Government lawyers are asking a judge to reject request by CNN and others to make Comey memos public.

 Courtesy of CNN: 

Government lawyers have asked a judge to reject CNN's requests to make public the memos of former FBI Director James Comey in which he details his meetings with President Donald Trump. 

In a late Friday evening filing, the lawyers also have asked for permission to argue in secret why they say the disclosure could compromise the investigation into Russian election-meddling and potential obstruction of justice into that probe. 

Several news outlets and government watchdogs, including CNN, have requested the documents be released under the Freedom of Information Act. Comey testified in Congress that the documents detail Trump's request that he pledge personal loyalty and what he interpreted as a request to curtail an investigation into Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn. 

Despite Comey's testimony that he wrote the memos specifically to avoid including classified information, the government argued it has now classified portions of the documents.

Releasing the memos, the government said, could "reveal the scope and focus of the investigation and thereby harm the investigation" and any prosecutions.

Yeah I think that last part translates into "We think making these memos public would harm Donald Trump's ability to escape prosecution or impeachment."

Funny how things that were not classified suddenly become classified when it helps to accuse Hillary Clinton of breaking the law, or helps Donald Trump avoid facing the consequences for his actions, don't you think?

While engaged in campaign to stop leaks Donald Trump retweets classified information about North Korea.

Now the problem with his retweet is that the information Fox and Friends is posting about is classified.

In fact when they had UN Ambassador Nikki Haley on and asked her about it, this is how she replied: 

When Haley was on Fox & Friends this morning, Steve Doocy asked her to comment. Haley responded, “I can’t. I can’t talk about anything that’s classified, and if that’s in the newspaper, that’s a shame.” 

Doocy followed up, “You have no reason to believe that’s not accurate, though.” Haley again declined to comment, but said it’s “incredibly dangerous when things get out into the press like that.”

Well it looks like Jeff Sessions will have to start handing out those subpoenas to Fox News and the White House post haste. 

Of course none of us should be surprised by this as Trump has already handed over secret information to the Russians.

Perhaps somebody should call Mitch McConnell every time something like this happens and ask him if he is still convinced that this shitgibbon is better than electing Hillary Clinton.

Donald Trump is now accusing former FBI Director James Comey of leaking classified information in his memos.

James Comey leaked CLASSIFIED INFORMATION to the media. That is so illegal!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 10, 2017

This seems to be based on reporting from, who else, Fox and Friends.

Report accuses material James Comey leaked to a friend contained top secret information pic.twitter.com/Hkg4cAb6o9

— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) July 10, 2017

And THAT reporting links to an article over on The Hill.

Now what is interesting about that Hill article is that it was written by a John Solomon, who was just named as The Hill's Executive Vice President, Digital.

Before that he was the editor-in-chief of the Sun Myung Moon founded Washington Times, a conservative new outlet.

In between these two jobs Solomon worked for Circa News, which is owned by the Sinclair Group.

Now if THAT name seems familiar it is because you remember that amazing story that John Oliver did on Sinclair Group buying up local TV news outlets in order to push a conservative agenda and pepper them with Right Wing talking points.

So while I am not saying that for sure this story about James Comey leaking classified information in his memos is bullshit, I think we can all assume that it is bovine excrement of some sort.

Which is more or less backed up by Comey's law professor buddy.

Courtesy of CNN:  

The Columbia University Law School professor and confidant of former FBI Director James Comey refuted a charge by President Donald Trump and his advocates in the media Monday: that Comey shared classified information with journalists. 

Daniel Richman, with whom Comey shared at least one memo -- the contents of which Richman shared with New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt -- said President Trump was simply wrong. 

"No memo was given to me that was marked 'classified,'" Daniel Richman told CNN. "No memo was passed on to the Times." 

Richman did share the contents of one memo, he said, but "the substance of the memo passed on to the Times was not marked classified and to my knowledge remains unclassified."

And let's face it if ANYBODY knows how to draft a memo without revealing classified information it is the former director of the FBI.

I'm going to go ahead and call this a clumsy diversion from Donald Trump. 

This story about his son and the Russian attorney is clearly causing him great concern and he is just throwing shit out there in the hopes that the press will chase after it and leave this story alone.

Fat chance buddy.

