A Quote by James Comey
There are two things that matter in a criminal investigation of a subject.What did the person do, and when they did that thing, what were they thinking? When you look at the hundred-years-plus of the Justice Department investigation and prosecution of mishandling of classified information, those two questions are obviously present.
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Listen, I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action. And this investigation is a good thing.
On the one hand, you don't want to disrupt the nation with what might look like a vindictive prosecution, even though it might not be. On the other hand, you want equal justice under the law and if [Hillary Clinton] has violated the law - you know, the FBI never completed the Foundation investigation. That's, as far as I know, that's still an ongoing investigation. They completed the e-mail investigation, but not the Foundation investigation.
We do have certain protocols in place with respect to doing the investigation by the FBI. And then prosecutors at the Department of Justice are the ones who ultimately make the decision as to whether or not to move forward with prosecution of a crime.
I'm not an expert or a trained ballistician. But it is a subject I've studied intently for 50 years, so I may know a thing or two. In my opinion, the JFK investigation was poorly handled.
We really haven't seen much of the attorney general or people from the Department of Justice. So it's very consistent with the way this investigation has been handled, and that is that the decisions have been made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Our investigation looked at whether there is evidence classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on that personal system, in violation of a federal statute making it a felony to mishandle classified information either intentionally or in a grossly negligent way, or a second statute making it a misdemeanor to knowingly remove classified information from appropriate systems or storage facilities.
Only a very small number of the e-mails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information. But even if information is not marked 'classified' in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.
There was only one investigation where some of the cases were not prosecuted. And that resulted from a disagreement between a police department and a prosecutor's office. The reality is some of the people who were in the investigation were arrested in similar stings later.
One thing that definitely did calculate properly for me was the mathematics that makes sense every day, no matter how I look at it, I can't get around it. I try to get around it, I keep trying to find one plus one is not two, somehow. I can't. People can talk about string theory, parallel realities, different dimensions, it's still one plus one is two, baby.
The intelligence investigation under the leadership of Senator Church, which I know has helped cause this investigation by you, points out that the agencies did not disclose certain facts to us and that certain plots were going on.
I respect very much the role of the media in our society; I think they can be very, very helpful. They serve as a very useful check, sort of a watchdog over the actions of the government, and I respect that. But there is a competing interest, and that is the ability of prosecutors to get information that may be absolutely essential to assist them in the investigation of illegal wrongdoing. And so you've got these two competing interests. I believe that the current policy at the Department of Justice reflects a careful balancing of those interests.
My opponents will do anything they can to distract from their own flawed candidate. Bob Menendez is under federal criminal investigation. As far as I know, he is the only candidate for Senate under federal criminal investigation.
Now the interesting thing about the movie is that many of the questions it raised about the Warren Commission and its investigation were all investigated by our committee 13 years ago. We published our findings in 27 volumes of information and evidentiary material.
The Shield was only around for what? Two years? And we did a lot in two years. I think the fact that people even take those two years and put them up against the reputations of those other groups really says a lot about what we were able to accomplish in that short period of time.
Mike Flynn is a fine person, and I asked for his resignation. He respectfully gave it. He is a man who there was a certain amount of information given to Vice President Mike Pence. And I was not happy with the way that information was given. He didn't have to do that, because what he did wasn't wrong - what he did in terms of the information he saw. What was wrong was the way that other people were given that information, because that was classified information that was given illegally. That's the real problem.
The responsibility of a minister is to step aside when there is a criminal investigation of the department. That protects the propriety of Parliament and of responsible government.
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