Will Hillary Clinton be indicted? That is indeed the $64,000 question. Some in Washington say that yes, she indeed will. But some say she won’t. Both sides make a strong case for their position, so it’s important to look at how the facts line up and then make up your own mind. The fact remains, Hillary definitely did not follow protocol, but did she break the law? That is something that the FBI and director James Comey have been intensely studying over the course of the last couple of months. One thing is certain, if Hillary is not indicted, there will more than likely be a cloud hovering over her candidacy anyway.
So, will Hillary Clinton be indicted? Or will she come out of this unscathed? First of all, the sides that say she will be indicted make a strong case for why she should be, there is no question about it. They say that Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server is something that has never been done before. Although Hillary and her fans are quick to point out that all of the other heads of the State Department have done similar things, Hillary is the only one who kept a private email server .
So… will Hillary Clinton be indicted? Probably, but it doesn’t necessarily mean she will even be forced to drop out of the race. The reason she might get indicted is because even at the outset, she did things that were considered against protocol at best. She was supposed to ask permission from the state department before utilizing a private email server, yet she failed to do so. Interestingly enough, had she done so, she would most likely have been rejected. The problem is even compounded by the fact that even celebrities are beginning to feel she might get indicted as well. The most notable example would be Susan Sarandon, who went on record as saying, “there’s going to be [an indictment]. It’s inevitable.”
Of course, there are those on the other side of the camp who say Hillary Clinton will not get indicted. Their main argument is that there is no “there, there.” They point out that Hillary would have “knowingly and willfully” violated the law in regards to her emails in order to have violated the law. Thus, if the emails were declassified prior to her receipt of the emails, then she might be in the clear. This law professor does, however, feel that the associates who sent Hillary these classified emails might have something to be concerned about. If they “knowingly and willfully” sent classified information to an insecure server, they might face some consequences over the action. However, they too might escape prosecution simply for the fact that Hillary only used one email instead of the normal two that most heads of state normally utilize. Moreover, if we look to past history, there has to be some sort of “plus” factor involved in this prosecution; in other words, if, say, an agent goes home with classified documents and shares it with his double agent mistress or something of that nature.
So will Hillary Clinton get indicted? That remains to be seen. You can make a compelling case for either position. The decision to go ahead with prosecuting seems to rest on whether keeping a private email server in Clinton’s basement is a “knowingly” or “willful” violation of the security laws. Whether she gets indicted or not, either way you look at it, it is definitely troublesome that foreign hackers were able to access her insecure server. Do we really want a Romanian hacker who goes by the name of “Guccifer” accessing the Secretary of State’s emails? No, we don’t. But it is definitely up to FBI and James Comey to determine if this is a breach of the law.
[AP Photo/John Locher]