For weeks Michael Flynn continued to sit in on top secret intelligence briefings even after it was determined that he had been compromised.

Courtesy of the New York Times:

Senior officials across the government became convinced in January that the incoming national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, had become vulnerable to Russian blackmail. 

At the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — agencies responsible for keeping American secrets safe from foreign spies — career officials agreed that Mr. Flynn represented an urgent problem. 

Yet nearly every day for three weeks, the new C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, sat in the Oval Office and briefed President Trump on the nation’s most sensitive intelligence — with Mr. Flynn listening. Mr. Pompeo has not said whether C.I.A. officials left him in the dark about their views of Mr. Flynn, but one administration official said Mr. Pompeo did not share any concerns about Mr. Flynn with the president. 

The episode highlights a remarkable aspect of Mr. Flynn’s tumultuous, 25-day tenure in the White House: He sat atop a national security apparatus that churned ahead despite its own conclusion that he was at risk of being compromised by a hostile foreign power.

It should also be remembered that during this time Trump was actively trying to get James Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn's Russian connections.

I think it is high time that CIA Director Mike Pompeo makes another appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Because either he provided classified information to a man that he knew was compromised, or he was out of the loop and did not know he was compromised. Both equally troubling.

When asked previously Pompeo dodged the question: 

Mr. Pompeo sidestepped questions from senators last month about his handling of the information about Mr. Flynn, declining to say whether he knew about his own agency’s concerns. “I can’t answer yes or no,” he said. “I regret that I’m unable to do so.” His words frustrated Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. 

“Either Director Pompeo had no idea what people in the C.I.A. reportedly knew about Michael Flynn, or he knew about the Justice Department’s concerns and continued to discuss America’s secrets with a man vulnerable to blackmail,” Mr. Wyden said in a statement. “I believe Director Pompeo owes the public an explanation.”

Yep, I agree.

As it stand right now we are left with two options.

Either this Administration is the most incompetent administration in the history of the country, or it is the most corrupt.

The information that Trump leaked to the Russians visiting the White House was that Israel had hacked ISIS computers.

Hey you wanna hear some of the nuclear codes I memorized?

This is from a New York Times article detailing how hard it is to use cyber weapons against ISIS: 

Even one of the rare successes against the Islamic State belongs at least in part to Israel, which was America’s partner in the attacks against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Top Israeli cyberoperators penetrated a small cell of extremist bombmakers in Syria months ago, the officials said. That was how the United States learned that the terrorist group was working to make explosives that fooled airport X-ray machines and other screening by looking exactly like batteries for laptop computers.

The intelligence was so exquisite that it enabled the United States to understand how the weapons could be detonated, according to two American officials familiar with the operation. The information helped prompt a ban in March on large electronic devices in carry-on luggage on flights from 10 airports in eight Muslim-majority countries to the United States and Britain. 

It was also part of the classified intelligence that President Trump is accused of revealing when he met in the Oval Office last month with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, and the ambassador to the United States, Sergey I. Kislyak. His disclosure infuriated Israeli officials.

To be clear this incredibly sensitive information was just revealed to two Russian spies simply as a way for Trump to brag about what great classified information to which he had access.

Imagine how that must have made the Israeli intelligence community feel, and how it impacted our allies ability to trust this country with confidential information that if revealed might put their agents in danger or reveal tactics that could help our mutual enemies.

And somebody tell me what information leaked about Donald Trump even comes close to being as damaging to our national security as what he simply volunteered to two Russian operative who should never have been allowed into the White House in he first place.

Donald Trump defends sharing classified information with Russia, and now we know where he got that information.

So Erdogan you wanna hear some classified information? I know some. And I can share it cause I'm the president.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

A day after his advisers disputed a news article about the conversation, the president focused instead on justifying what he did and blaming those who disclosed it. In a series of early-morning posts on Twitter, he said he had the “absolute right” to give “facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety” to Russia’s foreign minister and ambassador. 

Asked about the conversation by reporters during a later appearance with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, Mr. Trump again did not deny providing the information, but he instead cast it as an attempt to collaborate with Russia in the war against the Islamic State. “We’re going to have a lot of great success over the coming years, and we want to get as many to fight terrorism as possible,” he said.

I don't see how he is going to "have a lot of success over the coming years" after he is removed from office.

