What Did This Marine Do That Hillary Clinton Didn’t?
[guest post by Dana]
This weekend in Iowa, Hillary Clinton, who has already mocked interest in her use of a private email server, claiming it is nothing but partisan games, joked about about disappearing emails:
It’s all fun and games to Clinton, but for a decorated Marine who sent one classified report and subsequently self-reported his actions to a superior, it is anything but. Unlike Clinton, Marine Reserves Major Jason Brezler’s decision to send the report was, quite literally, a matter of life and death:
No matter how much classified material is found in her personal email server, Hillary Clinton will no doubt continue campaigning to become our next president.
Meanwhile, a decorated Marine officer who has deployed four times faces being discharged from the corps he loves because he used his personal email to send a single classified report as an urgent warning when lives were at stake.
The stateside message from Marine Reserves Major Jason Brezler to Forward Operating Base Delhi in Now Zad, Helmand Province, Afghanistan, went unheeded. Three young Marines were shot to death as they worked out in a gym by an Afghan teen brought on the base by the same corrupt and double-dealing pedophile police chief whom Brezler had declared to be an immediate threat.
Yet the only person to be investigated in connection with the killings is Brezler, the Marine who sought to prevent them.
The author then cites the injustice of the prosecution:
To compound the injustice, the two generals who ruled against Brezler based their decision on a Board of Inquiry transcript whose 451 pages contain 1,548 sections marked “[inaudible].” And those gaps are accompanied by an astonishing number of errors.
One witness who was critical to the defense reported that he found 47 mistakes in his testimony and could have found more but the “incredible number of ‘inaudible’ and outright errors was so great that I did not correct ones where I had no idea what was said exactly.”
Other witnesses said much the same, with one declaring himself “disgusted with the transcript,” adding that the “record is so bad I can barely make out what I was saying and it’s my testimony.”
Brezler’s last hope is that Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus will set the decision aside. Mabus certainly has considerable reason to do so beyond the rank injustice of the proceedings.
Read the whole thing.
On a side note: Bill Clinton and President Obama played golf together this weekend in Martha’s Vineyard. Do you think they had a little discussion about the email scandal?
–Dana
Benedict Arnold could not be reached for comment.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 8/17/2015 @ 6:35 amThe marine did what he did for a noble, selfless cause. He was originally just reprimanded, and things should have just been left there.
So I’d say this case is more comparable, because the guy was just being reckless with classified information for no good reason whatsoever. Just like Hillary!
http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-kristian-saucier-sub-secrets-0725-20150724-story.html
Put classified information on unclas systems? Check!
But it wasn’t marked classified? Check!
When he learned there was an investigation he tried to destroy the unclas systems that held the classified? Check!
It sounds like the only differences between this doofus and Hillary! are:
-It sounds like he didn’t illegally retain as much classified information.
-The classified didn’t get onto as many unclas systems where not as many uncleared people were actually or potentially exposed to it (Hillary!s iPad, Blackberry, server one in Chappaqua, server two with Platte River Networks, three thumb drives, Hillary!s original sysadmin in Chappaqua, everyone at Platte River Networks who later administered the system, Hillary!’s lawyer David Kendall, everyone who helped Kendall review the emails, possibly everyone in Kendall’s law office, Guccifer, Russian intelligence, Chinese intelligence, etc.)
-He isn’t trying to become President.
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/17/2015 @ 7:03 am“What Did This Marine Do That Hillary Clinton Didn’t?”
Major Jason Brezler sent one classified report to fellow Marines in a combat zone in an attempt to prevent the loss of American lives.
Hillary got 4 Americans killed attempting to arm ISIS then lied to the parents of men she turned her back on about a video tape no one saw, lied to Congress, and then blatantly scrubbed her email of incriminating evidence of her treachery.
ropelight (d35203) — 8/17/2015 @ 7:15 amAs former CIA operative Bob Baer has noted, what Hillary has done is a felony and she should be jailed if found guilty.
