‘It Is Safe to Say the Vast Majority Felt She Should Be Prosecuted’

October 13, 2016

'It Is Safe to Say the Vast Majority Felt She Should Be Prosecuted'

Assuming that this is true, the country would be well-served if these figures came forward and said this publicly. If that act causes these career prosecutors and agents to be fired, then those of us who want the truth need to find a way to support them and give them other career options. If, as these career agents and attorneys on the case are alleging, the FBI is no longer capable of investigating allegations of crimes committed by high-ranking elected officials, the public needs to know and the crisis in the rule of law needs to be solved.

The decision to let Hillary Clinton off the hook for mishandling classified information has roiled the FBI and Department of Justice, with one person closely involved in the year-long probe telling FoxNews.com that career agents and attorneys on the case unanimously believed the Democratic presidential nominee should have been charged.

The source, who spoke to FoxNews.com on the condition of anonymity, said FBI Director James Comey's dramatic July 5 announcement that he would not recommend to the Attorney General's office that the former secretary of state be charged left members of the investigative team dismayed and disgusted. More than 100 FBI agents and analysts worked around the clock with six attorneys from the DOJ's National Security Division, Counter Espionage Section, to investigate the case.

"No trial level attorney agreed, no agent working the case agreed, with the decision not to prosecute — it was a top-down decision," said the source, whose identity and role in the case has been verified by FoxNews.com.

A high-ranking FBI official told Fox News that while it might not have been a unanimous decision, "It was unanimous that we all wanted her [Clinton's] security clearance yanked."

"It is safe to say the vast majority felt she should be prosecuted," the senior FBI official told Fox News. "We were floored while listening to the FBI briefing because Comey laid it all out, and then said 'but we are doing nothing,' which made no sense to us."

Isn't this precisely the sort of situation that whistleblower protection laws are created to address?

We Cannot Evaluate Accusations Based Upon the Party of the Accused

We need a better way to evaluate accusations against public figures — beyond, "Do I like the person being accused of this?" or "What is the partisan affiliation of the person being accused?"

Sometimes people in powerful positions do terrible things, because they think they can get away with them. And sometimes people make false accusations against people in powerful positions, driven by a wide variety of malicious motives.

When sorting out who's telling the truth and who's telling a lie, we would be well-served by consistently applying a series of key questions. Is there any corroborating evidence? Can we determine that the accused person was in the place and time of the alleged action? Were there any witnesses to any part of the alleged actions? Does the accuser's version of events have any contradictions? Is the account full of specific detail, or is everything vague? Does the accused person have an alibi? Does the accused person have a history of facing similar claims or exhibiting similar behavior?

Last night, the New York Times found two women who claimed that Donald Trump groped them — one accusation from 2005 — the year of Trump's infamous boastful comments to Billy Bush — and one from "more than three decades ago."

Take a look at Lisa Myers's 1999 report on Juanita Broaddrick and her allegation that Bill Clinton raped her in the late 1970s. Notice Myers' laudable effort to check as many details as possible against available records.

The stories her friends tell from 20 years ago are consistent — and Broaddrick herself says she recalls many details. For instance, the outfit she was wearing, the hotel room furnishings, and the time of year — spring. However, there is one important thing she does not remember — when the alleged incident happened: not the date, not even the month.

Lisa Myers: "Some people would say, how can you not remember the specific date of an event as traumatic as this?"

Juanita Broaddrick: "I really don't have an answer for that except to say I remember the approximate time of year. I probably should remember the date, although it's something I wanted to forget."

So NBC News tried to figure out the date of the alleged assault.

Broaddrick gave us access to all the business and personal records she says she could find. We also checked public records, nursing home records and convention schedules.

And indeed there was a nursing home meeting at the Camelot Hotel in Little Rock on April 25, 1978. Further, state records show Broaddrick got credit for a nursing home seminar that was held that day, April 25.

So was Bill Clinton even in Little Rock on April 25, 1978? Despite our repeated requests, the White House would not answer that question and declined to release any information about his schedule.

So we checked 45 Arkansas newspapers and talked to a dozen former Clinton staffers. We found no evidence that Clinton had any public appearances on the morning in question. Articles in Arkansas newspapers suggest he was in Little Rock that day.

And remember the little building Broaddrick says Clinton pointed to just before the alleged assault in the hotel room? We checked that too, and in fact the Pulaski County jail was visible from rooms facing the river. It has since been demolished.

But what happened after the alleged assault? It turns out, just three weeks later Broaddrick actually attended a Clinton fundraiser with her first husband.

Myers: "Some people would wonder why you would go to a fundraiser for someone who you say sexually assaulted you. Couldn't you have said you were sick or gotten out of it?"

Broaddrick: "I think I was still in denial that time exactly what had happened to me. I still felt very guilty at that time that it was my fault. By letting him come to the room I had given him the wrong idea and just shut up and accept your punishment and don't ever do it again."

The Nobel Prize Went to Him? Man, the Times, They Are a-Changin' . . .

I pay close to zero attention to any competition for the Nobel Prize for Literature, but Alex Shephard of The New Republic does pay attention, and last week he wrote a detailed examination of all the names being mentioned as potential winners and what the oddsmakers were saying. (No, really, you can bet on money on who will win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Gamblers Anonymous can be found here.)

Anyway, deep in Shephard's piece: "Bob Dylan 100 percent is not going to win. Stop saying Bob Dylan should win the Nobel Prize."

Don't be too hard on the guy. It's been the kind of really unpredictable year when the Chicago Cubs have the best record in baseball, North Korea succeeded in a nuclear test, Cleveland won a sports championship, and a reality show star is the Republican nominee.

ADDENDA: Let's dismiss any talk that any conservative in Virginia who didn't vote for Trump cost him the state and its 13 electoral votes. If the Trump campaign is giving up on the state in mid-October, then it was never really in play.

Donald Trump's campaign is "pulling out of Virginia," a move that stunned staff in the battleground state, three sources with knowledge of the decision told NBC News.

The decision came from Trump's headquarters in New York and was announced on a conference call late Wednesday that left some Republican Party operatives in the state blindsided. Two staffers directly involved in the GOP's efforts in Virginia confirmed the decision.

The move to pull out of Virginia shows Trump is "running essentially a four state campaign," with the focus now shifting to battlegrounds critical to his chances in November: Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio, a source with knowledge of the decision told NBC News.