewinsky by the Paula Jones lawyers were a legal tactic -- a legitimate response to a suit he argued was illegitimate and politically motivated.

Yesterday, in resolving the disbarment case, he agreed that such evasions were not a legitimate tactic. "Mr. Clinton's conduct . . . caused the court and the counsel for the parties to expend unnecessary time, effort, and resources," said a consent order that Clinton signed. "It set a poor example for other litigants, and this damaging effect was magnified by the fact that at the time of his deposition testimony, Mr. Clinton was serving as President of the United States."

Yet even these new admissions will not be accepted by skeptics as evidence that Clinton has finally told the truth. For example, while Clinton has acknowledged falsehood in the Jones case, he maintains that his grand jury testimony in August 1998 was truthful. Clinton "believes that that testimony was in no way evasive, misleading or false," said White House spokesman Jake Siewert.
That grand jury testimony pivoted in part on questions of whether Clinton had ever lied under oath about having "sexual relations" with Lewinsky as that term was defined in the Jones case. The definition, imposed in advance of the deposition by Wright so that testimony could avoid clinical details, included not just intercourse but fondling and all other erotic contact with genitals and breasts. By this definition, Clinton asserted to Starr's prosecutors, Lewinsky's oral sex acts on him constituted sexual relations, but his receipt of her favors did not.

But to believe that even this legalistic explanation could be technically truthful, one must believe that in the course of their half-dozen encounters Clinton never engaged in sex play with Lewinsky -- and disbelieve her detailed testimony of several intimate encounters.

Yet even many Republicans, while disbelieving Clinton, have concluded that two years after impeachment ended in his acquittal, the public is in little mood for a prosecution hinging on such arcane and embarrassing definitions of what qualifies as sex and what constitutes a lie. Rep. Robert L. Barr Jr. (R-Ga.), one of Clinton's harshest congressional critics, said he was ready to "stop focusing on President Clinton's actions in the past" and let the new administration begin the work of "returning respect to the presidency."

Ray said that the agreement provided a reasonable alternative to prosecution. From his standpoint, he said that was achieved through the acknowledgments made by Clinton, the five-year suspension of his law license, the $25,000 fine, and the promise not to seek recovery of his legal fees. "Prosecution is a sledgehammer," he said. "It's the option of last resort, not first resort."
The timing of the agreement was critical, Ray said, noting that he had vowed early on to make a decision about charges very shortly after Clinton left office. Other sources said that Ray had frequently noted that President Gerald R. Ford's early weeks in office were consumed by debate leading to his pardon of Richard M. Nixon.

Reaching a deal required accepting some ambiguity about just what Clinton was acknowledging -- fitting perhaps in a case that always involved agonizing arguments about definitions of sex and lies. At a news conference, Ray heralded how Clinton admitted he "knowingly gave evasive and misleading answers" in the Jones case in violation of Wright's pre-deposition order for truthful testimony. This is accurate, but Kendall emphasized another point: that Clinton did not "knowingly" lie. Walking the line between truth and falsehood was a "dangerous and risky exercise," Kendall wrote Ray yesterday, but Clinton "can in conscience" say that "he tried to avoid testifying falsely."

The deal brings an end to the activities of Ray's office, but it is not the final word on the Whitewater or Lewinsky matters. That will come with the release of voluminous reports prepared by the independent counsel's office; those reports will be reviewed first by the three-judge Special Division that has overseen the office.

At a news conference, independent counsel Robert W. Ray announces his decision to conclude his investigation of President Clinton in the Monica S. Lewinsky matter.

The Lady Who Fell In Love With The White House 

She Decided To Take The Furniture

Clintons Return White House Furniture

• By ABC NEWS

W A S H I N G T O N, Feb. 8

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Former President Clinton and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, have sent $28,000 worth of household goods back to Washington after questions arose over whether the items were intended as personal gifts or donations to the White House.