Colonel Haiku (fdbf44) — 8/17/2015 @ 7:44 amWhat the jarhead did was expose the command’s lack of interest in green-on-blue
Richard Aubrey (472a6f) — 8/17/2015 @ 8:04 ampossibilties even when provided with a name.
I suppose you could say it was like the time Putin’s intel guys gave the FBI the Tsarnaev
brothers on a silver platter…. Nada.
Tell the truth knowing the possible consequences.
crazy (cde091) — 8/17/2015 @ 8:18 amIf only the Tsar knew what was happening! Oh, wait.
felipe (56556d) — 8/17/2015 @ 8:34 amI’m going to guess that Obama and Clinton are not talking about Hillary’s email on the golf course. They are surrounded by reporters and other staff, for one; both of them know about the issue already and know the other one does, for two; and we have no idea whether Obama or Clinton wants to help Hillary or hurt her for three, because these people do not have normal human relationships.
It’s kind of like how some of us have the impression that Obama “ordered” the IRS to selectively audit Tea Party groups. He didn’t have to “order” anything; he made a speech where he said that a lot of his opponents are funded by shadowy 501c groups that might be operating illegally. An actual order was not necessary after that, the IRS knew perfectly well what he wished them to do. Likewise with this issue.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 8/17/2015 @ 8:37 amJason Brezler (who is also a member of FDNY) is a hero. And what they have done to him already is a national disgrace.
Bugg (137ba5) — 8/17/2015 @ 9:12 amMr 57 wrote:
What this tells me is that Valerie Jarrett found out about this, and pushed it, knowing that the similarities between the cases of Major Brezler, General Petraeus, and Secretary Clinton, and the word came down from on high: prosecute the Major, just as General Petraeus was charged.
Then, it becomes public, and the lovely Mrs Clinton loses a bit more respect from the people.
The Dana who hates the Obamas as much as he hates the Clintons (f6a568) — 8/17/2015 @ 9:23 amThis is the Obama Admin we’re talking about. Unfortunately, Jason is toast. As Glenn Reynolds says, “Laws are for the little people.”
Bill M (906260) — 8/17/2015 @ 9:26 amWas there is little discussion?
No…not there wasn’t…there was a lecture…
Teh Won: “Bill, here is how it’s going to be…First you and the missus will publicly and repeatedly support every single item on my agenda forever more. Second, you will give me a cut of the ‘Clinton Foundation’ take. In exchange, I’ll just keep all your secrets to myself for now…just in case…”
MJN1957 (6f981a) — 8/17/2015 @ 9:59 amHillary’s private server provided her a level of reasonable deniability against the charge of espionage – leaking American secrets to our enemies. She purposely bypassed official State Department email systems, not for her convenience (the Department’s existing secure system was already in place and required no instillation of a private server nor the purchase of software or the expense of maintenance), but in order for Hillary to place secret political and military intelligence information on an unsecured system vulnerable especially to highly placed foreign spies and to off-shore enemy hackers as well.
Huma Mahmood Abedin, Hillary’s Deputy Chief of Staff, had unfettered access to the illegal unsecured server’s plethora of top secret documents. Both her parents are high level members of the Muslim Brotherhood (which alone is more than enough to summarily disqualify Huma for a security clearance). But, there’s more, Huma worked for 12 years as an assistant editor for JMMA (Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs) a publication founded by Amdullah Omar Saseef, top level Muslim Brotherhood official and major financier of al-Qaeda.
Ask yourself if a loyal Secretary of State would ever let such an obvious security risk anywhere near America’s secrets. Then ask yourself how is it possible such an obvious security risk could obtain the necessary security clearances to warrant access to such sensitive information. Then ask yourself if Hillary’s efforts to scrub the server aren’t obviously the attempts of a treacherous criminal to cover her tracks.
ropelight (d35203) — 8/17/2015 @ 11:16 amGosh, does this remind everyone of when the Clinton Administration during L’Affaire Lewinsky was telling us that Bubba’s perjury was no big deal because everybody lies about sex and no one would ever be prosecuted for shading the truth in a civil deposition, which turned out to not exactly be the case. And then, if memory serves, we found out that Clinton’s own DOJ under his consigliere Janet Reno actually prosecuted an army general who lied about having an affair with a young lieutenant, bringing criminal charges against him beyond simply ending his career.
