CONGRESSMAN MO BROOKS’ SPECIOUS ARGUMENTS FOR IMPEACHING HILARY CLINTON SHOULD SHE BE ELECTED…
By: Ward Welty
Tags: Hillary Clinton, Politics, 2016 Election

CONGRESSMAN MO BROOKS’ SPECIOUS ARGUMENTS FOR IMPEACHING HILARY CLINTON SHOULD SHE BE ELECTED PRESIDENT:

October 26, 2015

Dr. Ward Welty

Huntsville, AL 35803–2426

Dear Dr. Welty:

Thank you for sharing your views with me regarding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s commission of high crimes and misdemeanors. I welcome the opportunity to respond.

Contrary to inaccurate media portrayals of my statements to the contrary, the issue I address is not the September 11, 2012 Benghazi terrorist attacks. Nor is the issue about emails and email servers. Rather, it is about Hillary Clinton’s improper handling of classified documents and the risks such mishandling poses to America’s national security and American lives.

All of this reminds me of President Bill Clinton’s impeachment. Bill Clinton and the leftist Democrat news media went all-out to persuade the American people that Bill Clinton’s misdeeds were about “sex” and “lying about sex” (which we all know men do). Bunk! While Bill Clinton’s political deception was effective, the issue was not about “sex” nor was it about “lying about sex”. Rather, Bill Clinton committed the “high crime and misdemeanor” of felony perjury in a federal court proceeding, a form of obstruction of justice (for which President Nixon was removed from office).

Now Hillary Clinton and the leftist Democratic news media use the same obfuscation and minimization strategy when she claims it is about “emails” and “email servers” . . . which very few American citizens understand or care about. Bunk again! Hillary Clinton’s offense is not about emails and email servers, it is about knowingly and intentionally mishandling classified documents which, if they fall into the wrong hands, put America’s national security and American lives at risk.

Hillary Clinton’s conduct is so serious, so dangerous, so evil, and so wrong, that there are numerous federal statutes that prohibit it.

By way of background, and as you may know, in March 2013, a Romanian cyber-hacker named Marcel Lazar Lehel, aka Guccifer, asserted access to Hillary Clinton’s unsecure private email server which she used in violation of federal law to conduct sensitive state department business as Secretary of State. The issue of Clinton’s vulnerable email server was discovered during the House Select Committee on Benghazi’s investigation into the deaths of four Americans in the Benghazi terrorist attacks. Secretary Clinton’s gross mishandling of classified information via her illegal use of an unsecure server (left vulnerable to hacking and foreign surveillance) is a serious national security threat that puts innumerable American lives at risk.

According to Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution “The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

In my judgment, Hillary Clinton will be a unique president in that, if she is elected by the public next November, the day she is sworn in is the day she could be subject to impeachment due to her prior commission of high crimes and misdemeanors.

For emphasis, Hillary Clinton’s putting classified documents on an unsecure email server in her home in Chappaqua, New York (and, perhaps, elsewhere) violates federal law! Period. End of subject. No further debate needed.

After revelations of Clinton’s unusual email arrangement, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began a criminal probe into whether classified information stored on the server had been compromised upon referral from the U.S. inspector general. Though Clinton attempted to obstruct justice, and the investigation, by wiping her email server clean, the FBI successful recovered a significant portion of the deleted data from the server hard disk after seizing it from a small Colorado based IT company.

While the FBI probe coincides with House Benghazi Committee investigations, the two are otherwise wholly unrelated.

In a New York Post article dated August 5, 2015, former federal prosecutor Bradley Simon is quoted as saying, “If it is proved that Clinton knowingly sent, received or stored classified information in an unauthorized location, she risks prosecution under the same misdemeanor federal security statute used to prosecute former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus.” In my view, Clinton’s intentionally receiving, storing and/or sending numerous classified documents vulnerable to surveillance by America’s geopolitical foes is a far worse offense than that for which General Patraeus was convicted.