In other news, also by the New York Times, we now know where that information that Trump spilled to those two Russian spies originated: 

The classified intelligence that President Trump disclosed in a meeting last week with Russian officials at the White House was provided by Israel, according to a current and a former American official familiar with how the United States obtained the information. The revelation adds a potential diplomatic complication to the episode. 

Israel is one of the United States’ most important allies and a major intelligence collector in the Middle East. The revelation that Mr. Trump boasted about some of Israel’s most sensitive information to the Russians could damage the relationship between the two countries. It also raises the possibility that the information could be passed to Iran, Russia’s close ally and Israel’s main threat in the Middle East.

Currently Israel is refusing to confirm or deny that they were the source of the classified data, which of course is more or less an admission that they were.

This is especially bad news as Israel is one of America's closest allies in dealing with turmoil in the Middle East.

But hey here is national security adviser, Gen. H. R. McMaster, to explain why none of this is Trump's fault.

BREAKING: NSA McMaster: “The president wasn’t even aware of where this information came from." https://t.co/zewlw83osz

— NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) May 16, 2017

Yeah how can the president be expected to keep classified information secret, if he does not even KNOW who provided that classified information?

I mean come on, what is he a mind reader?

Oh god, we are so fucked!

Donald Trump essentially confirms Washington Post story that he shared information about terrorists with the Russians. Update! s.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

...to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

Courtesy of CNN: 

Trump's tweets Tuesday notably lack any mention of whether the information he shared was classified. 

And the remarks appear to contradict statements made by his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster -- who told reporters in the wake of the report that "the story as reported is false" -- and White House deputy national security adviser for strategy, Dina Powell, who said Monday "the story is false. The President only discussed the common threats that both countries faced."

Well in his tweet Trump is essentially admitting that he discussed terrorism with the Russians which is not what the White House talking points were after the story broke.

The WaPo story revealed that Trump had shared classified "code word" information which came from a US partner, and that, though he did not share the source, the Russians would likely be able to reverse engineer to reveal the source of the information on their own.

And while Trump is technically correct that he has "the absolute right" to reveal information, whether classified or not, doing so to the Russians reinforces the idea that the Russians are controlling Trump, and that he does not respect the importance of carefully handling confidential information or the allies who provided that information.

Here is more from CNN:

The potential consequences could hardly be more serious, former CIA case officer Bob Baer told CNN's Erin Burnett Monday night. 

"The President, by revealing this to the Russians, has lost control of this information. It's going to go to the Syrians, It's going to go to the Iranians -- Russian allies," Baer said. 

"The ability to protect that source whoever he is, wherever he is has been seriously undermined ... If a CIA officer had revealed this information to the Russians, he would be fired instantly." 

Essentially this is the crux of the problem. Simply put Trump has NO idea how to handle the responsibilities of his job.

And the message for our allies (Russia is NOT an ally.) moving forward is that this president is an amateur who cannot be trusted with the kinds of sensitive information that may need to be shared to keep the world safe from terrorism.

Update: Oh I did not see this tweet earlier.

I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

Well gee, all former Director Comey had to do was come to the White House and he would have found the leaker immediately. 

The Washington Post reports that Donald Trump revealed classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador during White House visit.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said that Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State. 

The information Trump relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said. 

The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said that Trump’s decision to do so risks cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trump’s meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and National Security Agency. 

“This is code-word information,” said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, using terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. Trump “revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.”

.....

In his meeting with Lavrov, Trump seemed to be boasting about his inside knowledge of the looming threat. “I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day,” the president said, according to an official with knowledge of the exchange. 

Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the United States learned only through the espionage capabilities of a key partner. He did not reveal the specific intelligence-gathering method, but he described how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances. Most alarmingly, officials said, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic State’s territory where the U.S. intelligence partner detected the threat. 

The Washington Post is withholding most plot details, including the name of the city, at the urging of officials who warned that revealing them would jeopardize important intelligence capabilities.  

He was bragging about having "inside information," like a child who shows his friends that he has found the keys to his parent's liquor cabinet.

This is why the intelligence community should keep classified information out of Trump's hands.

The White House of course is vehemently denying this story, however Buzzfeed just confirmed it as well and is claiming that the information is even more sensitive than the Washington Post let on.

