The Subpoena That Rocked The Election Is Legal Garbage, Experts Say

[man on the moonshine]

Source: Huffington Post

12/20/2016 02:25 pm ET Updated 3 hours ago

The warrant connected to the FBI search that Hillary Clinton says cost her the election shouldnt have been granted, legal experts who reviewed the document released on Tuesday told The Huffington Post.

FBI Director James Comey shook up the presidential race 11 days before the election by telling Congress the agency had discovered new evidence in its previously closed investigation into the email habits of Clinton, who was significantly ahead in the polls at the time.

When Comey made the announcement, the bureau did not have a warrant to search a laptop that agents believed might contain evidence of criminal activity. The FBI set out to rectify that two days later, on Oct. 30, when agents applied for a warrant to search the laptop, which was already in the FBIs possession. The FBI had seized the computer as part of an investigation into former Rep. Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

The unsealed warrant reveals Comeys intrusion on the election was as utterly unjustified as we suspected at time, Brian Fallon, a Clinton campaign spokesman, said on Twitter Tuesday.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-subpoena-that-rocked-the-election-is-legal-garbage-attorney-say_us_58597cd9e4b03904470b0633

---

Comey was not available for comment, as he's on a skiing vacation in the Urals.

[still_one]

1. and I haven't seen this reported anywhere else as of yet except the Huffington Post

[napi21]

4. I don't know EveRy place it was written, but I posted a link to it in USA Today.

It's a subject that deserves to be posted many times and places. FINALLY Hillary & all the dems are proven correct. we all KNEW this was a BS stunt to damage Hillary's campaign.

[still_one]

7. The NY Times and Washington Post report it, but it sure isn't emphasized. I wish it

would get more attention

I also agree with you, it needs to be exposed as much as possible

[man on the moonshine]

9. Just like Trump's tax returns

And, you know what? Comey's, while we're at it.

[wordpix]

21. just listen to Reid in vid: "Comey is a front for the Republican party" TRAITOR!

and now he's skiing in the Urals (Russia)

[unblock]

2. i'm not clear on the impact the subpoena itself had on the election.

obviously comey's announcement had a huge effect.

supposedly the supboena and search and eventual admission that there was no "there there" riled up the right wing, taking it as a cover-up.

but if the subpoena had been denied, they would have been outraged that that anyway, and also left to speculate that there was indeed something dastardly in them thar emails.

too my mind it all comes back to comey's announcement, that was by far the biggest part of the problem.


completely separately, there is the violation of privacy in having the fbi scour emails they had no business looking through, but that didn't have any real impact on the election.

[The Wielding Truth]

13. Anyone with any doubt turned away from her because of this blow to her character. It suppressed

the vote an probably turned some voters to trump.

[unblock]

15. again, i'm not clear on how the subpoena itself did that.

personally, i was pissed when comey's letter came out, but relieved when the subpoena was granted and hillary was cleared before the election.

[wordpix]

19. HRC getting "cleared" was too late to help her---by then, million$ had voted already

[unblock]

22. i get that -- but again, i see the damage being done by comey's letter.

not the subpoena.

[maxrandb]

23. It's extremely relevant because if there is no subpoena, there is NO letter

just as if there were no letter, there would be no subpoena.

The letter was released 2 days before the subpoena, and there is no fucking way that Comey didn't know what the fucking ReTrumplicans and MSM would do with his letter.

The subpoena was one way Comey tried to cover his lying, racist, "Russian ass-kissing" ass!

He and the rogue FBI fuckers knew there was NO JUSTIFICATION for his fucking letter. The subpoena provided the fucking dickhead with some fucking cover from the criticism that he was fondling Trumps balls as they bounced off of his chin.

BTW - before some overly sensitive DUer chastises me for using an oral sex reference and accusing me of being anti-gay...let me just say that Comey taking Trumps dick down his throat has nothing to do with homosexuality...and everything to do with Comey being a fucking Trump whore

[unblock]

24. that isn't the way it played out in the news in real time, at least.

i agree that it's entirely possible the comey had the whole timeline planned, but at least in the media, they were distinct, sequential events -- the letter, the leak, the uproar, the subpoena request, the granting of the subpoena, the call for quick analysis, the question of how to even scan through that many emails in time, etc.

for me the simpler explanation is that comey just wanted his letter to leak and the cloud of suspicion to doom hillary, and any subpoena and exoneration to come after the election.