The United States Inspector General has also opened an investigation into Clinton’s unlawful conduct. In a July 23, 2015 memo, Charles McCullough, the inspector general for the intelligence community, voiced concerns over information that passed through Clinton’s email server. McCullough said the data should have been treated with greater sensitivity, since it was derived from classified information produced by the U.S. intelligence community.

Clinton’s only stated defense of her endangering the lives of American’s has been to obfuscate by claiming she never sent or received emails marked classified. Clinton’s presidential campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri said in a statement, “Hillary only used her personal account for unclassified email. No information in her emails was marked classified at the time she sent or received them.” For emphasis, while Hillary Clinton’s “the documents were not marked ‘Classified’ defense” makes for good political soundbites, it is no legal defense at all. As a matter of law, and although emails may not have been so marked, the classified nature of the material is undeniable.

Stated differently, Hillary Clinton is a former U.S. Senator. As a U.S. Senator, she absolutely knew the standards for classification of national security information. She also knew how important it is to America’s national security and American lives for that information to only be kept in secure locations that are impenetrable to our geopolitical foes. As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton had a double dose of instruction concerning proper protection of classified documents.

Yet, in the face of all of this instruction and warning, Hillary Clinton intentionally and knowingly stored, received, and/or sent classified documents in violation of governing federal statutes. These statutes are criminal in nature.

Further, Hillary Clinton’s declaration that, as Secretary of State, she at no time used email to transmit sensitive information with national security or foreign relations implications is unsubstantiated by senior investigators. Charles McCullough has made clear that at least one email, if not more, contained information that only could have come from the intelligence community. McCullough stated, “We note that none of the emails we reviewed had classification or dissemination markings, but some included [intelligence community]-derived classified information and should have been handled as classified, appropriately marked, and transmitted via a secure network.”

What’s worse, according to an Associated Press article dated October 13, 2015, classified information on Clinton’s email server was so vulnerable it was accessed by low skilled hackers without great difficulty. The article reads, “Clinton’s server, which handled her personal and State Department correspondence, appeared to allow users to connect openly over the Internet to control it remotely, according to detailed records compiled in 2012. Experts said the Microsoft remote desktop service wasn’t intended for such use without additional protective measures, and was the subject of U.S. government and industry warnings at the time over attacks from even low-skill intruders.”

The AP article goes on, “Some emails on Clinton’s server were later deemed top secret, and scores of others included confidential or sensitive information. Clinton has said that her server featured ‘numerous safeguards,’ but she has yet to explain how well her system was secured and whether, or how frequently, security updates were applied.”

William Johnson, a former Air Force officer who served at the state department from 1999 to 2011, stated in a New York Times article, “If I’d done that, I’d be out on bond right now.”

Further, I have spoken to numerous Department of Defense civil servants and contractors in the Tennessee Valley who deal with classified information on a daily basis. To a person they have told me that, had they handled sensitive material the way Hillary Clinton did, they would have been fired from their jobs on the spot and would have been subject to criminal prosecution. They also tell me that they are very upset with the double standard President Obama, the White House and the executive branch have employed in protecting Hillary Clinton versus how these Tennessee Valley employees would have been treated, and how they have seen others treated, for mishandling classified documents in a much less dangerous way than Hillary Clinton handled classified documents.

The intentional and careless way in which Hillary Clinton handled information vital to national security and endangering American lives is unacceptable and punishable by law. Should Hillary Clinton win the presidency, her callous disregard for federal statutes designed to protect America and American lives from the loss of classified information meet the Constitution’s impeachment standard of “high crimes and misdemeanors” and immediately subjects Hillary Clinton to the risk of impeachment proceedings the moment she is sworn in.

Again, thank you for sharing your insights on this issue. Feel free to contact me again in the future. You may wish to visit my website at http://brooks.house.gov/ for additional information about issues and legislation before Congress.

Sincerely,

Mo Brooks

Member of Congress