• Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!

Comey Violated The Hatch Act And Must Be Fired

Zaac

Well-Known Member
Comey Violated The Hatch Act And Must Be Fired


Mark_Levine
Virginia State Delegate and Radio Host/TV Pundit

Below is some basic legal analysis showing that FBI Director James Comey violated the Hatch Act in his disclosures related to the Clinton investigation in violation of long-standing precedent and Justice Department protocol. It’s actually a pretty easy case to make.

The Hatch Act (5 U.S. Code § 7323(a)(1)) provides:

“(a) ... an employee may not—
(1) use his official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election;”

Some have suggested that FBI Director Jim Comey did not violate the Hatch Act because:

  • even though he used his official authority, and
  • even though it clearly interfered with or affected the result of the election, and
  • even though Comey certainly realized or should have realized his use of official authority would affect the election
That it’s still not a violation of the Hatch Act, because Comey did not act “for the purpose” of interfering with the election.

They say Comey did not have the requisite “intent” to violate the Hatch Act.

But the Hatch Act is not a criminal statute where you must prove intent beyond a reasonable doubt. That’s a tough standard to reach. James Comey, like Hillary Clinton, will not be indicted. (And, of course, his offense is far more grave than hers. She merely followed her predecessors’ email protocol, whereas he violated decades of long-standing precedent designed to ensure the basic fairness and due process of our criminal justice system.)

The Hatch Act is not grounds for criminal prosecution. It is grounds to fire a federal employee. As such, the standard is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt but the “preponderance of the evidence.”

So what does the evidence show? How can we possibly know Comey’s intent? We can’t read his mind.

Intent is hard to know unless the subject of the inquiry has stated his intent. And Comey did!

On July 5, 2016, Comey said:


“This will be an unusual statement in at least a couple ways. First, I am going to include more detail about our process than I ordinarily would, because I think the American people deserve those details in a case of intense public interest. “

Now wait a second. Why is this “a case of intense public interest”? I mean, just a few years ago, the Bush Administration illegally deleted 22 million emails after being held in criminal contempt and to cover up several serious allegations of criminal behavior, which ended up in the criminal conviction of Cheney aide Scooter Libby, and there’s not much interest in that case.

No. The reason for the intense public interest has to be for one and one thing only: that Hillary Clinton is running for President of the United States.

What else could it be? (And remember the burden of proof is just the preponderance of the evidence. All we have to believe is that when Comey was saying people had intense public interest, he believed it was, in whole or in part, because of the election.)

Comey violated long-standing precedents and prosecutorial discretion and independence in order to help the American People make a decision in this election. Thus, he admitted his intent in disclosing this information was to affect the election.

And that is a violation of the Hatch Act.

So no, Comey does not have to be locked up. But he does have to be fired.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marklevine/comey-violated-the-hatch-_b_12748750.html

Yep. Fire him after the election.
 

TCassidy

Late-Administator Emeritus
Administrator
The Hatch Act prevents certain employees of the Executive Branch from engaging in political activity while being paid to serve the government. It forbids officials paid with federal funds from using promises of jobs, promotion, financial assistance, contracts, or any other benefit to coerce campaign contributions or political support. It provided that persons below the policy-making level in the executive branch of the federal government must not only refrain from political practices that would be illegal for any citizen, but must abstain from "any active part" in political campaigns.

Conducting a criminal investigation is none of the above.
 

Zaac

Well-Known Member
Comey violated long-standing precedents and prosecutorial discretion and independence in order to help the American People make a decision in this election. Thus, he admitted his intent in disclosing this information was to affect the election.

And that is a violation of the Hatch Act.
 

Deacon

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
If a political party doesn't want the FBI inserting itself into the election process, then they should nominate a candidate that isn't under FBI investigation.

This is another example of poor vetting of a candidate by the party and the press.

