Tag Archives: responsibilities

A Measure of Justice

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Recall Rolling Stone‘s article by Sabrina Rubin Erdely that accused a fraternity at the University of Virginia and the university at large of fostering a climate of rape.  The article went on explicitly to accuse the fraternity’s members of participating in the gang rape of a particular woman—a woman whose rape never occurred—and it smeared (now ex-; she’s still employed by UVA, but in a different and lesser capacity) Dean of Students Nicole Eramo as being indifferent to the purported victim’s plight.

Eramo sued Rolling Stone and Erdeley in Federal court for defamation—a charge in which, because of her celebrity status, a status manufactured by Rolling Stone and their press brethren through their publication of the article and repeated of summaries of it, Eramo would have to prove actual malice by the magazine and Erdeley, not that they were merely extremely negligent.  Last Friday, the jury in the case agreed with Eramo.

[T]he…jury found that the magazine and one of its journalists, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, was liable for defaming Eramo….

And then:

The jury awarded Eramo $2 million from Erdely and $1 million from Rolling Stone….

Eramo’s attorney noted the vindication:

This was nothing short of a complete repudiation of Rolling Stone and Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s flawed journalism[.]

But only a measure of justice.  Eramo described the long-term destruction inflicted on her during her testimony.

Eramo said that U-Va. reassigned her from her duties counseling students on matters involving sexual violence and that she felt adrift on the campus she had called home for 20 years. Eramo said that she received hundreds of vitriolic email messages….

And

[Eramo said that] she faced threats, lost her ability to pursue her life’s work as a sexual assault prevention advocate, and took a major hit to her professional credibility.

The money award is good in the sense that it sends a clear signal to a dishonest press and the “journalists” within it.  However, money cannot repair the damage the smear has done.

Again, only a measure of justice: UVA promptly on the accusation, but without any investigation of its own and long before the police completed their own investigation, suspended not just the accused fraternity but all fraternities associated with the university.  Further, the university has done nothing since to make those fraternities whole from the school’s smearing suspension.

Given the magazine’s and the pseudo-journalist’s evident disdain for the truth and their willingness to publish anything at all in order to make a sale, it’s an amazement to me that anyone anymore would pay money to read their…stuff.

The smeared fraternity has its own lawsuit in progress.

This

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…about sums it up.  In a Wall Street Journal op-ed about FBI Director James Comey’s missteps, US Attorney General and Federal judge Michael Mukasey had this bit that summarizes Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s criminal behavior while Secretary of State and since:

…Mrs Clinton had classified information on a private nonsecure server—at least a misdemeanor under one statute; and although she was “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information such that it was exposed to hacking by hostile foreign nations—a felony under another statute; and apparently had caused the destruction of emails—a felony under two other statutes.

And regarding one likely outcome of this reopening of the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s crimes, Muckasey had this:

Mr Comey reportedly wrote his letter to Congress over the objection of the attorney general and her deputy. Thus, regardless of what is in the newly discovered emails, the current Justice Department will not permit a grand jury to hear evidence in this case. And because only a grand jury can constitutionally bring charges, that means no charges will be brought.

Keep it in mind as you vote next week.

There’s Spiking, and There’s Spiking

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The NLMSM has been spiking bad news about Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton until very recently (when it’s begun merely slanting the news).

Now it’s becoming clear how the upper levels of bureaucrats and political appointees in the Barack Obama/Loretta Lynch Department of Justice have been trying to spike investigations into Clinton’s…misbehaviors…both in relation to her private, unsecured email server on which she handled State Department official business, including classified business contained in some 2,000 emails, and in relation to her Clinton Foundation.

Recall that FBI Director James Comey has reopened the FBI investigation of Clinton and her private, unsecured email server.  The reopening was triggered by some 650,000 (!) emails by and to Clinton senior advisor and confidante Huma Abedin found on a laptop shared by her and her husband, Anthony Weiner, in the course of the FBI’s investigation of Weiner over his alleged sexting with a minor.  We’re starting to learn just how obstructive the Obama/Lynch DoJ have been in attempting to keep both the email and the Foundation investigations blocked.

Anticorruption prosecutors at the Justice Department told the FBI at the meeting [a February update on the progress of FBI field agents’ investigation into the Clinton Foundation] they wouldn’t authorize more aggressive investigative techniques, such as subpoenas, formal witness interviews, or grand-jury activity. But the FBI officials believed they were well within their authority to pursue the leads and methods already under way, these people [participants in the meeting] said.

February—that’s how long the DoJ’s obstruction of the investigation has been going on.  They’ve been trying to keep the investigators’ hands tied for nine months.

According to a person familiar with the probes, on Aug 12, a senior Justice Department official called Mr [Andrew, FBI Deputy Director] McCabe to voice his displeasure at finding that New York FBI agents were still openly pursuing the Clinton Foundation probe during the election season. Mr McCabe said agents still had the authority to pursue the issue as long as they didn’t use overt methods requiring Justice Department approvals.
…
“Are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated investigation?” Mr McCabe asked, according to people familiar with the conversation. After a pause, the official replied, “Of course not,” these people said.

And

In September, agents on the foundation case asked to see the emails contained on nongovernment laptops that had been searched as part of the Clinton email case, but that request was rejected by prosecutors at the Eastern District of New York, in Brooklyn. Those emails were given to the FBI based on grants of partial immunity and limited-use agreements, meaning agents could only use them for the purpose of investigating possible mishandling of classified information.

Read Devlin Barett’s whole piece in The Wall Street Journal at the above link.

The DoJ plainly needs a thorough house-cleaning and fumigation after this election.

Emails

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How do you get 650,000 State Department emails onto one laptop, even if accumulated over some years?  Especially when it’s a laptop that isn’t routinely used by a State Department employee or confidante of a State employee, but instead is owned by (or at best shared with) a State employee/confidante spouse and dependent?

Separately, might some of these be copies of the emails Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton deleted under the claim that they were personal, centered on wedding planning and yoga?