I spent the majority of my career as a law enforcement officer and judge advocate for the military. For most my 35 years of service, I held some of our Republic’s most secret clearance levels. I also represented numerous officers, noncommissioned officer and special agents charged with mishandling classified information. Lately, I watched a selfless and top-tier Army lieutenant colonel’s career go up in smoke for the following offense: he self-reported that he had inadvertently taken home from the office some classified documents in his briefcase. There was minimal chance that these documents fell into the wrong hands, and subsequent security assessments confirmed this. Yet, the Army served this officer with a career-ending nonjudicial punishment under Article 15 of the UCMJ and removed his name from command and promotion lists.
Now comes Hillary Rodham Clinton, a woman who – without authority or need – builds her own private email server over which some of our Republic’s most sensitive information was discussed. There is no doubt that foreign intelligence sources read her emails verbatim. And all FBI Director Jim Comey can come up with is a public scolding? This sickens me to the core of my being. It reinforces what Peggy Noonan wrote about in her brilliant Wall Street Journal article of February 25, 2016 Trump and the Rise of the Unprotected, where she states inter alia:
There are the protected and the unprotected. The protected make public policy. The unprotected live in it. The unprotected are starting to push back, powerfully.
The protected are the accomplished, the secure, the successful—those who have power or access to it. They are protected from much of the roughness of the world. More to the point, they are protected from the world they have created. Again, they make public policy and have for some time.
It is clear that Clinton, Obama, Lynch (and now Jim Comey) – everyone in the elite circles of D.C. regardless of party affiliation – live according to different rules than us outsiders. Three or four FBI friends in the trenches, people I trust and respect tremendously, assured me that Comey was not one of those tarnished by power. His decision today belies that assurance in the most callous of terms.
While assigned to DoD or DOJ, had my colleagues or I done 1/100th of what Clinton did, we would pay dearly. At a minimum, we would have been fired and never again given a security clearance. In the soulless, shameless world of 21st Century America, Hillary Rodham Clinton gets a meaningless tongue lashing from a once upright man who sold his soul for God knows what price.
My circle of friends includes many who fought multiple tours of combat in defense of our Republic. To a person, it saddens us deeply that those fights appear to be for naught. For our Constitution is mocked when blue collar Soldiers get crushed while self-anointed elites skate on shamelessly. When we, the unprotected, begin to realize that peaceable resolutions to such obvious wrongs are ignored, the result may not be peaceable at all. In even plainer terms, do not expect proud and skilled warriors to stand by and watch the Constitution to which we swore an oath be trampled upon by treacherous thieves like Hillary Clinton.
I’ve been out of the SIGINT business for over 20 years and I’m dumbfounded by this Clinton fiasco. I can only surmise that the majority of citizens don’t get it as they can’t relate it to their day to day lives. People would understand the severity if they thought all their personal information was compromised. That they get.
As a former SEMA Detachment Commander and FSO, I am mortified that our Government is so corrupt, they openly and publically allow such violations to go unpunished. As a former Federal LEO, I expected nothing more than what we received from the Director of the FBI….lies and political white wash. Those in Washington D.C. obviously live by their own rules. The Rule of Law applies only to us peasants.
Why isn’t this as big and damning as watergate? What kind of country have we become?
As a retired US Army CSM and proud Patriot of my great Country, knowing that my Father proudly served his Country in the Pacific Campaign during WWII, and knowing that my 22 year old son proudly serves his Country in the US Army Infantry believe in my heart that one day these “Above the Law Tyrants” will receive their just due in just the same manner as all Saracens will. May God bless my family and friends, my fellow Brothers and Sisters whom serve their Country faithfully and with pride, and may God see fit to bless myself. The Liberty Tree of Life must and will be refreshed from time to time in order for our great Country to faithfully serve her people another 240 years. God Bless our true and faithful American Parriots.
Thanks my Brother! I love you Bo, Jay sends.
We, the dirt people (as the elite call us), know now in our core that we have been betrayed utterly, in every way imaginable. We know that their actions are worse than people who burn the flag and laugh. We know how they laugh at concepts as honor, duty, and integrity. We know that they think their treason is inspired, transgressive, edgy, transformative. They’re proud of their betrayals of the country. The same is happening now in literally every Western country. Our cautious, reasoned, sober response is the rage we would feel at seeing innocence attacked and violated. We’re reaching the point where to do nothing is worse than doing too much, or too indiscriminately, in which case the proverbial ‘spark’ may never come. People who so tangibly dishonor all that has been built over generations need to be confronted. That task has fallen to us. We dishonor our nation more by staying silent. We tried the peaceful Tea Party route. Maybe it’s time for the armed version.