[FiveGoodMen]

28. The subpoena's lack of probable cause shows that Comey's last-minute interference

was purely political.

If he'd had a legitimate reason for bringing up the emails just before the election, it should have been stated there.

[unblock]

30. i agree. that just makes comey's letter all the more evil.

[tenorly]

3. And the J. Edgar "Mary" Hoover award goes to...

Jim Commie!

Mighty big shoes to fill there, Jimbo.

[onecaliberal]

5. Lock him up

[tenorly]

6. I bet he'd like that.

Know what I mean?

[DawgHouse]

12. Enlighten me. What do you mean?

[TaterBake]

8. A Hillary Hit Job Nothing More

Now prosecute all the FBI scum who broke the law trying to sway the election.

Won't happen.

The dems will "forgive" them.

And you wonder why we keep losing elections.... And governorships. And suffer from gerrymandering, voter suppression, and election fraud and purged voters by the million.

[Rex]

10. I wonder how high the Aspens grow in the Urals.

Another rigged election. Don said it over and over again. That good old FBI, boy don't they just stand for justice!

[cstanleytech]

11. Can the federal DA for the area or the state DA where the warrant was executed investigate this

since we all know Trump nor the Republicans in the Senate or House will uphold the law and investigate?

[McCamy Taylor]

14. This smells like Watergate to me.

I suggest that the press get all over the FBI with FOI Act requests. And that the Dems sue anyone they are allowed to sue---members of the press and people like Rudy who colluded. Comey probably can not be sued for illegal acts committed in office, but if you get enough others to testify, he can be indicted.

[RobinA]

16. To Me,

the real issue is the granting of the warrant, not the request. LE is free to request any bogus warrant they want. The check is that a warrant must be approved based on certain criteria. So on that basis was this approved, and is it a basis on which it should have been approved.

Anyway, the warrant in this incident is a side issue in my opinion. Once the letter was out, even if the warrant had NOT been granted, the damage had been done. Actually, not granting it might have done more damage. Nevertheless, one hopes that search warrants aren't granted on a partisan basis. That's a REAL problem.

[wordpix]

18. between this and Russian hacking, it's worse than Wgate, much worse

Here we have FBI seizing materials without a warrant, and the pre-elect colluding with a foreign power to win the election.

The Wgate "plumbers" just broke into Dem HQ and stole some documents about Daniel Ellsberg. NOTHING like this.

Comey should be out on this, if not indicted.

[Cosmocat]

25. Yeah, one minor detail

45 years ago republicans were generally just run of the mill politicians who had some sense of civic service, and our country was a fully functional democracy.

Today, republicans completely deranged lunatics who have lost all sense of civic service, view this positions in government as 100 percent about acruing power to the republican party and country on November 8 took the last step toward becoming an emergent, authoritarian, fascists state.

So, while, yes, this is infinitely worse than Watergate, practically speaking it will amount to N O T H I N G other than burning our asses.

[GliderGuider]

26. Back then the country could still claim to be a democracy.

At least sort of.

Now it's all oligarchy, all the time. (In Rex Tillerson's case he's an oiligarch...)

[wordpix]

17. this is what repukes do--whatever they want--and then backtrack like Uday/Kusay's fundraiser

Oh, did we have our names on a new foundation's documents? NO! (Even though they did).

Oh did we have to get a warrant to seize Abedin's laptop? NO! (Even though FBI did need it).

FIRE COMEY! ENOUGH!

[wordpix]

20. Traitor Comey's skiing in the Urals---really? He's in Russia, he should just stay there

[xor]

31. I think the Urals comment was a joke

but then again, you never know these days

[Gothmog]

27. Comey is pond scum and lacks any professional or other ethics

[BigDemVoter123]

29. And WHY is Comey still employed?????