OPINION:
Hillary Clinton continues to publicly pontificate about various subjects. There is even talk of her running again for president in 2020.
Like many millions of my fellow Americans, I once was required to safely store and protect classified U.S. government documents. Penalties for failing to do so were and are quite severe. Mrs. Clinton, however, has not been held accountable for her actions while serving as U.S. secretary of State, when she used an unsecured, private email server at her residence to store, receive and send over 1,000 classified messages, several classified as “SECRET” or higher classification. It now is known that some of these classified emails were hacked by several hostile foreign governments.
Mrs. Clinton’s actions are clear, flagrant violations of the gross negligence provisions of the Espionage Act, subsection F, 18 USC 793. An intent to deceive or perform illegal actions is not required; gross negligence alone is grounds for prosecution. Use of a private email server for classified communications permits the material to be removed or abstracted from its proper, secure government file server. Penalties allowed under the Espionage Act for gross negligence in handling classified materials include a fine, imprisonment of up to 10 years, or both.
To restore the faith of the American people in the rule of law in our great nation, it is essential that Mrs. Clinton be charged with violating the Espionage Act as described above. She was not simply “extremely careless,” as former FBI Director James Comey erroneously declared in an effort to shield her from prosecution.
The critical question is, who in the Trump administration understands the necessity of indicting Hillary Clinton — and who has the fortitude and courage to do so?
PAUL GARDINER
Hoschton, Ga.
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