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Ricochet News Flash: Hillary’s Chances of Being Indicted
Rob, James and I just finished recording this week’s flagship Ricochet Podcast. One of our guests was the great Richard Epstein. Get a load of this exchange:
James Lileks: What’s the chance Hillary will be indicted?
Richard Epstein: Thirty percent.
Wow. One of the country’s leading legal scholars believes there’s a one-in-three chance that the Democratic Party’s presumed nominee for President will become the subject of a criminal indictment.
As I say, wow.
Published in Law
Just as interesting to me is, if she doesn’t get indicted won’t many or even most believe that she has been given special treatment for political reasons? Won’t that also hurt her, and more broadly all democrats?
One wonders whether or not that percentage would increase were she not running for the presidency. If the Clinton legacy is any indication, however, there might well be indictment but no guilt found.
Maybe if we keep pasting that orange
jumpsuitpantsuit picture all over the place, the obviousness of her wrongdoing will seep into the subconscious of anyone who sees it.Respectfully disagree with Mr. Epstein.
Only if Joe Biden walks into the oval office and says “Barack. I think we have unfinished business and I want to finish what we started. I want to ensure your legacy achievements remain intact.”
Barack Obama picks up the phone. “Loretta? Yes, it’s Barack. Cleared hot”.
Standby for the Fox News perp walk of all time.
Otherwise – no chance.
I think the real question is whether the FBI will recommend indictment. Even if the political hack in the Attorney General’s office ignores that recommendation, it could result in a Hillary crash-and-burn. Of course, she seems to be doing that all by herself, a lot of the time. It is such a shame that not a single serious Democrat decided to take her on. If it came down to McCaskill vs. Trump, I think I would be voting Democrat for the first time since I got out of school.
Public sentiment, driven by Democratic and mainstream media rhetoric, will make her a victim here. Even if she takes a knock with Democratic primary voters, the general electorate would see this as a witch-hunt (how apropos) conducted by a vast right-wing conspiracy.
Epstein is copying me. I said 30% weeks ago.
If you start thinking too highly of yourself we’ll have to get you a membership in the academy.
Yeah, but he did this …
Peter,
Nothing would make my happier than HRC indicted. However, Richard was talking a 50% chance for the ACA to be struck down by SCOTUS. I am not ready to go Wow yet.
It is an interesting question if the FBI doesn’t recommend indictment will the story of the suppressed evidence leak and the FBI go nuts! That’s not what I really had in mind but it’s a possibility.
Meanwhile, Andrea Mitchell could have knocked HRC out of the race with a single honest question about Bill’s “Bimbo Eruptions” or rapes as we common folk refer to them. Talk about media totally in the tank.
We shall see.
Regards,
Jim
I find my current academy more useful in everyday life.
She will not be indicted. This whole circus is damage control to exonerate her and give her campaign a boost when needed. If there are any issues found that can not be spun or ignored they will be redirected to a Clinton sacrificial pawn.
I think that was a spot on guess. Every indication is that Robert’s initially sided with the conservatives to strike down the mandate, and switched somewhat last minute.
It really was that close a thing.
Here is the issue: intent. Intent is required to get a prosecution on a serious national security offense.
The threshold for finding intent is subjective unless she did or said something that indicated clearly she intended to violate the law. Will someone testify she did? Is there a clear, consistent, paper trail of willful law breaking? It is unlikely, or it appeared so until recently. The FBI is spreading out the investigation to focus on the underlings in the hope they can get one of them to turn. If they do, it may still be difficult to prove what Hillary’s actual intent was. Was she just trying to do her job and not as attentive as she might be? The threshold here, at least for her, is not the threshold of negligence. It is intent to violate the law. Intent, the salvation of defense lawyers and the bane of prosecutors.
If they cannot get intent out of the actions and words themselves, then burden of intent is very high. Even the emails telling a subordinate to strip off the heading of a secret memo might not be enough. However, at that point you enter the seriousness threshold. How serious and how much was being casually transferred to a personal, non-secure server. That threshold is now getting burried deeper and deeper with evidence of disregard for the law.
From the beginning I have doubted she should would be indicted. There remain twists and turns inside the FBI, the AG office and the White House. But, the weight of the evidence has clearly shifted and Dr. Epstein is nice to only say 30%. If we were playing under Queensbury rules, the number would be easily above 50%. He is no doubt handicapping for the political interference factor.
Loretta Lynch gave me the “willy’s” the other night when I heard her speak about GITMO being a recruiting tool of ISIS – a position even the liberal Brookings Institute has surrendered. Until that time, my inclination is she would be fair. But suddenly, if I closed my eyes, she was sounding like Eric Holder.
Frank,
Any chance Roberts will decide that he’s a woman. You know, at the last minute.
Regards,
Jim
Worse, for them, if the AG tries to suppress the recommendation but it gets leaked. A blatantly political non-prosecution might be good for Hillary, but bad for the Democratic Party as a whole.
Always a chance.
This is a really good point. If the democrats had anyone but Sanders lined up behind her, I’m certain the indictment would happen. Even without it, the blow back could be bad for their party.
The person who should be indicted is the person who decided it should be spelled that way.
Actually the person who decided it should be pronounced that way.
IMHO, it is 100% that the FBI recommends indictment. It is probably 30% that justice does indict.
That is why most likely some lower level Clinton pawns will be sacrificed for the greater good. That way HRC gets a clean bill of health, the Dems can be seen as embracing corruption fighting thus turning a negative to a positive and blowback will be averted. The MSM will sell it, the plebes will eat it up and HRC goes for a win.
I’ll say zero percent, and I suspect I’m 29 percentage points closer to the true outcome than Prof. Epstein.
Yes, the day she is cleared will be chosen for most effect — just like before her questioning before the Congress and they cleared her of sending classified emails the day before. The Clintons are called comeback kids because they are Democrats not because of some special star in the sky when they were born. Anyone can be a comeback kid if you have the media made up of Democratic Party secret members.
I have significant doubts she’ll be indicted, but when was the last time this debate was had about the presidential front-runner of one of the two major parties?
Just the conversation about several FBI investigations is pretty damning.
Indicted is one thing.
Convicted is another thing.
Removed from office is another thing altogether.
Remember that her husband was impeached? Clintons take the signaling, and we’ve already indicated they’re immune.
And it’s frustrating that she won’t be indicted, since other, non-Clintons and non-Democrats have been indicted for similar crimes.
But the political class — in particular, the Democrats in the political class — do not have to follow the laws.
And that is the great tragedy of modern America. The citizen class is burdened by severe and strict laws and regulations, and the political class is effectively anarchist.
I am not a lawyer, but I have heard many, including Judge Napolitano, stating that even inadvertent mishandling of classified information is a felony. She, as Sec State, is assumed to know what material is classified. Ignorance no excuse.
If she’s indicted her campaign is over.