STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS
Clinton Email Case Further Undermines Confidence in the US Justice System
By Daily Bell Staff - May 06, 2016

Clinton email evidence so far doesn’t suggest intent to break law, officials say … Prosecutors and FBI agents investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email server have so far found scant evidence that the leading Democratic presidential candidate intended to break classification rules, though they are still probing the case aggressively with an eye on interviewing Clinton herself, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter. –Chicago Tribune

When the scandal broke that Hillary Clinton had been using her personal email to send classified documents, the presidential hopeful was put in a precarious position. Now, as her case develops we see that it is the country’s legal system as a whole that finds itself between a rock and a hard place.

If Hillary is not indicted the population will see that the justice is not being doled out equally, with those at the top seemingly above the law.

On the other hand, if she is indicted, the resultant furor will likely create other negative perceptions.

The US justice system does not need more bad news, especially after the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who many believe was murdered.

Destabilized justice systems are bad for their nation-states. Nonetheless, in the US, such destabilization continues apace. Hillary Clinton is going to exacerbate that trend.

A March 2014 Rasmussen poll found that 43% of Americans believed that US justice is “unfair” to most Americans. Only 33% of those polled thought it was fair to poor Americans. 58% Americans trusted a jury more than a judge.

An April 2015 Harvard poll revealed that half of young Americans lacked confidence “in the nation’s justice system or don’t trust their local police to do the right thing.”

Even more abysmally, a recent CNN poll revealed that “just 13% of Americans agree that the U.S. government “can be trusted to do what is right always or most of the time.”

 The news about US federal institutions is increasingly bad. Edward Snowden’s revelations of illegal NSA domestic spying created a significant furor.

The FBI’s unconstitutional worldwide expansion is less well known, but its quasi-manufactured terrorist incidents have received widespread coverage in the alternative ‘Net media, much of it disapproving.

The increasing violence of civilian police officers is well known and subject to considerable mainstream reporting.

Then there are plans by such individuals as George Soros to exploit people’s unhappiness via such groups as Black Lives Matter.

There are alternatives to the current system of course. Here at DB, for instance, we’ve helped remind people that justice used to private and ad hoc.

If people had difficulties with one another, a third party was brought into adjudicate. Or the differences were simply settled between the parties concerned.

Occasionally there was violence, but for the most part such violence was either a last resort or presented to motivate the parties concerned to settle matters peaceably.

That is not the case today. In the US alone there are perhaps six million involved in the prison system at any one time. But these statistics do not encompass the totality of the US criminal-industrial complex.

In fact, the trend is toward private prisons that basically condemn prisoners to slavery so long as they are incarcerated. Private operators of prison systems even have contracts in place that mandate communities must generate a certain level of convictions.

Some years ago USA Today carried an article citing the absurd statistic (as we recall) that one out of every three individuals had experienced some sort of potential criminal interaction with the US justice system by the time they were in their mid 20s.

It used to be too expensive to build this kind of system. But the installation of central banking economies worldwide have made the expense of incarceration something of a secondary concern.

These systems are constantly evolving because so many individuals are involved in support jobs. However, a case such at the one in which Hillary Clinton is involved can do considerable damage.

Clinton is an extremely controversial figure as is her husband. For years the Internet has featured alternative media reports of their alleged misdeeds, from embezzlement and theft to rape and serial murder.

If Clinton is not indicted for her apparent email transgressions, a sizeable minority – or even a majority – of US citizens will conclude once more that the system is biased and even “broken.”

According to this Tribune article, that is just what may happen however:

In recent weeks, prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia and their FBI counterparts have been interviewing top Clinton aides as they seek to bring the case to a close.

CNN reported Thursday that longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin was among those interviewed. A lawyer for Abedin did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

The involvement of the U.S. Attorney’s Office is not indicative that charges are imminent or even likely. One official said prosecutors are wrestling with the question of whether Clinton intended to violate the rules, and so far, the evidence seemed to indicate she did not.

Additionally, the article states that “There is no indication a grand jury has been convened in the case.”

It is hard to know the reason for these leaks. Perhaps they are intended to influence public perception.

Or maybe top FBI executives have concluded an indictment is impossible to make for a variety of reasons, including political ones, and are trying to get out ahead of public opinion on the matter.

Here at DB, we won’t take any position on Ms. Clinton’s potential innocence or guilt. However, there is no way of winning with such high profile cases. They inevitably generate even more questions about the entire system with increasingly significant – and possibly near-term – consequences.

Conclusion: In the long term, such questioning is an unmitigated good … given the suffering the system causes. In the short-term, US justice (and Western justice generally) is likely to face increasing and significant turbulence. It is a “broken” system that does not offer any real possibility of significant repair.

Posted in STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS
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