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And The FBI Ran The Scheme To Kill A Black Leader
By all accounts, Malcolm X was a peace-loving brother; at least, he did not advocate violence as an act of aggression. Malcolm believed that all humans had a right to defend themselves if attacked, but no one had a right to inflict violence on a person who came in peace.
I just don’t get it. What lurks within the heart of a government official who would take away the pension of a civil servant who gave more than 20 years of his life to the government?
It makes no sense to me. Simply cold and heartless is about all I can make of Attorney General Jeff Sessions move to fire Andrew McCabe two days before his full pension vests.
Hillary Clinton is not out of the woods yet. Although the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) concluded its investigation into her use of a private email server without recommending criminal charges, the issue is not settled.
There remains a review of the FBI’s investigative file by attorneys in the Justice Department. As I reported in a blog post yesterday, former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, Sally Q. Yates, finds herself “in the middle of Emailgate.” Yates, essentially is a career, apolitical, nuts and bolts federal prosecutor.
The case now goes to Justice Department attorneys to determine if criminal charges should be brought against Clinton.
FBI Director James Comey did not mince words in characterizing how bad and “careless” Clinton’s behavior was in using multiple private electronic devices at home and when traveling abroad.
According to national security experts, top government officials are advised not to use private devices when traveling abroad because both friendly nations and foes routinely hack into those devices and steal secrets.
Speaking of Clinton and her staff, Comey said:
“there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”
Comey said he declined to recommend charges because he did not find an intent on the part of Clinton or her aides to commit a crime.
Whether charges are ultimately filed against Clinton or any of her aides now rests with Sally Yates and her boss, Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
On Friday of last week, Lynch said that she would follow the recommendation of the investigators (FBI) and the attorneys (Deputy United States Attorney General Sally Yates and one other attorney who has been assigned to this case).
Here is where Comey’s finding of facts presents a challenge for Yates and the attorneys reviewing the FBI file. Comey concluded:
“There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on e-mail (that is, excluding the later “up-classified” e-mails).”
While Comey did not find a specific intent to commit a crime, he did find what may be defined in the law as “criminal negligence.”
Criminal negligence exist where the fault lies in the failure to foresee and so allow otherwise avoidable dangers to manifest. It gets to what a reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position would have done.
Comey concluded that Clinton and others “should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.”
In deciding not to recommend criminal charges Comey said in previous cases the government had prosecuted they were able to prove the specific intent to commit a crime or some hatred of the government. None of those factors are present in this case.
Hillary Clinton and her private email servers are not out of the woods yet. Comey will leave it up to the Justice Department to decide if they will create a precedent and go after government officials for “careless” negligent in performing their duties.
Harold Michael Harvey is an American novelist and essayist, the author of Paper puzzle and Justice in the Round. He can be contacted at haroldmichaelharvey.com.
SOURCES:
Yates In Middle of Emailgate
What does President Barack Obama know about the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she served as Secretary of State? This is the one million dollar question flowing out of his Thursday endorsement of Clinton.
As president, Obama should not be privy to an ongoing criminal investigation. At least, not until the findings of that investigation have been completed and released to the public.
I cannot help but think President Obama knows something that other Americans are yet to learn about the status of this investigation. Why else would he stick his neck out and endorse a candidate from his party for president who is being investigated by the FBI?
Especially given the fact that the time period between the Democratic convention and the November election date is more than sufficient time for Clinton or any candidate, at this stage of the game, to make a strong case for why she or he is the best person suited to enforce the laws of the country for the next four years.
How can the chief enforcer of the constitution and laws enacted by congress endorse a candidate under criminal investigation?
This week the FBI filed a brief in federal court in a case brought by Judicial Watch, a conservative watch dog group, seeking to compel Secretary Clinton to testify in a civil freedom of information case. Among other things, the FBI brief stated that everything found on Clinton’s email server is evidence or has the potential to become evidence in their ongoing criminal investigation.
If it is determined that Clinton did not break any laws, then there is no problem with the timing of Obama’s endorsement. Certainly President Obama can endorse anybody at anytime. Obama’s endorsement of Clinton so quickly after meeting with Senator Bernie Sanders begs these questions:
Why did Obama endorse now? What does he know about the likely outcome of the criminal investigation of Clinton? Does he know that the FBI investigation will exonerate Clinton?
For eight years, Obama has played his cards well. He has made few if any political mistakes. Only time will tell if he made a political mistake in this endorsement of Clinton before the criminal investigation by the FBI into her private email server has been completed.
Harold Michael Harvey is an American novelist and essayist, the author of Paper puzzle and Justice in the Round. He can be contacted at haroldmichaelharvey.com.
During last weekend’s 20th anniversary of the Million Man March, Nation of Islam leader, Minister Louis Farrakhan called upon the FBI to open their file on Malcolm X. He seeks the full release of the FBI’s Malcolm X file.
Farrakhan’s demand sought to put to rest public rumors that he participated in planning the assassination of Malcolm X following Malcolm’s break with the Nation of Islam back in 1965. Malcolm was killed on February 21, 1965, in a hail of gunfire, as he prepared to outline his plans for the Organization of Afro-American Unity, a secular organization that would address human rights violations committed by the American government upon it’s black citizens.