It’s funny how history repeats itself with this crew.
JVW (ba78f9) — 8/17/2015 @ 11:24 amWhat did this marine do that Hillary! didn’t do. He failed to overachieve like Hillary! when it came to compromising classified by sending documents over unclas systems.
Your updated Hillary! classified email tally.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/17/new-hillary-clinton-email-count-305-documents-pote/#.VdIKRsS_M1I.twitter
I love how the Obama admin is trying to downplay this.
Anybody care to guess what would have happened to me if I had only sent out 305 classified documents via unclassified email during my entire 20 years in the Navy?
But hey, who knows? Maybe that’s this marine’s problem. He only sent one classified document. He didn’t go big. He didn’t go for the record.
Yes, let’s just totally downplay this. This is pure partisan politics. It’s such a tiny issue the State Department only fell 1,000 pages of emails short in July because of all the classified information they had to redact.
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/17/2015 @ 11:47 amA Washington Times article reports:
“More than 300 of former Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton’s emails — or 5.1 percent of those processed so far — have been flagged for potential secret information, the State Department reported to a federal court Monday”
Just another right wing rag trying to do a hit job on Hillary.
This is actually great news… first they were reporting that 10% of the documents were classified and now a mere 5.1%…. they just make this stuff up, don’t they?!
5.1% falls easily within the margin of error, so statistically there are probably NO emails that were classified.
Republicans can’t do math and they can’t do science and this proves it!
HA HA HA!!!
The vastness of the right wing conspiracy is an ever-expanding universe of morons!!! HA HA HAA!
Patrick (ce7fc3) — 8/17/2015 @ 11:54 amAnd Phillip reines had 17,000 emails recently discovered.
narciso (ee1f88) — 8/17/2015 @ 12:01 pmropelight, that’s nothing. Hillary! and her boss have betrayed America in worse ways.
Remember when one of the talking points following the atrocity at Benghazi was that it was due to a “hateful anti-Muslim video” and not a wider policy failure? Yes, of course you already know.
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2015/08/07/rise-of-islamic-state-was-a-willful-decision-former-dia-chief-michael-flynn/
This is an example of Prom Queen, Valerie Rasputin, and the Hildebeast’s headwork. It bodes well for getting a great outcome for bending over for Iran, huh?
Hillary! didn’t just have that private server simply to thwart Republicans in Congress, or FOIA requests, or possible court actions.
She wanted to have the goods on her partners in crime. Just in case of a rainy day. And these are her rainy days.
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/17/2015 @ 12:06 pmSo the universe of emails has gone up 150 fold.
narciso (ee1f88) — 8/17/2015 @ 12:08 pmActually the DoS has all of a sudden discovered 81k plus emails that they swore didn’t exist back in 2013.
The approx. 17k figure is what they told the judge they believe may be responsive to the FOIA request.
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/17/2015 @ 12:11 pmJust going by the lawsuit filed by denton’s publication.
narciso (ee1f88) — 8/17/2015 @ 12:18 pmI think they were discussing how much trouble they would both be in if the GOP won the election. The urge to cheat this time will be overwhelming.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 8/17/2015 @ 12:38 pmSorry, Dana, phrased the question backwards. It’s not what the Marine did; it’s what he did not do. He did not marry the right guy.
nk (dbc370) — 8/17/2015 @ 1:56 pmI am surprised Saucier was not court-martialed.
Michael Ejercito (d74b61) — 8/17/2015 @ 2:27 pmThe weekend golf outing was the most spectacular example yet of Emperor Barack the First’s contempt for America, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law.
