Obama’s DOJ should indict Hillary Clinton now
In early January 2016, the news broke that the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails has expanded to a public corruption case. A few days later the same journalists reported that her emails contained documents classified ‘Special Access Programs,’ a level above top secret. The total size of the investigation is huge: one hundred and fifty (150) agents.
One must consider the political motivations of the sources within the FBI and the (Fox News) reporters. However, as reported by many other media sources, there is no doubt about the appearance of Clinton corruption in partnership with the Colombian oil industry, chemical weapons manufacturers, Keystone pipeline investors, Monsanto and many others. One egregious example is the tens of millions of dollars of speaking fees and Foundation donations paid by arms dealers and buyers, who were later awarded $165 billion in weapons transaction approvals. So it is inevitable that the FBI would be interested in determining whether these exchanges involved criminal quid pro quo.
An FBI source says that “many previous public corruption cases have been made and successfully prosecuted with much less evidence than what is emerging in this investigation.” Assuming that this is a widely-held view within the FBI, then two things will happen before election day 2016. First, the rank-and-file might convince U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to indict Clinton before election day. If they can’t do this, they will continue to leak details of the case against Clinton to the media and will also leak details of the cover-up itself. Either of these scenarios would be devastating to the Democrats’ chances at retaining the White House were she the nominee.
While it is not surprising that the FBI is investigating Clinton, the sheer scale of the investigation (150 agents!) is shocking and suggests that senior figures inside the Obama Administration wanted this investigation to be thorough and fast. I believe that the decision to scale up the investigation to this level involved President Obama himself.
President Obama does not want to let the GOP take the White House. Allowing the Democratic Party to nominate a corrupt candidate would be disastrous. Accelerating the investigation likely had two original goals. First, if the FBI could have cleared her of wrongdoing then he could be confident that she would not be brought down. Second, if she was guilty of corruption, then his DOJ could indict her early in the primary to ensure that the Party nominates a clean candidate. Now, months into the investigation, Obama is faced with a hard choice: jeopardize Democratic chances in November or indict now.
In his final year, President Obama is also thinking about his legacy. He does not want to be remembered for a devastating 2016 loss. He does not want his presidency to forever remembered as hosting Clinton’s corruption at State. He does not want to be remembered for a corruption cover up. To preserve his legacy, Obama’s DOJ should indict Clinton as soon as possible. Hillary Clinton’s corruption cannot be allowed to fester for a minute longer.