“We have been informed that it is being shipped back, and the National Park Service is ready to receive it, take possession of it and take custody of it,” Jim McDaniel, the National Park Service’s liaison to the White House, said Wednesday.

“The property is being returned to government custody until such time that the issues can be resolved. It may well turn out that that property is rightly the personal property of the Clintons.”

Giving Back

After they were criticized for taking $190,000 worth of china, flatware, rugs, televisions, sofas and other gifts with them when they left, the Clintons announced last week that they would pay for $86,000 worth of gifts, or nearly half the amount.

Their latest decision to send back $28,000 in gifts brings to $114,000 the value of items the Clintons have either decided to pay for or return.

McDaniel discussed the matter Wednesday with Betty Monkman, the White House curator, and Gary Walters, the chief usher, or executive manager of the White House.

They were reviewing the gifts the Clintons chose to keep after $28,000 worth of items were found on a list of donations the Park Service received for the 1993 White House redecoration project. The Washington Post this week quoted three people who said that they assumed the furnishings they donated for the project would stay in the White House.

“As a result of questions about the status of certain property donated to the White House during the Clinton administration, the National Park Service will accept the return of the property in question and act as a custodian of such property,” according to a statement released by the Park Service, which administers the White House as a unit of the national park system.

A person familiar with the Clintons’ move out of the White House, who spoke on condition of anonymity, would say only: “They’ve been returned.”

Furniture Movers

While the Clintons’ decision to return these gifts was a way to get out from under this and other criticism surrounding their departure from the White House, the couple provided scant details about the shipment.

Mrs. Clinton’s office referred all questions about the gift return to the former president’s transition office. Transition office workers said the Clintons would make no statement. They referred all questions to the Park Service, which wasn’t exactly sure which gifts were being returned or where they had been kept.

In a statement released Monday, Clinton’s transition office said every item they accepted was identified by the White House gift office as a present to them. They said none of the gifts taken was on a curator’s list of official White House property.

“Gifts did not leave the White House without the approval of the White House usher’s and curator’s offices,” the statement said. “Of course, if the White House now determines that a cataloging error occurred, ... any item in question will be returned.”

Instead of waiting for the issue to be resolved, the Clintons returned the items.

The gifts in question were: A kitchen table and four chairs valued at $3,650 from Lee Ficks of Cincinnati, Ohio; a $1,000 needlepoint rug from David Martinous of Little Rock, Ark.; two sofas, an easy chair and an ottoman worth $19,900 from Steve Mittman of New York; lamps valued at $1,170 from Stuart Shiller of Hialeah, Fla.; and a $2,843 sofa from Brad Noe, a businessman from California.

The gifts were just one of several flaps that followed the Clintons out of the White House:

Lawmakers are questioning Clinton’s desire to rent expensive office space in New York City at government expense. Because of the contention, the former president’s foundation has offered to pay at least $300,000 of an estimated $790,000 annual rent for the office Clinton favors.

Mrs. Clinton, the new senator from New York, has faced questions about the propriety of accepting the gifts in the period between her election and her swearing-in. Senate rules would have limited what she could accept had she been a senator.

Members of both parties also have criticized Clinton for granting scores of eleventh-hour clemency requests, including the pardon of Marc Rich, a fugitive in Switzerland from 51 counts in the United States of tax evasion and fraud.

Jun 17, 2018 | ADN News, Clinton, Crime, Obama, Politics, Special Invest. | 0 |

DOJ IG Report – Part 3

By: Ben Jammin ‏ @xBenJamminx

Let’s see what I missed first time around.
(I’m bouncing around the report, not reading straight through…. ADHD)

#IGReport
Sally Yates didn’t want the “agents involved in the Clinton Foundation investigation” (Not the server or emails, What happened to this investigation?), “to take no overt investigative steps prior to the election”.
Would make sense (if she were actually non-biased).

