Tick tock, tick tock. The clock is ticking on the investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for illegal handling of United States government secrets. It is three weeks until the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire presidential primary on February 9. That is around the date that Fox New Senior Judicial Analyst and former New Jersey Judge Andrew Napolitano has predicted the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) may announce it has collected sufficient evidence to support criminal charges against Clinton.
In a Wednesday morning interview with Bill Hemmer at Fox News, Napolitano says the outlook for Clinton in the coming days is grim. “It’s hard to believe that the FBI will not recommend indictment of Mrs. Clinton” who is “a prime candidate for prosecution” concludes Napolitano.
Weighing in favor of prosecution, Napolitano explains, is that the government would only need to show that Clinton negligently failed to properly safeguard classified information. Clinton, Napolitano notes, signed a nondisclosure form and received instruction from FBI agents in proper handling of classified information and legal consequences for improper actions early on as secretary of state.
Napolitano elaborates on the government’s minimal burden in a case against Clinton:
The government does not have to show that she intended to treat [national security secrets] negligently. The government does not have to show harm. It only has to show negligent treatment.
Napolitano, a Ron Paul Institute Advisory Board member, also discusses in the interview the new disclosure that the information Clinton mishandled includes information classified at the very high Top Secret/Special Access Program level.
Watch Napolitano’s complete interview here:
Read former State Department employee and 24-year Top Secret clearance holder Peter Van Buren’s enlightening article “Understanding Why the Clinton Emails Matter” for a description of how classification of information is handled in the State Department and how Clinton’s handling of information as secretary of state appears to run afoul of both the system set up to protect US government secrets and the law.
