Hillary Clinton is in trouble. Really big trouble.
According to the Washington Post, the same prosecutor who took down General David Petraeus for improper possession of classified information is now looking into Hillary Clinton's email server. Earlier this week, an intelligence Inspector General revealed Clinton did in fact have at least four pieces of top secret, classified information passed through and stored on her private email server.
The investigation is being overseen by two veteran prosecutors in the Justice Department’s National Security Division. One of them helped manage the prosecution of David H. Petraeus.
NEW FROM @washingtonpost: Petraeus prosecutor is now overseeing security investigation into Clinton emails. W/ @ktumulty @postroz
— Carol Leonnig (@CarolLeonnig) August 14, 2015As a reminder, Petraeus plead guilty to misdemeanor charges after keeping physical copies of classified information locked in a desk drawer at his house. He also shared them with his biographer and mistress Paula Broadwell. Prosecutors originally recommended felony charges.
David H. Petraeus, a retired general considered one of the greatest military minds of his generation, pleaded guilty Thursday to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified materials, ending a long-running legal saga that had threatened to send him to prison.
Petraeus, who admitted he provided the materials to his former mistress and biographer, will instead face a two-year probationary period. U.S. Magistrate Judge David Keesler also imposed a $100,000 fine — more than double the amount recommended by prosecutors — to reflect the “seriousness of the offense.”
Based on what we know so far, Clinton's possession of top secret, classified information on her personal server is far worse than the Petraeus case. First, the classified information Petraeus had in his possession was classified at a lower level than the information on Clinton's private server, which was classified at the highest level. Second, Petraeus may have shared information with his mistress, but Clinton shared it with enemy hackers and foreign governments.
Former intelligence officials say it’s a certainty that her server was compromised by [foreign] intelligence services. Unless they were encrypted to U.S. government standards, “In my opinion there is a 100% chance that all emails sent and received by her, including all the electronic correspondence stored on her server in her Chappaqua residence, were targeted and collected by the Russian equivalent of NSA,” said former CIA case officer Jason Matthews, an expert in Russian intelligence.
Based on her continued defiance, if charges are brought against Clinton I doubt she'll bow out gracefully like Petraeus did.