I suppose he could have just purchased a big billboard outside the Department of Justice which said, underneath a reprint of this photo: “Career DoJ prosecutors and FBI personnel investigating Hillary Clinton! Nice career you have. Be a shame if anything happened to it.”
But why pay for a billboard when every mainstream media news outlet in the entire world, plus tons of other media (left, right, center, domestic, foreign, whatever) will republish it for you?
Beldar (fa637a) — 8/17/2015 @ 3:51 pmyou’ll love this.
https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/11760202_997469740305145_4201689723456350058_n.jpg?oh=ef8dbb1e394f4a9a7d7cfc2030034e2b&oe=563C43B8
Hoagie (f4eb27) — 8/17/2015 @ 4:17 pmHow awesome is it for Bubba that he is arguably now the less-sleazy spouse in that marriage? Or am I going overboard here?
JVW (898103) — 8/17/2015 @ 4:34 pmthe herpes sores are kind of a tie-breaker
happyfeet (5546fb) — 8/17/2015 @ 4:36 pmMacbeth or Lady Macbeth? Eenie-meenie.
nk (dbc370) — 8/17/2015 @ 4:48 pmHillary! still shines as a candidate, I tell you.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/08/17/clinton-email-factsheet-false-misleading-column/31649655/
I especially like this one:
I like it because it doesn’t matter if she was facing a subpoena. If she deleted emails in order to frustrate any future investigations then she violated this statute.
There’s not a word in there about subpoenas. Under this statute it doesn’t matter if she knew she was under investigation, suspected she might one day be under investigation, or had a clue that there ever were an investigation. If she altered, destroyed, etc, her emails because she thought they might one day prove incriminating then she’s guilty of violating this statute.
But in the case of Hillary! she deleted and altered these emails after she had very god reasons to suspect she might need to obstruct justice.
Even if she just didn’t want to let the DoS have a complete record of her work products, she still is guilty of violating this law as that would impede or obstruct “proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency.”
And now of course the FBI is investigating her.
But don’t ever call her a liar. The fact-checkers are on the case. And they can only prove she’s incredibly deceptive and misleading. So her supporters can take pride in her trustworthiness.
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/17/2015 @ 4:54 pmThat depends on your definition of trustworthiness. Hillary doesn’t think it makes any difference, but you’re entitled to decide for yourself if a greedy fatassed two-faced lying traitor with blood on her hands and Muslim Brotherhood money stuffed in her pockets should be behind bars instead of campaigning for president.
ropelight (d35203) — 8/17/2015 @ 5:30 pmOoh, yeah. This looks ugly for the Hildebeast.
Really the FBI investigation is going to be a lot more fruitful in this regard, as no one can just refuse to talk to the FBI. No doubt the DoS POSs thought they had the upper hand because no executive branch officials working for Obama think they have to give the GOP Congress thei time of day.
But until just a couple of days there was not FBI investigation.
So keep in mind, DoS was refusing to cooperate with the only investigation in town. Because as you’ll see the DoS was not conducting its own.
It gets better, or worse depending on if you were part of this clusterf***. Hillary! may be “too big to fail” but she dragged a lot of people into this with her.
Oh, a SCIF is just a little bit more than that.
There is just so much gobsmacking stupidity to go around I don’t even know where to start. I’ll think I’ll start with the lawyer as his stupidity, though wide and deep, is lesser and thus easier to deal with.
But it is not inexcusable. He had at least had a clearance at various times. I don’t know what level, or if he still had it, but even if it was no longer active he should have known something about what is or is not classified, and the requirements for safeguarding classified. It will be the dozens or so people with clearances who will get hammered as they should have known better, not the cast of thousands of complete innocents who She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Inconvenienced ultimately brought in to maintain servers, review emails, print them off, and who knows what else.
So somehow he convinces the DoS he should keep the thumbdrives full of emails that are the property of the DoS (?!?!?) and just print of copies for them. Then he had his subordinates review what was on the thumbdrives.