The New York Post also now has the story.

So we are now left to wonder if Donald Trump is simply too ignorant to understand the complexities of this job, and the importance of keeping classified information confidential, or whether he was selected by Vladimir Putin to provide just this kind of information to Russian operatives when asked to do so.

But remember, Hillary Clinton had a few emails that were later deemed classified on her private server, so clearly SHE was unfit for this job.

Right?

The Obama Administration was so worried about the incoming Trump Administration that they withheld information about sanctions for fear they would tip off the Russians.

Courtesy of the AP:  

In late November, a member of Donald Trump’s transition team approached national security officials in the Obama White House with a curious request: Could the incoming team get a copy of the classified CIA profile on Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the United States? 

Marshall Billingslea, a former Pentagon and NATO official, wanted the information for his boss, Michael Flynn, who had been tapped by Trump to serve as White House national security adviser. Billingslea knew Flynn would be speaking to Kislyak, according to two former Obama administration officials, and seemed concerned Flynn did not fully understand he was dealing with a man rumored to have ties to Russian intelligence agencies. 

To the Obama White House, Billingslea’s concerns were startling: a member of Trump’s own team suggesting the incoming Trump administration might be in over its head in dealing with an adversary. 

In the following weeks, the Obama White House would grow deeply distrustful of Trump’s dealing with the Kremlin and anxious about his team’s ties. The concern — compounded by surge of new intelligence, including evidence of multiple calls, texts and at least one in-person meeting between Flynn and Kislyak — would eventually grow so great Obama advisers delayed telling Trump’s team about plans to punish Russia for its election meddling. Obama officials worried the incoming administration might tip off Moscow, according to one Obama adviser.

Can you imagine having to hand over the keys of power to a group of people who you fear might be working with a foreign government to undermine your country?

And from just about everything that we have learned since those fears were not unfounded.

Which is why President Obama warned Trump not to choose Flynn as his National Security Adviser:

Former President Obama warned President Donald Trump against hiring Mike Flynn as his national security adviser, three former Obama administration officials tell NBC News. 

The warning, which has not been previously reported, came less than 48 hours after the November election when the two sat down for a 90-minute conversation in the Oval Office. 

A senior Trump administration official acknowledged Monday that Obama raised the issue of Flynn, saying the former president made clear he was "not a fan of Michael Flynn." Another official said Obama's remark seemed like it was made in jest.

Yes, because the former President was known to make jokes about national security.

It seems to me that Trump had plenty of information to keep him from allowing Flynn to gain access to confidential information, and he did nothing to stop it.

So the question to ask is why was Trump not bothered by the possibility that Flynn had been compromised?

I kind of think we already know the answer.

Obama officials hand carried classified documentation concerning Russia probe to the Senate Intelligence Committee so that Trump could not bury them.

I've still got your back.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

Obama administration officials were so concerned about what would happen to key classified documents related to the Russia probe once President Trump took office that they created a list of document serial numbers to give to senior members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, a former Obama official told NBC News. 

The official said that after the list of documents related to the probe into Russian interference in the U.S. election was created in early January, he hand-carried it to the committee members. The numbers themselves were not classified, said the official. 

The purpose, said the official, was to make it “harder to bury” the information, "to share it with those on the Hill who could lawfully see the documents," and to make sure it could reside in an Intelligence committee safe, "not just at Langley [CIA hq]."

Now the Trump folks are calling this "interference" but I am calling it "patriotism."

And yet another example of how one of this country's greatest Presidents worked to keep us safe.

FBI notes that Hillary Clinton informed investigators that Colin Powell told her to use a private e-mail address. And he did.

Courtesy of Time:  

Hillary Clinton told FBI investigators that former Secretary of State Colin Powell advised her to use a personal email account, according to a new report. 

The claim was included in notes given to Congress by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday, The New York Times reports. Powell confirmed he did write Clinton an email talking about how his use of a personal email account “vastly improved communications within the State Department.” 

A book by left-leaning author Joe Conason on Bill Clinton’s post-presidency includes a claim that Powell had given similar advice to Clinton at a dinner party early in her tenure, hosted by another former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright. 

