The judge presiding over the Mar-a-logo document dispute has not only approved a special master, but she has also denied the DOJ request to access classified records. That is an enormous win for Trump and a humiliating defeat for the DOJ. The judge quite simply decided that no, the DOJ is not above the law, and no, it is not the sole arbiter of who has access to highly classified information. If the DOJ appeals this, they risk losing at the Supreme Court.
The constitution is quite clear regarding this subject. So are prior Supreme Court decisions. The President has the final authority regarding what is or is not classified. It should be pointed out that the DOJ reports to the President, not congress. While the DOJ should be non-partisan, that does not mean it is above criticism, particularly when the criticism is regarding possible political bias. Anyone paying attention during the last couple of decades knows that the DOJ has done things that at least appear to be highly partisan. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller to be special counsel overseeing an investigation to alleged Russian interference in the U.S. election. We now know that there was never any evidence of Russia collusion with Trump, while there actually is evidence of direct involvement by the Hillary Clinton campaign. It should be pointed out that the special counsel found no evidence of collusion by the Trump campaign with Russia or anyone else.
On the other hand, even though FBI Director James Comey admitted that Hillary Clinton’s mail servers were unsecured, and they contained classified information he decided the following:
The FBI did not determine what was or was not classified. It deferred that position to the “U.S. government agency that was a likely ‘owner’ of information in the email,”
“FBI investigators have also read all of the approximately 30,000 e-mails provided by Secretary Clinton to the State Department in December 2014. Where an e-mail was assessed as possibly containing classified information, the FBI referred the e-mail to any U.S. government agency that was a likely “owner” of information in the e-mail, so that agency could make a determination as to whether the e-mail contained classified information at the time it was sent or received, or whether there was reason to classify the e-mail now, even if its content was not classified at the time it was sent (that is the process sometimes referred to as “up-classifying”)
The FBI assumed that Secretary Clinton did not intend to violate any laws, but there is no evidence they even interviewed anyone involved. The analysis appears to have been based solely on the emails reviewed. Even this review described this as “extremely careless in their handling of sensitive, highly classified information.”
The FBI was very specific in describing the highly sensitive nature of some of the information they found on those servers:
“For example, seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters. There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on e-mail (that is, excluding the later “up-classified” e-mails)”
These documents were not stored in a secured room guarded by the Secret Service, they were put on an unclassified personal server that was not even supported by full time security staff:
“None of these e-mails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these e-mails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at Departments and Agencies of the U.S. Government—or even with a commercial service like Gmail.”
The FBI could not find a case that supported bringing criminal charges:
In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.
Contrast this with the treatment given Donald Trump regarding documents at Mar-a-logo. The partisan bias of the FBI literally leaps off the page. Judge Raymond Dearie, just appointed special master, was allegedly duped into signing a FISA warrant against Carter Page, only to later learn that the FBI has distorted and possibly falsified information to get that warrant. Remember the slogan: “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” I doubt that Judge Raymond Dearie is too inclined to take FBI representations at face value.
There are many people in the MSM who would like you to believe that the DOJ and the FBI are both pure as the wind driven snow and above reproach. The opposite is increasingly obvious and if this special master recognizes that and takes appropriate action, this could be one of the most explosive political bombshells in our nation’s history. The decision by the DOJ and the FBI to raid Mar-a-logo, just before the mid-term elections, has the stench of political motivation. Wouldn’t it be beyond sweet if this backfired into the ultimate October surprise that blows sky high just before the mid-term elections. Red October may just become reality.