The subordinates remain persons unknown, whereabouts unknown, numbers unknown. I think it’s safe to say they didn’t have clearances, so they couldn’t have reviewed them for any classified information. It would be pretty tough to convince the Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office that it’s a valid requirement that your legal staff needs security clearances in case one of your idiot clients illegally steals classified, so they can recognize it and destroy the evidence before anyone finds out. So, just information that might have been personally or legally embarrassing to the Queen B*** of Hot Springs. I am guessing the staff in a legal office can do that.
We don’t know how they were printed off. But if Kendall used a printing service they’d have to transfer the files on some sort of media perhaps by courier or electronically to the printing company. Then who knows how many people upload the files, print them, pack them into boxes, and give them a ride across town.
From December until May who knows how Kendall stored those thumbdrives. Maybe in an office safe, maybe in a locked desk or filing cabinet drawer, maybe at home.
I think we can all see the problems in terms of compromise here.
When DoS rings him up and says, “Oh by he way were sending over a safe that’s certified for storage of classified materials for those thumbdrives” if Kendall ever had a clearance alarm bells should have been going off. He should have been immediately scared witless about all thinking about all the uncleared people he has given access to those thumbdrives, how his entire office IT system is now classified and USG property, and demanded instead that they come and take them off his hands.
I guess he was still thinking like a lawyer looking out for his client. When they notified him earlier this month that he needed to build a SCIF at his law firm he should have gone ballistic. Perhaps he would have if he knew what that was; he could have never had anything more than a Secret clearance.
Which brings us to the planetary scale of the DoS officials. First they refused to cooperate with the Congressional investigation. Or rather, I should say second, as they first didn’t care that someone had vast amounts of documents that belonged to the DoS outside of their control. Stupidly they apparently didn’t care that some portion might be classified but inevitably some portion was bound to be to be sensitive and For Official Use Only and couldn’t be shown to any unauthorized personnel.
I have no idea what they could have been thinking. I guess, “If you can’t trust someone who will illegally remove government documents and store them at an unauthorized location, who can you trust?”
Apparently no one cared. When they discovered some of the emails were classified they still didn’t care. They still didn’t go and safeguard the thumbdrives. They just sent over a proper safe.
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/18/2015 @ 3:21 amI guess it was time to break this comment up anyway.
If Kendall needed the safe, that meant he had been storing those thumbdrives improperly for approximately six months. Which meant they almost certainly had been compromised. And I’ve never met anyone with a security clearance so stupid they wouldn’t immediately think of a number of other issues. If he didn’t have the safe, then it meant his IT systems weren’t accredited for classified for information. So how did these dumbs***s at State think he had printed them off the thumbdrives? And who had printed off all those tens of thousands of emails from the thumbdrives. Did everyone from the receptionist to the janitor who might have come across those thumbdrives or even worse paper copies have clearances? Did Kendall print off any copies? And, oh by they way, what kind of clearance did Kendall have, if he still had one?
Nope, instead of safeguarding them at that point they just sent over a safe.
Then last week they found out some emails might be TS/SCI. Their first response was apparently to go to the press and publicly argue with the IG’s opinion. But, if this story is right and I hope it’s wrong, they told Kendall he needed to build a SCIF.
This is beyond stupid; this is brain dead. You just don’t build a SCIF. There are a lot of painstaking physical security requirements, it has to be accredited and that takes a long time, and there are specially trained personnel who are required to man a SCIF. It’s a lengthy process. So if this story is right, DoS was going let Kendall, who could not possibly have been cleared and read in considering the classification level of the data hold onto it and store it improperly until everything was up and running.
I hope that last part is wrong; I hope no one is that stupid. But the fact that they let Kendall keep official USG records for so long, even after learning some were classified, convinces me they just might be this stupid. This is criminal.