“Albright asked all of the former secretaries to offer one salient bit of counsel to the nation’s next top diplomat,” Conason writes according to the Times, which obtained an advanced copy of the book. “Powell told her to use her own email, as he had done, except for classified communications, which he had sent and received via a State Department computer.”

According to Reuters Powell did not recollect that dinner conversation:

Colin Powell's office in a statement said he could not recall the dinner conversation. He did recall describing the system he used to her, but the statement did not say he suggested Clinton do the same. 

"He did write former Secretary Clinton an email memo describing his use of his personal AOL email account for unclassified messages and how it vastly improved communications within the State Department," the statement said. "At the time there was no equivalent system within the department."

Seriously? An AOL account?

Now the conservatives will jump on the fact that Powell told Hillary to use the State Department e-mails for classified information, but she must have done that because, also according to the FBI, she did not send ANY classified information through her private e-mail server, and only three of the thousands that she received had any markings which might have indicated that they had classified material in them, and THAT was only indicated by a small "c" in the body of the e-mail.

Gee I bet the Congress is really glad they asked for these FBI notes now.

FBI letter to Congress reveals that Hillary Clinton did not write nor send classified e-mails. Email-gate comes to a shuddering stop.

In a letter to the House Oversight Committee the FBI sticks a pin in allegations that Hillary Clinton sent classified data over her private e-mail server, or put any confidential information at risk.

Courtesy of Crooks and Liars:  

A letter sent by FBI Acting Assistant Director Jason Herring to the House Oversight Committee confirms that the three emails media is making such hay over did not originate with Secretary Clinton, nor was the use of the term "extremely careless" meant to establish some mythical standard of conduct which did not exist before Director Comey's statement.

Herring also specifically compared the Clinton emails with the prosecutions of Bryan Nishimura, David Petraeus, and Sandy Berger. In all of those cases, the FBI said, there was "clear evidence of knowledge and intent," which was not present in this investigation. 

As for the term "extremely careless," Herring explained that the term was "intended to be a common sense way of describing the actions of Secretary Clinton and her colleagues." He further clarified that "the facts did not support a recommendation to prosecute her or others within the scope of the investigation for gross negligence."

The main three facts are the following:

1. Clinton did not send emails with information marked classified in them. She received them. 
2. There was no intent on her part -- or her staff's -- to share classified information with people not entitled to see it.
3. There has been no determination by the State Department as to whether these three e-mails were classified at the time they were sent.

In other words, Hillary did not lie about not sending classified e-mails on her private server.

Now of course the Republicans will still try to make the case that having these e-mails stored on her private server put them at risk of falling into the hands of our enemies.

However we then have to remind ourselves that the State Department, White House, FBI, DNC, and Hillary Clinton's campaign have all been hacked. In fact there is new evidence that even the NSA was hacked.

In other words perhaps the safest e-mail system in the country was the one that Hillary Clinton was using as Secretary of State.

Darrell Issa, you may remember him from the sixth or seventh Benghazi witch hunt, is now threatening to shut down the government if Hillary Clinton is not indicted.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

In an interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily, Issa blasted FBI Director James Comey’s decision as “simply choosing to ignore a law.” 

“We should be willing to shut down the government if the president won’t limit his power,” he said, noting that his party had repeatedly been “willing to shut down the government over ending Obamacare and these other things.” Those things, according to Issa, are “small points compared to the actual balance of our republic.” 

Issa said the leadership would agree to a shutdown only if there was a clear example, like this, where “we cannot enforce criminal charges against a criminal… because the people responsible are simply choosing to ignore a law.”

Always such a reasonable guy isn't he?

But he's not the only Republican in Washington completely overreacting to the news that Hillary will not be charged, get a load of Speaker Ryan: 

House Speaker Paul Ryan sent a letter to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper Wednesday requesting he deny any classified information to Hillary Clinton for the rest of the 2016 campaign. 

After FBI Director James Comey called Clinton's handling of classified material "extremely careless," Ryan argued in an interview on Fox on Tuesday that the Democratic nominee shouldn't be permitted to get top secret briefings, but the letter formalizes that recommendation. 

Ryan cites his own experience receiving classified intelligence briefings as his party's vice presidential nominee in 2012 in his letter, saying he understands Clinton is set to begin getting similar briefings after her party formally nominates her at the Democratic convention later this month. 

