Hillary Is By No Means Out of the Woods, as Congressman Will Hurd's Grilling of FBI Director Comey Demonstrated

Friday - July 08, 2016

RUSH:  A lot of suspicious people have said, "Notice what's not in the news anymore? Hillary Clinton and her lies and the email."  Well, don't worry, folks. This incident is not going to take Hillary off of our front page. 

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Ed Rendell, Fast Eddie, the former governor of Pennsylvania -- was he former mayor of Philadelphia at one time?  So former governor, former mayor, he's been chairman of the Democrat National Committee.  He's been one of Chris Matthews best buddies on MSNBC. He is mad.  Fast Eddie is livid at Hillary Clinton.  Quote, "She had me out there for six months talking about her email, lying."  Ed Rendell feeling a tad stung this week now that the FBI director, James Comey, has totally blown up Hillary Clinton's claims that she never handled classified email on her private server. 

Fast Eddie Rendell, a devoted Clinton surrogate, tells The Politico that he called the Clinton campaign after Comey's devastating press conference and yelled, "You guys, you had me out there for six months saying none of them were marked classified.  You've got to clear this up."  So, apparently, Hillary's staff was telling Fast Eddie: "Go out there.  She was never trafficking in classified documents.  None of the documents were ever marked."  So he's out there trusting everything that Cheryl Mills, Huma Weiner, Mrs. Carlos Danger, are telling him.  He's out there, "There was never any classified data.  It's all made up.  Hillary is clean and pure as the wind..."

Comey blows that all up and Fast Eddie is ticked off.  He said that was the one thing that I thought we were vulnerable about.  Without that, this is an absolute grand slam home run for the secretary.  Meaning Comey not deciding to investigate, recommend prosecution.  I'm going to tell you, by no means is she out of the woods on this.  This Dallas story is going to run its course and the presidential campaign is once again going to become prominent.  She's by no means out of the woods on this, because she's not clean and pure. 

Richard Viguerie heads up ConservativeHQ.com.  Well, that's good enough for me.  I didn't know if it was Viguerie.  My crack research staff came through here.  How about that? 

Now yesterday, we go back to the hearings.  James Comey is being questioned by members of Congress as to his thinking and his procedure.  And one of the great segments yesterday was questioning by Congressman Will Hurd, H-u-r-d.  He is a Republican from Texas.  And I saw this last night and I sent it up to Koko, Jr., and I said, "You've got to give me this."  We've got it in four sound bites here.  This is just awesome.  I want you to listen.  This is Will Hurd interviewing Comey, and it's late in the day after he's heard a lot of Q&A already and he's flabbergasted by it.  He's bothered.  He's offended by what he's heard and that's how he begins. 

HURD:  Mr. Chairman, I'm offended.  I'm offended by my friends on the other side of the political aisle saying this is political theater.  This is not political theater.  For me, this is serious.  I spent nine-and-a-half years as an undercover officer in the CIA.  I was the guy in the back alleys collecting intelligence, passing it to lawmakers.  I've seen my friends killed.  I've seen assets put themselves in harm's way.  And this is about protecting information, the most sensitive information the American government has, and I wish my colleagues would take this a little bit more seriously.

RUSH:  Amen, he's commenting on the fact that Hillary Clinton is trafficking in secrets without any concern.  She's got classified data coming in and out of her operation via her server.  It's unsecured.  It's unprotected.  And he can't believe that people are not more bothered by this.  He's sitting there watching these hearings.  He's listening to the Democrats trying to politicize this and claim the only reason that anybody cares about it is because they're politically interested in harming Mrs. Clinton.  He said:  For crying out loud we're talking national security.  We've got real enemies.  This stuff was -- who knows who saw it now.  And he can't believe how cavalierly everybody was treating that aspect of this. 

HURD:  So the former Secretary of State, one of the president's most important advisors on foreign policy and national security had a server in her basement that had information that was collected from our most sensitive assets and it was not protected by anyone, and that's not a crime?  That's outrageous.  People are concerned.  What does it take for someone to misuse classified information and get in trouble for it?  

COMEY:  It takes mishandling it and criminal intent.

HURD:  So an unauthorized server in the basement is not mishandling?

COMEY:  Well no, there is evidence of mishandling here.  This whole investigation, at the end here, is focused on is there sufficient evidence of intent. 

RUSH: Boy, did he keep going back to that.  That's clearly his out here.  He unloaded on her again yesterday.  He unloaded on her in his press conference. He unloaded on everything she did wrong.  He even admitted, Comey admitted if she were still Secretary of State they could have done something about it or he would have.  If she were still Secretary of State or if anybody else currently in office was doing this kind of stuff, there would have been sanctions, make no doubt about it.  But she's gone now. 

Look, I have no doubt what happened here.  Like I said the other day.  James Comey made the decision like John Roberts did.  (imitating Comey) "You know what, this is above my pay grade.  I'm not going to be the guy that takes out the Democrat presidential nominee.  I don't care.  I'm not going to do it.  If the American people don't want her, I'll tell them everything I found out about her and they can decide."  That's what he did.  "But I'm not going to do it.  I'm not going to sit here and be the guy that essentially destroys the campaign of the woman the Democrats have chosen to be their nominee."

