With FBI Director James Comey’s statement this week that the massive investigation of possible criminality by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could linger into the fall, some of her political advisers have become convinced that the best option for her would be to shut it down now, which could be accomplished if President Obama would grant a preemptive pardon for any crimes she may have committed.
“It would be a humbling experience for Mrs. Clinton to accept a pardon, but she and husband Bill have ridden out terrible scandals in the past without losing their bedrock constituencies,” an official close to the campaign told Orbmagazine. “And without a pardon, the possible scenarios she is facing are fraught with danger.”
You may have noticed a look of fear in the candidate’s face in the past two weeks, and it’s not just because she has lost seven straight contests to Senator Bernie Sanders. It’s also because the yearlong investigation by 147 FBI agents into her use of a home-brew unsecured e-mail server to send and receive classified national security information, as well as the possible intermingling of Clinton Foundation fundraising with her government largesse, is drawing to a close.
Mrs. Clinton will soon be interviewed under oath about these matters, and if her testimony doesn’t match up with that of others, she could be charged with lying to an FBI agent, which is a felony. The man she hired to set up and monitor the secret server (and then kept on the State Department payroll throughout her tenure), Bryan Pagliano, has been granted immunity from prosecution by the Department of Justice. He has now been exhaustively questioned and debriefed about the details of this clandestine undertaking. If it turns out that he lied to the agents, his immunity would be nullified, so it is likely he told the truth. But how will Hillary know what story to tell the FBI without Pagliano’s collusion and cooperation with her—and he is, at the moment, off the reservation. Plus, other of Mrs. Clinton’s underlings at State have been questioned under oath, and who knows what Clinton secrets they have revealed to the Bureau? It puts her in danger.
Four of the former Secretary’s top assistants at State–Cheryl Mills, Philippe Reines, Heather Samuelson (who deleted the 31,800 e-mails that Hillary claims were personal, not official), and Jake Sullivan (who is known to have forwarded “top-secret” e-mails to Hillary’s unsecured server)—have all retained the same lawyer, Beth Wilkinson, to represent them.
“The united front suggests they plan to tell investigators the same story—although legal experts say the joint strategy presents its own risks should the interests of the four aides begin to diverge as the probe moves ahead,” writes Politico.com. “If one of the aides ends up in criminal jeopardy, choosing a ‘common-defense’ strategy could mean trouble for that staffer, who may need to say something adverse about his or her attorney’s other clients.”
These are some of the reasons that senior members of the Clinton campaign are said to have reached out to Valerie Jarrett, the intimate of the Obamas who represents the White House in these delicate matters, to raise the pros and cons of granting Mrs. Clinton a full pardon prior to any interview with the FBI.
“It’s just like the Martha Stewart situation—she went to jail not for insider trading, but for lying to the feds about her trades,” a Democrat party insider told us. “The political appointees at the D.O.J. might be inclined to give Hillary a free pass for recklessly exposing national security info and for granting favors to Clinton Foundation donors, but there is no way they could overlook her making false statements while being questioned under oath by FBI agents.”.....'
Read more: http://www.orbmagazine.com/the-orbiter/hillary-clintons-backers-want-obama-to-grant-a-preemptive-pardon-to-prevent-her-from-facing-a-martha-stewart-problem/