Someone is going to end up getting fired and hopefully go to prison over this. And if it’s as big a clusterf*** as it looks, not even Obama will be getting away with just tossing the underlings under the bus.
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/18/2015 @ 3:47 amGrassley’s letter to Hillary!s lawyer is here:
http://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-questions-classified-clearance-clinton-personal-attorney
It I were Kendall I’d be crapping my pants. I don’t think he’ll be remaining Hillary!’s lawyer. It looks to me as if he’ll need a lawyer. As will many State employees.
Yes, there was much stupidity. A few highlights.
Unbeleivable!
Actually, there’s no question that the safe would not be adequate. Not even close.
I think despite the seriousness of the breach
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/18/2015 @ 4:10 amI hate my optical mouse.
Up until now Hillary! and her lawyer were out-Nixoning Nixon. “Yes, I have the tapes, and there’s no way in h3ll you congresscritters are going to ever listen to them. So I think Grassley may be enjoying himself just a little.
I’d say the Senator is letting Kendall know his client is in deep excrement, and he’s not entirely safe either. There are 13 questions that follow.
I’d feel very uncomfortable if I were him.
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/18/2015 @ 4:19 amThe Marine tried to save lives – whereas, Hillary Clinton ignored warnings, distress calls in Benghazi and DID NOT TRY TO SAVE LIVES.
The Marine broke a rule in the heat of a moment of dire emergency.
Hillary Clinton as a rule, breaks laws, lies, and steals for profit and for power. She has been doing this since the Watergate Investigation when she was fired for lying and stealing documents.
Sibyl S (b9dc44) — 8/18/2015 @ 6:01 amI find it incredible that Steve can come up with a series of questions that are painfully obvious to anyone that has ever had a TS clearance would readily understand. At some point, it would be nice if Gowdy and the rest would get around to asking Clinton these directly. For starters.
JD (0b767c) — 8/18/2015 @ 7:05 amJD, if you’ve read the Grassley letter then some of these letter then clearly some of these questions have occurred to somebody.
Which is the point. They should have occurred to somebody at the Dept. of State months ago.
And perhaps they did. There is an Asst. Secretary of State for Intelligence, an entire intel agency (INR) and all the attendant security administration that comes with. But these are career positions. Maybe they did raise the alarm, but the upper level appointees prevented them from doing anything about it. In the interests of political spin/damage control of course. This is pure speculation on my part, but how do you explain this?
I can’t believe this. I’ve never seen anything like this.
Sending over a safe to store the thumbdrives when they realized in May the emails contained classified would have been like putting a band-aid on a severed limb. Yet they waited until July to send over the band-aid? Kendall’s office shouldn’t have gotten a safe. Kendall’s clearance should have been suspended in May and all of his firm’s IT equipment seized for the damage assessment. But even then that was way too late.
What I mean is I can’t explain it any other way than (a reading from the book of obvious) the administration saw this as they see everything else; a political problem to be managed. So despite all the evidence of massive bleeding, they let the bleeding continue until TS/SCI in Hillary!’s emails.
All this is so incredibly stupid. I don’t see how anybody involved escapes prison.
The Obama administration may well try to pretend this is no big deal. But this breach is comparable to Snowden’s. So imagine he did everything exactly the same way except for one thing. He never tried to flee the country. Instead he ran for President.
And the Obama administration didn’t touch him. That’s the size of the problem they have on their hands. I wonder if anyone in the administration is smart enough to realize it?
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/18/2015 @ 12:29 pm* They should have occurred to somebody at the Dept. of State
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/18/2015 @ 12:32 pmmonthsyears ago.I don’t know if we disagree, JD. At some point Gowdy et al need to be directing these questions at Hillary! But I would say that point needs to be later, not sooner. I’d push her scheduled October deposition back if I could.
That may be unavoidable as I don’t see how Kendall can remain her attorney. I’m not a lawyer, but as Grassley’s letter makes clear he is now, himself, a subject of the investigation.