Much like John Roberts (imitating Roberts), "You know what, I don't care.  I'm not going to be the guy that strikes down one of the biggest pieces of legislation in the history of this country, duly passed by the elected representatives.  I'm not going to be the guy." (interruption)  You were raising your hand or are you agreeing?  It's a question.  Well, you would be surprised, the FBI does not record most of the people in interviews.  You know why? 

They don't want a record.  They want to be able to go to court and characterize the interviews in their own way.  They don't want there to be a recorded record that the agents have to fill out.  There's a form they have to fill out.  They do an interview.  There's a long form and they take notes and they make a report after it.  But they don't want a recorded version of any interview to be able to be called into court.  They're too smart to have a private server.  They're too smart to have all this stuff secret.  They don't want some defense attorney that -- they want to be able to use the power they have.  They want to rely on the trust the American people have that when the FBI says something, it must be true. 

So it's not unusual that they didn't record her.  Why she wasn't under oath, well, I don't know about that.  That is kind of odd.  But, again, it was an interview.  It was not an interrogation.  And I would bet you a dollar to a donut everything we know now she wasn't under oath as a level of insulation for not having to charge her with it.  If she's under oath and she lies you have to do the process charge.  You have to go get her like they did with Martha Stewart.  If there's no oath then you can't officially say she lied to the FBI. 

Make no mistake, they did not want -- Comey, whoever -- they did not want to get her.  They've got what she did and they have told everybody everything. They have painted her as an incompetent, uncaring, unsophisticated, you name it, trafficking in classified data, unsecured server in her house.  They've laid it all out.  Comey just doesn't want to be the guy.  That's exactly what I said yesterday.  Whether it's, as I said, race history, media, whatever, he doesn't want to be the guy.  That takes out the Democrat nominee.  I think it would be the same for the Republican.  I don't think he wants to be the guy that has that big an impact on a presidential race.  That's my more than educated guess, don't doubt me. 

Will Hurd.  I'm not through with him. He's great here.  He's asking Comey, "How in the world can there not be a crime?  She's got our biggest secrets unsecured in a server in the basement that's unsecured.  She's got classified information.  She's misusing it." And Comey said, "Well, absolutely right, but we don't think she intended any criminality."  Hurd wasn't finished. Here's the next one.

HURD:  You don't think this sends a message to other employees that if the former Secretary of State can have an unauthorized server in their basement that transmits top secret information, that that's not a problem?

COMEY:  Oh, I worry very much about that.  That's why I talked about that in my statement, because an FBI employee might face severe discipline.  And I want them to understand that those consequences are still going to be there.

HURD:  Director Comey, do you have a server in your basement? 

COMEY:  I do not.

HURD:  Does anybody in the FBI have a server in their basement? 

COMEY:  I don't know.  Not to my knowledge.

HURD:  Do you think it's likely? 

COMEY:  I think it's unlikely.

HURD:  It's your job to be involved in counterintelligence as well? 

COMEY:  Yes. 

HURD:  So that means protecting our secrets from foreign adversaries collecting them, is that correct? 

COMEY:  Correct.

HURD:  Did this activity you investigated make America's secrets vulnerable to hostile elements? 

COMEY:  Yes.

RUSH:  I mean, that's pretty damn good questioning.  

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Okay.  We are back here and the final sound bite between James Comey and Will Hurd (R-TX), who finally says, "Based on what we see, do you think there's going to be other elements within the federal government that think it's okay to have an unauthorized server in their basement?" Because you're not charging her. Since nothing's going to happen to her in the legal system, do you think that others are now going to try to do what she did to have secrecy and make sure there are no prying eyes?

COMEY: Well, they better not. That's one of the reasons I'm talking about this.

HURD: So, but what is the ramifications of them doing that? How is there going to be any consequences levered if it's not levered here? Because indeed, you're setting a precedent.

COMEY: The precedent. I want people to understand... Again, I only am responsible for the FBI. That there will be discipline from termination to reprimand, and everything in between, for people who mishandle classified information.

HURD: Is there such a thing as "the case of first impression," and why was this not possibly one of those?

COMEY: There is such a thing, which just means the first time you do something. The reason this isn't one of those is that's just not fair. That would be treating somebody differently because of their celebrity status or because of some other factor. Doesn't matter. We have to treat people... The bedrock of our system of justice. We treat people fairly. We treat them the same based on their conduct.

HURD: And that person mishandling the most sensitive information that this government can collect is not fair? It is not fair to punish someone who did that?

COMEY: Not on these facts.

RUSH:  Because there's no intent.  I think Hurd was fabulous.  I think Will Hurd was just superb.  He got his time in the afternoon yesterday.  And in fact, I think some of his time was at the same time the program was on.  It might have been afterwards.  But Comey's answer here, "Oh, yeah, there will be consequences! There's going to be consequences. If somebody did this at the FBI, there would be consequences!" But there aren't for her, you see?  That's what Hurd exposed.

"Oh, yeah! Anybody else, there would be consequences."  "Well, wait a minute," we asked, "What about this notion of first impression?"  "Well, yeah, but we can't hold her to that because she's a celebrity."  First impression means you get a pass the first time you do something.  "First time? Eh! You repeat it? We're going to come after you!"  He was making it clear there was never going to be any legal sanction on her, folks.  Never.