On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “On the Record,” former Attorney General Michael Mukasey stated that ” the laws involved don’t require an intention to violate the law.” And there was enough evidence to charge presumptive Democratic presidential nominee former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton under a standard of “gross negligence” and that people, including Gen. David Petraeus have been prosecuted “for doing far less,” adding, “Anybody who’s been found to do what he says the FBI found that she did would not get a security clearance.”
Mukasey said, “I was particularly distressed to hear that he said there was no intention to violate the law, when the laws involved don’t require an intention to violate the law. One has — the felony statute has a standard of gross negligence. And he said that she showed gross negligence when he said that she was extremely careless in handling information, some of which was at the top most classification. These are emails that the State Department has said will never be disclosed. She was extremely careless in handling those. That’s enough to establish gross negligence. When he said that we’ve never done anything like this in the past, he may have been referring to the FBI, but there are recorded cases of soldiers being prosecuted for doing far less, for mistakenly putting classified documents in somebody’s desk drawer and forgetting about them. That soldier was prosecuted for a felony.”
He added that General David Petraeus’ case had “circumstances that are far less serious than those that resulted in today’s statement.”
Mukasey further stated, “[E]ven if, for example, the CIA is aware that the Russians, or the Chinese, or the Iranians, or some other bad actor has this information. They wouldn’t want it disclosed, because that would disclose that we are on to them.”
Mukasey also argued that, “Anybody who’s been found to do what he says the FBI found that she did would not get a security clearance.”
He concluded, “I have a lot of faith in Jim Comey’s integrity. I have a little bit less faith today than I had yesterday, in his judgment. But I would be very surprised to hear that there was any communication with him about what he said today.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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