The following video is four minutes well worth your time, not only because Bret Baier very nicely sums up what he's been told by his sources at the FBI, but also because you get a sense from the back-and-forth with Brit Hume just what the experience has been like of gathering all this information.
I am always dubious of reporters who cite unnamed sources
I am always dubious of reporters who cite unnamed sources, for the simple reason that the unnamed source is not authorized to talk and has to plead with the reporter to keep his name out of it lest he get in trouble. That means that in order to believe what you're being told in the report, you not only have to implicitly trust the integrity of the journalist, but you also have to trust that his judgment in trusting the anonymous source is good.
I know of no reason to question Bret Baier's integrity or his judgment. And what he's saying here about the Clinton Foundation investigation being much more expansive than has previously been known is consistent with things I've read elsewhere - also sourced by people who claim to be in the know but don't offer their names.
So what do you do with that? First watch the video and then we'll talk:
Power struggle between the FBI and the DOJ on the Clinton Foundation matter
The first thing I've noticed is that today's MSM focus has not been on this story to the extent you might think. If you do a Google news search for Hillary Clinton, you'll get mainly horse race type analysis. That tells me that they're aware of the story but they're resisting covering it. Why? Well, you could go to the media bias explanation, which is that if they jump on the story now there's not enough time for Hillary to recover from it, and she's already sinking in the polls. Or you could go to the "hate Fox" excuse, which is to say that if only Fox is on the story then they can write it off as right-wing propaganda and go on their merry way.
Considering how often the MSM relies on unnamed sources, they can't possibly try that excuse and expect anyone to buy it.
So is it true? My sense even before Baier came out with this report was that something very much like this was indeed going on at the FBI. It's consistent with what we told you yesterday about the power struggle between the FBI and the DOJ on the Clinton Foundation matter. It's consistent with Andrew McCarthy's well-informed analysis. And it might even explain James Comey's disinclination to indict Hillary on the e-mail question when she was clearly guilty of at least one felony: He knew a much bigger investigation was going down and he didn't want to blow the FBI's wad prematurely by indicting Hillary on a serious but, by comparison, lesser charge.
The truly remarkable thing here, aside from the fact that the FBI has gotten this done at all with the Justice Department fighting them every step of the way, is that they're apparently still uncovering a treasure trove of new evidence on a daily basis.
Now, about the prediction that Hillary is likely to be indicted: Baier's source no doubt believes that based on the evidence that's been put together. But what if Hillary wins the election and gets to appoint the attorney general (or simply keep Lynch), who decides whether to empanel the grand jury that would ultimately decide whether to indict? Remember, it's not the FBI's call. They can make a criminal referral but only a grand jury can indict. And if the DOJ doesn't want a grand jury, there will not be a grand jury.
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If Hillary wins - Obama goes all Gerald Ford and pardons her to "bring this ugly episode to an end for the good of the nation"
And by the way, what do you think are the odds that - if Hillary wins - Obama goes all Gerald Ford and pardons her to "bring this ugly episode to an end for the good of the nation" or something along those lines? It's long been conventional wisdom that Ford did the right thing pardoning Nixon because it was simply time for the nation to move beyond Watergate. I'm not so sure. Pardoning Nixon set a precedent that if a politician is important enough, it's simply too painful for the nation to hold him accountable for the commission of crimes.
If Obama follows Ford's lead, Hillary's longstanding belief that she is above the law is officially confirmed - simply because she is Hillary Clinton and it's all just so yucky to make her pay any price for crimes she has committed.
My guess is that Obama does that very thing, probably regardless of who wins. If he does, all that will be left will be for the nation to judge for itself the actual evidence and decide how we're going to deal with, God forbid, a felon president. Or more hopefully, an utterly defeated and rejected power glutton, who can now be understood by everyone for what she really is.
