The Hillary Clinton controversy occurred against the backdrop of Clinton’s 2016 presidential election campaign and hearings held by the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Clinton and her staff had exclusively used personal email accounts on a non-government, privately maintained server rather than using accounts maintained on federal government servers while conducting official business during her tenure as secretary of state while Clinton maintains she was honest in her interview with the FBI, she had made untruthful public statements with respect to her handling of classified information in form of classified materials that she and her staff often removed from secured government servers onto private email accounts.
Petraeus is a former four-star general who was forced to resign as CIA director in 2012 amid a criminal investigation. He faced potential felony charges and imprisonment after the FBI discovered he had provided classified information(personal notebook that contained some classified information, namely his schedule) to Broadwell(his mistress, who was working on his biography, See https://youtu.be/WXsYgrtNupw), and lied to the FBI about it. General Petraus had to resign from the CIA as a result of the scandal.
The issue arises today because Petraeus is one of the people on a short list for the position of secretary of state. Clinton was attacked during the campaign for her mishandling of classified information by Donald J Trump, who is our President elect.
I think maybe she will [be indicted], but I think if she isn’t indicted, the only reason is because the Democrats are protecting her. She is being protected 100 percent. Because you look at General Petraeus, you look at all the other people that did a fraction of what she did. … But she has much worse judgment than he had, and she’s getting away with it. It’s unfair to him.”
–Donald Trump, MSNBC forum, Feb. 17, 2016
Many left leaning news outlets are crying hypocrisy. They argue that because Trump took such a procrustean position with reference to Clinton’s mishandling of classified information, he should not appoint a secretary of state who also faced such criticisms.
At first blush, this criticism seems to make sense. Trump’s stance on the importance of safeguarding the nation’s secrets during the campaign created a popular chant “Lock her up.” However, the two cases are easily distinguishable.
While it is true that Petraeus gave a notebook containing his schedule to his biographer/mistress, it was a one time lapse of judgement event. He initially concealed the events surrounding his relationship with a married woman he was having an affair with, understandable. Petraeus came clean, apologized and resigned. Same can not be said of Clinton.
Clinton created a private network, presumably to avoid anyone in the government from reviewing her emails. Another words, a long lasting scheme to conceal otherwise illicit activity. After she completed her work as secretary of state, she decided to hand some emails over and ordered her staff to destroy others. As a result of various hacks and leaks, some of her emails have been recovered. Clinton mislead the public in her public comments and was not terribly forthcoming the FBI. She concealed and lied time and time again about the information in her emails and attempt to influence the FBI to change classification on emails to avoid prosecution. Her cooperation with the FBI involved large lapses in memory to direct questioning, and feigning ignorance when confronted with serious evidence of a cover up. Just prior to the FBI concluding that Clinton should not be prosecuted, Bill Clinton met privately with the AG Lynch on her plane in an unprecedent event, where the AG and the former president had a 45 minute convesation about “grand children and golf.” Even assuming this played no role in the AG’s decision, were Clinton not running for president, many believe she would have been charged with serious crimes. In the end the investigation did not lead to a criminal prosecution although five of her aids received immunity.
Rewind to the present.
It seems that Petraeus is on a short list for Sec of State with Romney, and Giuliani. Assuming that Romney is too hated by Trump’s base of support and Giuliani lacks foreign policy credentials, Petraeus seems to have an opening to get the job. The question pundits are discussing today is whether a one time lapse in judgement by Petraeus should disqualify him from the post.
Trump doesn’t consider Petraeus’s act of hiding a personal indiscretion to be the same as the vast conspiracy by Clinton.
“Other lives, including Gen. Petraeus and many others, have been destroyed for doing far, far less,” Trump said at a rally in October of Clinton’s email troubles.
Tomorrow Trump meets Romney, hopefully to tell him thanks but no thanks.
Justice Blog 