"There is no legal requirement for you to provide Secretary Clinton with classified information, and it would send the wrong signal to all those charged with safeguarding our nation's secrets if you choose to provide her access to this information despite the FBI's findings," Ryan writes.

Clearly the Republicans see this is their last best hope of stopping Hillary Clinton before she destroys their disastrously unqualified candidate and ascends to the White House.

But in their furor to destroy this woman they have decided to ignore the facts. There is simply no way that she could have been indicted.

Courtesy of Slate:  

Did she commit a crime? Would anyone else—a lower-ranking official, someone who’s not a presidential candidate, someone who’s not named Clinton—have been charged with a crime? Absolutely not. And Comey said as much. “Our judgment,” he said, “is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.” In the annals of the Justice Department’s history, he went on, “we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts.” 

There are a few federal statutes dealing with the mishandling of classified information. Some are defined as misdemeanors, some as felonies. But all of them require the finding of an “intent” to mishandle information—and most of them involve an intent to share the information with people (usually, but not always, foreign agents) who are not cleared to see it. As Comey said of the Clinton case, “We do not see these things here.”

It is becoming abundantly clear that the Republicans REALLY did pin all of their hopes on Hillary being indicted over her e-mail server.

No charges against Clinton, says @LorettaLynch pic.twitter.com/5fPESOcaIV

— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) July 6, 2016

Now that they no longer have that to cling to they care losing their minds over this, and reacting in a childish and incredibly unprofessional manner.

There is literally NO doubt that if this investigation had been directed at a Republican leader the GOP standard bearers would have poo poo'd  from the very beginning.

But when it involves Hillary Clinton......well for her the rules are always going to be different.

FBI will not recommend charges against Hillary Clinton over e-mail server. Update!

Courtesy of MSNBC:

The FBI won't recommend charges in the Hillary Clinton email server investigation, agency chief James Comey announced Tuesday. 

"No reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case," Comey told reporters. 

Federal investigators did not find evidence of intentional wrongdoing, he said — but there is evidence the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and her staff were "extremely careless" during her tenure as secretary of state. 

Comey said 110 emails sent or received on the Clinton server contained classified information. He also said it's possible "hostile actors" gained access to the server.

From what I am hearing this does NOT exonerate Hillary completely over her carelessness in using the server, but it does remove any possibility that she will be indicted.

There is still plenty for the Republicans can use to attack Hillary's judgment, but since they are running Donald Trump as their candidate it works to undermine that argument.

Speaking of Trump this is how he responded to the news.

The system is rigged. General Petraeus got in trouble for far less. Very very unfair! As usual, bad judgment.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 5, 2016

FBI director said Crooked Hillary compromised our national security. No charges. Wow! #RiggedSystem

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 5, 2016

Later today Hillary will appear on stage with President Obama.

It will be interesting to see if they address this or not.

Update: Here is a more detailed report on FBI Director Comey's statement:  

"Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case," Comey said in a news conference. 

"In looking back at our investigations into the mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts," he added.

Sounds like what I kind of predicted all along.

Yes she made a mistake in judgement, no it is not something for which she can be prosecuted.

Despite what Bernie Sanders supporters and Republicans might want to believe.

Update 2: And another question answered:

A spokesperson for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) reportedly told media outlets Tuesday that the FBI's findings on the investigation into Hillary Clinton's server use wouldn't impact Sanders' decision to stay in the race for the White House.

Of course it won't. Wish I could say I was surprised by this, but I'm not.

Update 3: Seems appropriate.

I need to start buying shares of "butthurt balm."

I could make a killing.

Justice Department informs Federal judge that Hillary Clinton did nothing wrong concerning her e-mails, and that they have no power to demand any further records from her. So are we done here?

Courtesy of the Washington Times:

The Obama administration told a federal court Wednesday that former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was within her legal rights to use of her own email account, to take messages with her when she left office and to be the one deciding which of those messages are government records that should be returned. 

In the most complete legal defense of Mrs. Clinton, Justice Department lawyers insisted they not only have no obligation, but no power, to go back and demand the former top diplomat turn over any documents she hasn’t already given — and neither, they said, can the court order that. 

