Applying the Same Standards to Clinton and Biden

Elizabeth Stauffer of the Washington Examiner ponders the prospects of the prosecutor targeting Donald Trump applying the same standards to the last two Democratic presidential candidates.

I read the Department of Justice’s indictment this weekend, and yes, it was a mess. Frankly, one can easily imagine former President Donald Trump ordering the movement of storage boxes from one location to another (and back again) and even waving a “senior military officials’” attack plan in front of a writer for dramatic effect. Reckless? Yes. A violation of the law? Maybe. As corrupt as Hillary Clinton’s mishandling and destruction of classified material? Or the Biden family’s alleged influence-peddling operation? Not by a long shot.

One need not defend Trump’s behavior as outlined in the indictment to point out that the Justice Department’s charges in this case are the result of selective prosecution. Consider, for example, the many cases of rule-bending and breaking that the DOJ has turned a blind eye to at Trump’s expense.

In March 2019, Fox News obtained a copy of an internal FBI chart created during its “Midyear Exam” investigation into Clinton’s use of a private server when she was secretary of state. The following comment appeared next to 18 U.S. Code 793 (f), the section of the statute most applicable to Clinton’s case: “NOTE: DOJ not willing to charge this; only known cases are Military, cases when accused lost the information (e.g. thumb drive sent to unknown recipient at wrong address.)”

Call me crazy, but Clinton’s use of a private server, her subsequent deletion of more than 33,000 emails that were under subpoena with BleachBit, and the destruction of her personal cellphones with hammers sure sound like violations of 18 U.S.C. These measures go well beyond “gross negligence,” which was how then-FBI Director James Comey described Clinton’s actions in the first draft of his exoneration memo. In a later version, at the suggestion of the disgraced Peter Strzok, he downgraded his assessment of her behavior to “extremely careless.”