More on Hillary Clinton's felonies. She held guilty knowledge to sustain 18 USC Sec. 793(e) charges

[Gothmog]

63. Laypersons are cute and adorable when they make legal claims

The above analysis is silly and fun to laugh at if you know the law. There was no crime committed here. Dan Abrams (son of Floyd Abrams) has some good analysis here http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/analysis-hillary-clinton-commit-crime-based-today/story?id=36626499

In the Wall Street Journal, Judge Michael Mukasey seems to be arguing that because this all just feels wrong and even criminal-y, Clinton should at least be charged with a misdemeanor. That is, of course, not how the law can or should work. In fact, Judge Mukasey learned the hard way that misstating the law when discussing the case against Clinton can be hazardous. Judge Mukasey also echoed the conservative talking point that the case against Clinton is eerily similar to the charges against former general David Petraeus: "This is the same charge brought against Gen. David Petraeus for disclosing classified information in his personal notebooks to his biographer and mistress, who was herself an Army Reserve military intelligence officer cleared to see top secret information." Except that it is nothing like that case. Apart from the possible charge, there are actually few or no similarities from a factual perspective as the lead prosecutor in the Petreaus case explained in an op-ed in USA Today:

"During his tenure as the commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, Petraeus recorded handwritten notes in personal journals, including information he knew was classified at the very highest level. . .

Both the law and his oath required Petraeus to mark these books as 'top secret' and to store them in a Secured Compartmented Information Facility. He did neither. Rather, Petraeus allowed his biographer to take possession of the journals in order to use them as source material for his biography.

Importantly, Petraeus was well aware of the classified contents in his journals, saying to his biographer, Paula Broadwell on tape, 'I mean, they are highly classified, some of them. They don't have it on it, but I mean there's code word stuff in there.' When questioned by the FBI, Petraeus lied to agents in responding that he had neither improperly stored nor improperly provided classified information to his biographer. Petraeus knew at that time that there was classified information in the journals, and he knew they were stored improperly."

In the law, intent can be everything. Petraeus clearly knew he was violating the law, but based on what we know today, there is no evidence - not suppositions or partisan allegations but actual evidence - that Clinton knew that using a private email server was criminal or even improper at the time. Even assuming for argument's sake she created the server to keep her emails out of the public eye, that is in no way remotely comparable to the Petraeus case. Efforts to contrast the two cases fall flat factually and legally....

To be clear, none of this means Clinton won't be charged. There may be a trove of non-public evidence against her about which we simply do not know. It's also possible that the FBI recommends charges and federal prosecutors decide not to move forward as occurs in many cases. No question, that could create an explosive and politicized showdown. But based on what we do know from what has been made public, there doesn't seem to be a legitimate basis for any sort of criminal charge against her. I fear many commentators are allowing their analysis to become clouded by a long standing distrust, or even hatred of Hillary Clinton.

Dan is a good lawyer and this is a good analysis of the law on this issue