If Hillary Clinton Is Charged With Obstruction Of Justice She Could Go To Prison For 20 Years - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

If Hillary Clinton Is Charged With Obstruction Of Justice She Could Go To Prison For 20 Years Posted: 30 Oct 2016   Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG In the world of politics, the cover-up is often worse than the original crime.  It was his role in the Watergate cover-up that took down Richard Nixon, and now Hillary Clinton’s cover-up of her email scandal could send her to prison for a very, very long time.   When news broke that the FBI has renewed its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, it sent shockwaves throughout the political world.  But this time around, we aren’t just talking about an investigation into the mishandling of classified documents.  I haven’t heard anyone talking about this, but if the FBI discovers that Hillary Clinton altered, destroyed or concealed any emails that should have been turned over to the FBI during the original investigation, she could be charged with obstruction of justice.  That would immediately end her political career, and if she was found guilty it could send her to prison for the rest of her life. I have not seen a single news report mention the phrase “obstruction of justice” yet, but I am convinced that there is a very good chance that this is where this scandal is heading.  The following is the relevant part of the federal statute that deals with obstruction of justice… Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsified, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under Title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. If Hillary Clinton is sent to prison for 20 years, that would essentially be for the rest of her life. I have a feeling that the FBI is going to find a great deal of evidence of obstruction of justice in Huma Abedin’s emails.  But unfortunately there is not likely to be a resolution to this matter before November 8th, because according to the Wall Street Journal there are approximately 650,000 emails to search through… As federal agents prepare to scour roughly 650,000 emails to see how many relate to a prior probe of Hillary Clinton’s email use, the surprise disclosure that investigators were pursuing the potential new evidence lays bare building tensions inside the bureau and the Justice Department over how to investigate the Democratic presidential nominee. Metadata found on the laptop used by former Rep. Anthony Weiner and his estranged wife Huma Abedin, a close Clinton aide, suggests there may be thousands of emails sent to or from the private server that Mrs. Clinton used while she was secretary of state, according to people familiar with the matter. It will take weeks, at a minimum, to determine whether those messages are work-related from the time Ms. Abedin served with Mrs. Clinton at the State Department; how many are duplicates of emails already reviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and whether they include either classified information or important new evidence in the Clinton email probe. Of those 650,000 emails, an inside source told Fox News that “at least 10,000” would be of interest to the investigation. At this point, FBI officials have not even begun searching through the emails, because a search warrant has not been secured yet.  The following comes from CNN… Government lawyers haven’t yet approached Abedin’s lawyers to seek an agreement to conduct the search. Sources earlier told CNN that those discussions had begun, but the law enforcement officials now say they have not. Either way, government lawyers plan to seek a search warrant from a judge to conduct the search of the computer, the law enforcement officials said. But the FBI is reportedly already searching a laptop that was co-owned by Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin, and no warrant was necessary for that search because Weiner is cooperating with the FBI. Many have been wondering why FBI Director James Comey would choose to make such a bold move just over a week until election day.  Surely he had to know that this would have a dramatic impact on the election, and it is unlikely that he would have done so unless someone had already found something really big.  In addition, Comey was reportedly eager to find an opportunity to redeem himself in the eyes of his peers at the FBI.  The following is an excerpt from a Daily Mail article that was written by Ed Klein, the author of a recently released New York Times bestseller about the Clintons entitled “Guilty As Sin“… ‘The atmosphere at the FBI has been toxic ever since Jim announced last July that he wouldn’t recommend an indictment against Hillary,’ said the source, a close friend who has known Comey for nearly two decades, shares family outings with him, and accompanies him to Catholic mass every week. ‘Some people, including department heads, stopped talking to Jim, and even ignored his greetings when they passed him in the hall,’ said the source. ‘They felt that he betrayed them and brought disgrace on the bureau by letting Hillary off with a slap on the wrist.’ According to the source, Comey fretted over the problem for months and discussed it at great length with his wife, Patrice. He told his wife that he was depressed by the stack of resignation letters piling up on his desk from disaffected agents. The letters reminded him every day that morale in the FBI had hit rock bottom. So what happens next? In the most likely scenario, the FBI will not have time to complete the investigation and decide whether or not to charge Hillary Clinton before the election.  This means that we would go into November 8th with this scandal hanging over the Clinton campaign, and that would seem to be very good news for Donald Trump. However, it is possible that once the FBI starts searching through these emails that they could come to the conclusion very rapidly that charges against Clinton are warranted, and if that happens we could still see some sort of announcement before election day. In the unlikely event that does happen, we could actually see Hillary Clinton forced out of the race before November 8th. Once again, this appears to be very unlikely at this point, but it is still possible. If Clinton was forced to step aside, the Democrats would need to come up with a new nominee, and that process would take time.  In an article later today on The Most Important News I will reveal who I believe that nominee would be. In such a scenario, the Democrats would desperately need time to get their act together, and so we could actually see Barack Obama attempt to delay or suspend the election.  The legality of such a move is highly questionable, but Barack Obama has not allowed a little thing like the U.S. Constitution to stop him in the past. This week is going to be exceedingly interesting – that is for sure. The craziest election in modern American history just keeps getting crazier, and I have a feeling that even more twists and turns are ahead. It sure seems ironic that Anthony Weiner is playing such a central role this late in the story, and I can’t wait to see what is in store for the season finale.