Prior to his break with Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm had been a mentor to Farrakhan. In previous speeches, Farrakhan has said that any member of the Nation of Islam in 1965 would have wanted to kill Malcolm, because Malcolm disclosed secrets about the personal life of the sects leader, Elijah Muhammad.
But on Saturday, he stopped short of repeating this statement and instead pointed to the fact that if the government had any proof that he participated in a conspiracy to murder Malcolm X they would have brought him up on charges by now; especially considering the fact Farrakhan has been an outspoken and uncompromising speaker against racist and discriminatory practices in the USA.
Farrakhan demanded that the FBI release their entire file on Malcolm X without redacting any information contained in their dossier on Malcolm.
In the Autobiography of Malcolm X, written with the assistance of Alex Haley, Malcolm stated several weeks before his death that certain circumstances that had occurred on a visit to Africa led him to believe that forces bigger than the Nation of Islam were out to kill him. Malcolm’s food had been poisoned during a visit to Mecca. He did not believe that the Nation of Islam had arms long enough to reach half way around the world to poison him.
It has been 50 years since Malcolm was killed. Perhaps, it is time for the truth and nothing but the truth to be made known.
Harold Michael Harvey is an American novelist and essayist, the author of Paper puzzle and Justice in the Round. He can be contacted at haroldmichaelharvey.com .
A. Reginald Eaves, “Mr. Commish” to his inner circle, was the very first Public Safety Commissioner in the country. Prior to the 1975 election of Maynard Holbrook Jackson as the mayor of Atlanta there was no such thing as a Public Safety Commissioner.
Before Atlanta changed from the old rural Marshal/Deputy Marshal system in 1873, the chief law enforcement officer in the city had been the Chief of Police. After his election, Jackson needed to wrestle control of the Police Department away from John F. Inman, the Chief of Police since March 2o, 1972.
At that time, Inman was in charge of a police department that was accused of brutalizing members of the African American community. Similar to policing in Ferguson, Staten Island, Baltimore, and McKinney today, members of the black community were used as target practice by the Atlanta Police Department. But unlike today, there were no smartphones to capture the police abuse.
Nevertheless, Atlanta’s black community was up in arms over violent police acts. Jackson was able to rally black voters in part because they saw in him a way to stop the police brutality. Inman did not want to give up his job so Jackson could hire his law school buddy, A. Reginald Eaves.
Jackson did the next best thing. He changed the century-old police chief system and created a position called the Public Safety Commissioner. He then placed the police department under the control of the Public Safety Commissioner. Eaves was tabbed for this position.
When Eaves showed up for his first day on the job, he was met by a recalcitrant John Inman and several of Inman’s gun-toting officers . After several tense days of a Mexican standoff, Inman went his way and Eaves got busy reforming the way Atlanta police officers related to members of the African American community. His legacy in this regard is still in tact as Atlanta has not had a major charge of police brutality raised against it during this climate of “Black Lives Matter.
His next course of action was to level the playing field when it came to promotions. In the past, white officers held a huge advantage when it came to advancing up the ranks. Suddenly, black officers were passing the promotional exam in larger numbers than white officers. The white officers pushed back and alleged that cheating was occurring on the promotional exam. The cheating scandal threatened to waylay the Jackson administration before it could get underway. To remedy this situation, Jackson jettisoned his two top aides over the cheating allegations, Emma Darnell and A. Reginald Eaves.
Darnell left in a huff and opposed Jackson for reelection in 1979. Eaves ran for a seat on the Fulton County Commission and won. The city of Atlanta went back to the police chief position after Eaves left the city. There has never been another Public Safety Commissioner in Atlanta city government.
He served on the Fulton County Commission until 1988 when the federal government in an effort to blunt the growing political power of black elected officials instituted what has been dubbed “Operation Blue Eyes/Green Eyes/Brown Eyes.”
Eaves would later tell a class of newly elected officials from throughout the south about this federal sting operation in an effort to school them to the perils that awaited well intended black elected officials.
According to one graduate of Eaves freshman orientation course for newly elected black officials, this operation was lead by the FBI and was designed to entrap Eaves, Maynard Jackson and Elgin Bell, the top black officials in Atlanta at that time. Jackson and Bell escaped the dragnet, Eaves, the law enforcement official, let his guard down and fell into the government trap. He learned a valuable lesson.
Eaves spent the next 27 years of his life mentoring young black elected officials in the methods used by the government in entangling them in schemes they otherwise would not have devised on their own. Also, he showed them how offers of money in exchange for a political favor are made to appear legitimate, until the government is ready to take you down.
“Mr. Commish,” although largely unrecognized and undaunted by public scandal, stopped police brutality, promoted black policer officers and mentored the next generation of black elected officials on how to avoid government plots to eliminate blacks from electoral politics.
A mighty, mighty “drum major” for the people.
Harold Michael Harvey, is the author of the legal thriller “Paper Puzzle,” and “Justice in the Round: Essays on the American Jury System,” available at Amazon and at haroldmichaelharvey.com. He can be contacted at [email protected]