As well he should be; he and his staff vetted the emails even though he didn’t have an adequate security clearance, adequately cleared staff, and adequate facilities to store and handle the information he was vetting.
But the real problem goes back to State. Who in holy h3ll ever thought Kendall and his law firm could possibly be up to the task? So first I think they need to find out who his enablers were at State. I’ve been calling the Obama administration an organized crime ring somewhat hyperbolically, but this really looks like a conspiracy to endanger national security. Then get her under oath, so she doesn’t know how much she can lie because she won’t know how much you know.
Steve57 (5a07a9) — 8/18/2015 @ 1:14 pmRegarding whether Kendall can remain as Hillary’s lawyer: This is a subject of considerable interest to me, and one on which I’ve taught continuing legal education seminars for other lawyers.
It’s been a while since I’ve read them, but I think some variation of this was part of the plotline of at least three or four John Grisham or similar legal thrillers, all fictional. The hero-lawyer is himself accused of a crime, as a tactic to force him to step aside from his innocent and persecuted client’s defense, etc.
Look for the Clintonistas, including Kendall, to spin his situation exactly that way. The phrase “vast right-wing conspiracy” will likely be used.
If Kendall is himself charged, he of course has a constitutional right to represent himself if he so chooses, a right that he doesn’t forfeit simply because he’s a lawyer. He’d simply have the proverbial fool for a client. (That’s the plot-line in at least another dozen lawyer-thrillers, too.)
As for whether the (still entirely theoretical) prosecution team seeking convictions against Hillary for her crimes (which I don’t think are theoretical at all; I note that unless and until convicted, she’s constitutionally presumed innocent in the eyes of the law, but that’s a very different thing from the court of public opinion or my personal opinion) can force Kendall’s disqualification:
That’s a really thorny ethical question, and might, strangely enough, depend on whether the indictment(s) were filed in the District of Columbia, the Southern District of New York (White Plains Division, which includes Chappaqua), or somewhere else. But in general, there’s one set of standards for when a lawyer should refuse employment or disqualify himself, and those tend to be pretty broad, but mostly require self-policing (which, as we all know, is a huge joke when we’re talking about Clintonistas), meaning that it’s difficult for the opposing side in civil or criminal litigation to enforce them. The other set is more narrow, and can indeed be grounds for a motion to disqualify filed by the other side.
A lot depends on the extent to which Kendall is now an actual or likely witness in the theoretical prosecution against Hillary, and on whether his testimony would be on uncontroverted matters, and whether his personal credibility would be at issue, and whether his testimony would be exculpatory or inculpatory. The facts necessary to make those judgments aren’t yet public, although they should be increasingly obvious to him, to other members of Hillary’s defense team, and (through them, and through her own status as a lawyer) to her. (Last I checked, she still has her Arkansas license but is on “voluntarily inactive status.” Presumably, though, even though she flunked the D.C. bar exam, the relevant ethical rules were on the Arkansas bar.)
Whether subject to a potential order of disqualification against his and his client’s wishes or not, however, Kendall would be spectacularly reckless, in my personal and professional opinion, in continuing to represent Clinton. But I’m not holding my breath.
Beldar (fa637a) — 8/18/2015 @ 1:56 pmTo clarify: The CLE seminars I’ve taught have been on the general subject of the use and abuse of motions to disqualify — not specifically about Kendall or Hillary. 😀
Beldar (fa637a) — 8/18/2015 @ 1:59 pmKendall’s firm, Williams & Connally, has notorious large juevos and is intensely political. But conflicts of interest generate not only bad publicity, but also potential civil liability. They may have already gotten a broad-form civil waiver (for malpractice & related claims) if they intend to stand behind Kendall in standing behind the woman who famously stood behind (and enabled) her man.
Beldar (fa637a) — 8/18/2015 @ 2:02 pm27. JVW (898103) — 8/17/2015 @ 4:34 pm
Sammy Finkelman (4a5e8f) — 8/18/2015 @ 2:20 pm