The defense came as part of a legal filing telling a judge why the administration shouldn’t be required to order Mrs. Clinton and her top aides to preserve all of their emails. 

“There is no question that Secretary Clinton had authority to delete personal emails without agency supervision — she appropriately could have done so even if she were working on a government server,” the administration lawyers argued. “Under policies issued by both the National Archives and Records Administration (‘NARA’) and the State Department, individual officers and employees are permitted and expected to exercise judgment to determine what constitutes a federal record.” 

The legal brief said that means employees are required to “review each message, identify its value and either delete it or move it to a record-keeping system.”

Clinton claims that she and her lawyers did exactly that.

The conservative group Judicial Watch, which has sixteen open lawsuits against the State Department seeking Clinton e-mails, vehemently disagrees with this assessment and is hell bent on pursuing this matter for reasons that I think are obvious to just about anyone.

There still an ongoing investigation by the FBI into this matter as well, but I expect that it will also turn up nothing that will cause any real concern for Hillary or her campaign.

The State Department had already earlier stated that Hillary had broken no laws but that has done nothing to satisfy those on the right, and it is becoming increasingly clear that they are determined to make this an issue in 2016 through any means necessary.

I actually had a rather protracted discussion (Okay it was an argument.) about this just yesterday.

My friend, who is all about law and order, declared unequivocally that Hillary was done as a presidential candidate due to this e-mail thing.

When I brought up the state department's assertion that she had done nothing wrong, he simply said that they were wrong and that there were laws on the books demanding that government employees preserve their e-mails.

I brought up that neither Colin Powell nor Condoleezza Rice had preserved their e-mails while serving as Secretary of State, and he claimed that didn't matter because nobody was investigating them.

That I thought was perhaps the most truthful thing about this entire non-scandal.

The only reason this is an issue is because the conservatives needed an issue to use against Hillary, and this is all they could come up with.

I also responded to his claim that it is against the law to have classified information on private e-mail accounts by reminding him that Hillary also used a private e-mail account while serving as a Senator, and that other Senators and Congressmen continue to do the same, even though politicians at that level often receive and send information that would be considered classified.

To that he said it was not an issue, unless somebody decided to make it an issue.

And that my friends is the argument in a nutshell.

It really does no matter who is or is not sending classified materials just so long as their last name is not Clinton.

So I guess I will close this out by reiterating the question in my headline, even though I'm afraid I already know the answer, "So are we done here?"

President Obama orders release of classified information as America prepares military strike against Syria.

Courtesy of CBS News:

Obama ordered a declassified report be prepared for public release before any military strike commences. That report, top advisers tell CBS News, is due to be released in a day or two. 

There was no debate at the Saturday meeting that a military response is necessary. Obama ordered up legal justifications for a military strike, should he order one, outside of the United Nations Security Council. That process is well underway, and particular emphasis is being placed on alleged violations of the Geneva Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention. 

Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday the evidence "is screaming at us" that chemical weapons were used in Syria, and he said President Obama believes "there must be accountability" -- the latest sign that the administration is getting ready for a possible military strike against the Assad regime. 

Kerry said he had looked again at the pictures we all saw last week of the victims of the attack -- many of them children -- and can't get them out of his head. 

"What we saw in Syria last week should shock the conscience of the world," Kerry said. "It defies any code of morality. Let me be clear: The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity. By any standard, it is inexcusable and -- despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured -- it is undeniable." 

The words Kerry used and the force with which he delivered them left little doubt the U.S. will soon strike Syria. 

"President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who used the world's most heinous weapons against the world's most vulnerable people," he said. 

Four U.S. Navy warships are already in position in the eastern Mediterranean, ready to launch cruise missiles within hours of receiving the order from Obama. A British submarine is also reported to be in position.

I am suffering such a debilitating case of deja vu that I can barely type this.

I cannot get over the feeling that something is just not right.

I heard a military expert raise an interesting point on MSNBC the other day. (I'm sorry I did not catch his name.) He said that it made little sense for Assad to launch a chemical attack since he had been killing his own people by the thousands, with impunity, and with little interference from the rest of the world.

Launching this kind of attack means that the United States HAS to respond, which ultimately means that Assad will be defeated and very likely killed or imprisoned.

So where is the rationale for launching it?

Like I said, something does not feel right.