Rep Chaffetz: Here is a Perfect Precedent to Prosecute Hillary

As I wrote yesterday, the FBI has rewritten the law to let Hillary Clinton off the hook. This shocking display of corruption is paralleled by another case in 2001, but this time a Clinton was on the other side. 

“The closest parallel that we see…is former CIA director John Deutch, because he did go through this – he was going to be prosecuted,” says Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Chaffetz plans to hold hearings on the FBI’s controversial and suspicious decision to let former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton walk away from her crimes unpunished. 

“I think if you look at the fact pattern – did she or did she not have classified information in a nonsecure format that went on for years – the answer’s clearly yes. And the statute says that’s a violation of the law,” Chaffetz said on Fox News earlier this week. 

When FBI Director James Comey made the official announcement on Tuesday, he said that he could find no similar cases that would support bringing criminal charges against Mrs. Clinton. As I mentioned above, one needs only to look back a few years to find supporting evidence in the case of John Deutch. 

“This is a person who plugged the computer onto the Internet – the Department of Justice was going to prosecute him, and then it was President Clinton that offered that person a pardon,” said Chaffetz. 

Deutch had already agreed to plead guilty for mishandling classified information when President Clinton (during his last day as President) stepped in to give him a pardon. The exact same situation “has been prosecuted, or at least attempted to be prosecuted, in the past. Why the difference now?” asks Chaffetz. 

The reason seems clear to me: Deutch wasn’t the leading presidential candidate. Even so, government officials have a responsibility to follow the law, and Hillary’s standing in the polls should not make her immune to prosecution. 

Chaffetz has “a lot of outstanding questions” for the FBI, and believes the American people “have a right to know the truth.” Now that the case is all but over, “there’s really no excuse not to provide that information to Congress,” he said. “I think the job of the FBI is to provide the fact pattern to the DOJ and not make the political calculation that this is what a reasonable prosecutor would do. That’s not the job of the FBI.”