Comey said “different instructions given to the MidYear investigation and the Clinton Foundation investigation”.
“we had told the world, we the DOJ and FBI that there was nothing there.. to now be presented with all these *CLASSIFIED* emails”.

“NO TIME SENSITIVITY”
NO time sensitivity from the Clinton Foundation?!? Talk about Russia connections.
“Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty.” Joseph Goebbels.
Basically the Clinton/Leftist playbook.

*Important*This is what the media and liberals have pounced on with the “no political bias” nonsense. @KimStrassel laid this out very clearly. THEY WEREN’T GOING TO TELL THE OIG THEY ACTED WITH BIAS FOR CLINTON AND AGAINST TRUMP. That would be dumb, even for them.

*BOOM* SUCK IT LAMESTREAM MEDIA
“indicative of a BIASED state of mind but, even more seriously, implies  willingness to take official action”.
“pertained to the Russia investigation, which was not a part of this review.” (Report 3 and Huber on deck)

The 5 employees (who have been referred for investigation) regret using the FBI devices for texts because…. DUN DUN DUN
“the belief that their messages would not be preserved or would be exempt from public disclosure under FOIA”
They showed their true colors here.

These FBI employees were not only biased, but dumb. They “are trained law enforcement agents or attorneys, and should have known that
these messages were potentially subject to release in response to FOIA requests”.
THEY KNEW THIS BUT WERE TOO ARROGANT TO CARE!

“potentially implicate provisions in the FBI’s Offense Code and Penalty Guidelines”
“At a minimum, we found that the employees’ use of FBI systems and devices demonstrated extremely poor judgment and a gross lack of professionalism.”
Hi Huber!

IG says no evidence “directly connecting the political views these employees expressed in their text messages”.
No DIRECT evidence. They didn’t outright admit it. “whether violates the FBI’s Offense Code of Conduct”
Though I don’t trust FBI to self-regulate. (2nd Pic)

This is being under-reported.
Not only did Comey use a personal email for official business. BUT SO DID STRZOK AND PAGE.
Also, Comey “routinely deletes all emails from his [Gmail] account each day, and then clears the deleted messages folder”. What no Bleachbit?

There were so many FBI employees “at all levels of the organization” who were in contact with reporters that it “impacted our ability to identify the sources of leaks””we identified dozens of FBI employees that had contact with members of the media”.
That’s INCREDIBLE.

This has been reported publicly, but not touched on by me yet.
“FBI employees received tickets to sporting events from journalists, went on golfing outings with media representatives, were treated to drinks and meals after work by reporters”.

*HUGE*
FBI Analyst said no probable cause to search HRC’s home for the phones cause she destroyed them. WHAT? That’s a free pass to search her shit.
OMG PICS 2,3,4. “consent to store, but not search”. WOW! FBI Didn’t search evidence on 6 HRC Laptops.

This is interesting. Looks like the DOJ was putting limitations on the FBI’s “ability to obtain evidence”.
Though we know from previous tweets that they OBTAINED 6 laptops, but didn’t SEARCH them..
People. They threw this case purposefully.

WOW!
“FBI could not search emails sent or received by other account holders on Clinton’s servers—such as Abedin and former President Clinton and his staff”. (Cuz it’s same server as Clinton Foundation??)
Bill Clinton had email on the server as well! They couldn’t search Huma’s emails (we know some were classified).
Bill Clinton had a staff member PRINT OUT EMAILS SENT TO HIM. Classified?
FBI agents “considered emails that Clinton sent to her husband through this employee as privileged, …this may not have been legally required”
Marriage privilege?

SPECIAL TREATMENT
Justin Cooper was allowed to delete “personal and business” information off of his computer that the government agreed to.
This was propose by Cooper’s attorney.
WHO WAS HIS ATTORNEY?! AARON ZEBLEY
Who is Aaron Zebley? LAWYER ON MUELLER’S TEAM!!!!