Rob
 

Crabtownboy

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Well there you go again, using the race card. :Rolleyes

When race is so obvious it is not a race card, but simply calling out the racist. The FBI is predominately male, white, ex-military. White males who are ex-military are predominately pro Trump. Regardless, it is a violation of the Hatch Act to do as they did and have continued to do.

This is not to say that all FBI agents or all white ex-military folk are racist. They are not. I know a fair number of white ex-military who are voting for Hillary. However, I know others who are definitely racist. They are nice folk as long as a person is white and are usually polite to other races as long as those folk "stay in their place".

 
Last edited:

Earth Wind and Fire

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
When race is so obvious it is not a race card, but simply calling out the racist. The FBI is predominately male, white, ex-military. White males who are ex-military are predominately pro Trump. Regardless, it is a violation of the Hatch Act to do as they did and have continued to do.
Really!?! How about the Afro's who are military & Trump supporters? And hows about me......I be military and white, & I wont support the nut-job, but nor will I support that traitorous witch.
This is not to say that all FBI agents or all white ex-military folk are racist. They are not. I know a fair number of white ex-military who are voting for Hillary. However, I know others who are definitely racist. They are nice folk as long as a person is white and are usually polite to other races as long as those folk "stay in their place".

Then they are not patriot Americans.....nor are they truly Christian
 

Crabtownboy

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Really!?! How about the Afro's who are military & Trump supporters? And hows about me......I be military and white, & I wont support the nut-job, but nor will I support that traitorous witch.

Their, the Afro's, support is beyond my comprehension. It is very seldom that an ethnic group has 100% agreement on any candidate.

I make no judgement of you as I do not know you well enough to do so.
 

Rob_BW

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
This is not to say that all FBI agents or all white ex-military folk are racist. They are not. I know a fair number of white ex-military who are voting for Hillary.
It almost sounds like your litmus test for not being racist is voting for Hillary. Almost.
 

777

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Nope, Comey's actions don't fall under the umbrella of the Hatch Act but they don't have to - Obama could fire him at will and give him no explanation whatsoever.
 

Zaac

Well-Known Member
Trump is also under investigation. The FBI is not releasing damaging information him because the good old white boys who control the FBI want him to win.

View attachment 1018

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fbi-election_us_581d07c8e4b0e80b02ca27a7

And this in itself should be reason to fire Comey. This is not the first time this election cycle that the pro-Trump/anti-Clinton sentiment has been pointed out in the FBI. The same type of attitudes are present in the Secret Service. If you work for any of our intelligence agencies, there shouldn't be a hint of partisanship out of you. They used to understand that. But the last 8 years and a GOP led Congress that has become nastier and more antagonistic towards anything Obama/Clinton has emboldened them to break with tradition and display a partisanship in their day to day actions that is more dangerous to the safety of the country than a bunch of emails could ever be.
 

Zaac

Well-Known Member
Nope, Comey's actions don't fall under the umbrella of the Hatch Act but they don't have to - Obama could fire him at will and give him no explanation whatsoever.
Yep, his actions do fall underneath the Hatch Act by his own admission of his reasons for doing what he did. He should be promptly fired on November 9th.
 

777

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
For any non-troll, read the Hatch Act:

https://www.usda.gov/oig/webdocs/Hatch_Act.pdf

and tell me how Comey violated that - it says NOTHING about investigating a candidate, for example. And this may sound bad, but it's not some big crime to violate the Hatch Act - it is a governmental regulation, not some felony offense. And, again, why wait? Fire him NOW if you want to babble on about the Hatch Act, waiting until after the election is too late if Trump wins. besides the point if Clinton wins.
 

TCassidy

Late-Administator Emeritus
Administrator
The whole "violation of the Hatch Act" was the work of "Dirty Harry" Reid who lied about Mitt Romney's taxes, too. He later admitted he lied, and says he's still not sorry. "We won, didn't we."

Harry Reid is a proven liar and anyone with at least a 3rd grade reading comprehension can read the Hatch Act and see that Comey did NOT violate it. He did his job. He investigated an alleged crime. And has found evidence to support the allegation.
 
Top