Obama has tainted the FBI's Hillary e-mail investigation

If you haven’t already seen it, President Obama made quite a statement in a recent New York Times interview concerning the Hillary Clinton e-mail server and the possibility that it’s caused issues for national security. Why no, the president assured his mouthpieces at the Times. Of course it wasn’t a problem:

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“I don’t think it posed a national security problem,” Mr. Obama said Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” He said it was a mistake for Mrs. Clinton to use a private email account when she was secretary of state, but his conclusion was unmistakable: “This is not a situation in which America’s national security was endangered.” Those statements angered F.B.I. agents who have been working for months to determine whether Ms. Clinton’s email setup had in fact put any of the nation’s secrets at risk, according to current and former law enforcement officials.

I’m sure you’re no more surprised than I am that Obama tried to run political interference for Hillary on this subject. But there’s a reason those FBI agents are so upset by the president’s statement. The FBI’s job is to gather evidence in the case so the Attorney General can make a decision whether to file charges against Hillary in the case. One possible crime with which she could be charged is the Espionage Act. Here some information about that law that seems very pertinent to this situation (hat tip to James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal):

Under 18 USC 793 subsection F, the information does not have to be classified to count as a violation. The intelligence source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity citing the sensitivity of the ongoing probe, said the subsection requires the “lawful possession” of national defense information by a security clearance holder who “through gross negligence,” such as the use of an unsecure computer network, permits the material to be removed or abstracted from its proper, secure location. Subsection F also requires the clearance holder “to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer. “A failure to do so “shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.”

That practically sounds like it was written specifically to apply to this case. Now it’s not the FBI’s job to bring charges, but it is the FBI’s job to determine if the evidence supports the allegation that this very thing happened. I am sure the average FBI agent who might be assigned to work this case is dedicated to getting the truth above all else. But if I were an FBI agent assigned to this case, I’d have the same concern I’m sure they do. Having done the investigation, gathered the evidence and turned it over to the Department of Justice, is the Attorney General then going to turn around and decline to pursue charges because her boss, the president, has made it abundantly clear that this is what he wants? Because if that’s what’s going to happen, you can understand an FBI agent feeling that he’s wasting his time by playing it straight and doing a thorough job that’s all about the facts. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time the Obama DOJ made a political decision rather than a fact-based one concerning a potential criminal case. And it's not just the FBI investigation that's tainted here. Hillary's testimony before Congress on this matter is not far off. By declaring against all evidence that national security was not impacted, Obama taints that process as well. And what does this say about Bernie Sanders's statement in last week's debate - that everyone is just tired of hearing about Hillary's e-mails? What it all adds up to is this: Democrats just want this to go away, and they're hoping to make that happen by creating the impression that any further attention to it is silly and ridiculous. I suppose the only good thing here is that he gave his marching orders to the Justice Department in a media interview rather than in private. Now, if the evidence clearly supports charging her but the DOJ refuses to do it, we’ll all know how, where and when Obama gave the order that this travesty of justice should take place.