FBI agents said “there was no evidence that Cooper was the sender or recipient of classified information” (don’t forget they let him DELETE information off his comp 1st) and Strzok said they couldn’t establish probable cause 4 classified info.

FBI was concerned that National Security Division prosecutors were “intimidated” by Clinton attorneys and “did not negotiate aggressively with them”. “The Lead Analyst told us that “every single consent arrangement CONSTRAINED what we did…to some degree.”

*BIG*
Jake Sullivan, Cherly Mills and Huma Abedin “sent or received CLASSIFIED information on their private email accounts and forwarded emails containing classified information to Clinton”.
BUT “the prosecutors determined no one committed any criminal offenses.”

Remember Cheryl Mills got Immunity, though no criminal charges stemmed from it.
“The application provided as an example one email that was determined to be classified at the level of SECRET//NOFORN at the time the email was sent”.
SHE HAD SECRET EMAILS.

Common theme. FBI gave benefit of the doubt to all involved in the HRC email matter. (THOUGH TRUMP DOESN’T GET THIS BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT). Mills and Abedin DELETED the CONFIRMED CLASSIFIED emails, though there was “no basis to conclude” it was for an “improper purpose”.

Common theme 2. FBI allowed HRC aides to delete classified information from their emails and the server *with no repercussions, and received immunity deals that amounted to no charges for ANYONE*. Jake Sullivan had TOP SECRET & 496 suspected CLASSIFIED also on GMAIL.

FBI KNEW that the *classified emails* were deleted from her accounts. YET, likely no probable cause to seek a search warrant”. Doesn’t make any sense that they continue to say no probable cause. Sullivan used personal emails for state business WHILE OVERSEAS!!

“reasons to promptly seek a search warrant for Sullivan’s Gmail account” Top Secret emails sent to Sullivan “clearly constituted classified information”. FBI knew her aides had secret and classified information and gave them immunity anyway (with no charges for anyone).

More examples that the FBI didn’t pursue the devices from Clinton aides. *Even though they knew they sent/received TOP SECRET and classified information. They wanted to “prevent a further compromise of classified information” but not to pursue aides classified info.

More evidence the FBI didn’t even attempt to obtain any of their personal devices, despite them having classified emails. The FBI Operational Technology Division said “it was not likely that there would be anything on the devices” *Quite the assumption*.

“Persistent practices of DOS employees, including both political and career employees, discussing classified information”. “FBI Attorney 1 told us that the emails containing classified information that were forwarded to Clinton often copied numerous DOS employees”.

“Prosecutor 1 explained that the team was not “as concerned that [Abedin] was taking stuff off the classified systems and dumping it down.” Don’t forget.. The maid who printed Emails. “Pls ask Marina to print for me in am,” Clinton emailed top aide Huma Abedin.

1 paragraph, and the NEXT paragraph. Insane! “not “as concerned that [Abedin] was taking stuff off the classified systems”. “Abedin acknowledged that she “occasionally” forwarded work-related emails to her husband for PRINTING”.

So many cases of FBI not following up on Hillary and he Aides having classified information. “FBI considered seeking access to certain highly classified materials” “but ultimately did not do so”. “The OIG also has not reviewed the highly classified information.”

Interesting. No one got any “transactional immunity”, meaning they are not protected from future prosecution. We know they had Top Secret info on their computers, and only received “QUeen for a Day” immunity with 3 of them. They may still be subject to prosecution.

#IGReport
Pagliano’s attorney was “insistent on immunity for his client even though it was explained to him that Pagliano is a witness and not a target.” He then proceeded to plead the 5th before the House Benghazi Committee. At what point are these people obstructing justice?

Paul Combetta said that the HRC archive should still be on the server, despite documentation showing it wasn’t there. He said he “and one other administrator” had the ability to delete the mailbox. (either he is lying, or the other admin deleted it). Who is that?!

There’s still a lot to go through. I’ll keep at this but time for a break lol

#IGReport