Will Barack Obama Delay Or Suspend The Election If Hillary Is Forced Out By The New FBI Email Investigation? - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

Will Barack Obama Delay Or Suspend The Election If Hillary Is Forced Out By The New FBI Email Investigation?

Posted: 28 Oct 2016   Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

Just when it looked like Hillary Clinton was poised to win the 2016 election, the FBI has thrown a gamechanger into the mix. On Friday, FBI Director James Comey announced that his agency has discovered new emails related to Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information that they had not previously seen. According to the Associated Press, the newly discovered emails “did not come from her private server”, but instead were found when the FBI started going through electronic devices that belonged to top Clinton aide Huma Abedin and her husband Anthony Weiner.

The FBI has been looking into messages of a sexual nature that Weiner had exchanged with a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina, and that is why they originally seized those electronic devices.  According to the Washington Post, the “emails were found on a computer used jointly by both Weiner and his wife, top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, according to a person with knowledge of the inquiry”, and according to some reports there may be “potentially thousands” of emails on the computer that the FBI did not have access to previously. 

Even though there are less than two weeks to go until election day, this scandal has the potential to possibly force Clinton out of the race, and if that happens could Barack Obama delay or suspend the election until a replacement candidate can be found?
Let’s take this one step at a time.  On Friday, financial markets tanked when reports of these new Clinton emails hit the wires.  The following comes from CNN…

After recommending earlier this year that the Department of Justice not press charges against the former secretary of state, Comey said in a letter to eight congressional committee chairmen that investigators are examining newly discovered emails that “appear to be pertinent” to the email probe.
“In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear pertinent to the investigation,” Comey wrote the chairmen. “I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.”

At this point, we do not know what is contained in these emails.  But without a doubt Huma Abedin is Hillary Clinton’s closest confidant, and I have always felt that she was Clinton’s Achilles heel.  Journalist Carl Bernstein (of Watergate fame) is fully convinced that the FBI would have never made this move unless something significant had already been discovered…

We don’t know what this means yet except that it’s a real bombshell. And it is unthinkable that the Director of the FBI would take this action lightly, that he would put this letter forth to the Congress of the United States saying there is more information out there about classified e-mails and call it to the attention of congress unless it was something requiring serious investigation. So that’s where we are…
Is it a certainty that we won’t learn before the election? I’m not sure it’s a certainty we won’t learn before the election.
One thing is, it’s possible that Hillary Clinton might want to on her own initiative talk to the FBI and find out what she can, and if she chooses to let the American people know what she thinks or knows is going on. People need to hear from her…

If the FBI has indeed found something explosive, would they actually charge her with a crime right before the election?

It is possible, but we also have to remember that government agencies (including the FBI) tend to move very, very slowly.  If there are thousands of emails, it is going to take quite a while to sift through them all.  And of course Barack Obama has lots of ways that he could influence, delay or even shut down the investigation.

So those that are counting on this to be the miracle that Donald Trump needs should not count their chickens before they hatch.

But if Hillary Clinton were to be forced out of the race by this FBI investigation, the Democrats would have to decide on a new candidate, and that would take time.  The following is from a U.S. News & World Report article that examined what would happen if one of the candidates was forced out of the race for some reason…

If Clinton were to fall off the ticket, Democratic National Committee members would gather to vote on a replacement. DNC members acted as superdelegates during this year’s primary and overwhelmingly backed Clinton over boat-rocking socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
DNC spokesman Mark Paustenbach says there currently are 445 committee members – a number that changes over time and is guided by the group’s bylaws, which give membership to specific officeholders and party leaders and hold 200 spots for selection by states, along with an optional 75 slots DNC members can choose to fill.
But the party rules for replacing a presidential nominee merely specify that a majority of members must be present at a special meeting called by the committee chairman. The meeting would follow procedures set by the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee and proxy voting would not be allowed.

It would be extremely challenging to get a majority of the members of the Democratic National Committee together on such short notice.  If Clinton were to drop out next week, it would be almost impossible for this to happen before election day.

In such a scenario, Barack Obama may attempt to invoke his emergency powers.  Since the election would not be “fair” until the Democrats have a new candidate, he could try to delay or suspend the election.  There would be a lot of controversy as to whether this is legal or not, but Barack Obama has not let the U.S. Constitution stop him in the past.

Meanwhile, new poll numbers show that the Trump campaign was already gaining momentum even before this story about the new emails broke.  According to a brand new ABC News/Washington Post survey, Donald Trump is now only trailing Hillary Clinton by 4 points after trailing her by as much as 12 points last weekend.

And CNBC is reporting on a highly advanced artificial intelligence system that accurately predicted the outcomes of the presidential primaries and which is now indicating that Trump will be the winner in November…

An artificial intelligence system that correctly predicted the last three U.S. presidential elections puts Republican nominee Donald Trump ahead of Democrat rival Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House.
MogIA was developed by Sanjiv Rai, founder of Indian start-up Genic.ai. It takes in 20 million data points from public platforms including Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in the U.S. and then analyzes the information to create predictions.
The AI system was created in 2004, so it has been getting smarter all the time. It had already correctly predicted the results of the Democratic and Republican Primaries.

Without Hillary at the top of the ticket, the odds of a Trump victory would go way, way up.
So if Hillary is forced out of the race by this investigation, Barack Obama and the Democrats will want to delay or suspend the election for as long as possible if they can.

At this point there is probably not a high probability that such a scenario will play out, but in this crazy election year we have already seen that just about anything can happen.