Fox News is not what you’d call a big supporter of Hillary Clinton. Nor is Fox contributor/former New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano.
Therefore, when you read a story about Ms. Clinton, written by Judge Napolitano and posted on the foxnews.com web site, you should take it with a grain of salt. Maybe a lot of grains.
That said, however, what Mr. Napolitano writes looks, on its face, to be very compelling.
Here is the link to his entire commentary…and some key excerpts below. Please read them and judge for yourself whether they hold water:
The bad legal news for Hillary Clinton continued to cascade upon her presidential hopes during the past week in what has amounted to a perfect storm of legal misery. Here is what happened.
Last week, Mrs. Clinton’s five closest advisers when she was Secretary of State, four of whom remain close to her and have significant positions in her presidential campaign, were interrogated by the FBI.
In the same week, a federal judge ordered the same five persons to give videotaped testimony in a civil lawsuit against the State Department which once employed them in order to determine if there was a “conspiracy” — that’s the word used by the judge — in Mrs. Clinton’s office to evade federal transparency laws.
Also earlier this week, the State Department revealed that it cannot find the emails of Bryan Pagliano for the four years that he was employed there. Who is Bryan Pagliano? He is the former information technology expert, employed by the State Department to problem shoot Mrs. Clinton’s (email) issues.
Pagliano was also personally employed by Mrs. Clinton. He is now the government’s chief witness against Mrs. Clinton.
It is almost inconceivable that all of his emails have been lost. Surely this will intrigue the FBI, which has reportedly been able to retrieve the emails Mrs. Clinton attempted to wipe from her server.
This is treacherous ground for any target, even a smart lawyer like Mrs. Clinton. She does not know what the feds know about her. She faces a damned-if-she-does and damned-if-she-doesn’t choice here.
Any lie and any materially misleading statement — and she is prone to both — made to the FBI can form the basis for an independent criminal charge against her. This is the environment that trapped Martha Stewart. Hence the standard practice among experienced counsel is to decline interviews by the folks investigating their clients.
Mrs. Clinton’s folks are preparing for the worst. They have leaked nonsense from “U.S. officials” that the feds have found no intent to commit espionage on the part of Mrs. Clinton. Too bad these officials — political appointees, no doubt — skipped or failed Criminal Law 101. The government need not prove intent for either espionage or for lying to federal agents.
So? Is Judge Napolitano correct? Is Hillary Clinton in significant trouble?
If so, is it enough to derail her presidential campaign?
And if it is, who steps in?
-Bernie Sanders, the winner of 20 primaries against Ms. Clinton, but holder of far fewer delegates than that record would suggest – because the “superdelegates” picked by the Democrat establishment almost all support Clinton?
-Joe Biden, who, again this week (as he has done before) made it clear he wishes he were running, and considers himself the best choice for Democrats?
I do not expect this to happen. But if it does; if there winds up being a convention battle between supporters of Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, in which Sanders cannot get a first-ballot majority and the establishment, desperately fearful of running a self-professed socialist who wasn’t even a Democrat two years ago, anoints Vice President Biden, it will make the Republican convention look like a still life by comparison.
No matter how the Clinton mess plays out, it will be both interesting and historic.
Stay tuned. And keep your seat belts fastened.
