What is really worrying about Clinton's email scandal

Hillary Clinton's decision to use a private insecure personal server to store classified emails has been as issue all through this campaign.  And it worries me.  If I or any other ordinary citizen had done what she has done, we would be in Federal prison right now.  On the other hand Hillary's paranoia and general carelessness with the truth is no different than that of many other politicians, including her current opponent. And we have seen repeatedly in recent years that Washington insiders (agency heads, member of Congress, influential lobbyists, etc.) get special treatment.   So in that sense she simply represents "business as usual" in today's Washington world.

What worries me far more is the increasing evidence that the FBI deliberately slanted the investigation so as to ensure she was not indicted. I won't detail all the revelations that have been coming out over the past few weeks, but it is clear that sweet deals were cut with her staff to (a) give them immunity, (b) limit the questions that could be asked of them, and (c) destroy their laptops after the investigation so that no one could review them later. The staff, of course, were remarkably forgetful and unhelpful about crucial details, even with immunity.

Even so, the case Director James Comey laid out in his public statement exonerating Clinton didn't add up. Even after all the special deals, he still couldn't make a convincing case that Clinton shouldn't be prosecuted, while the government was at the same time sending several lower-level people to jail for far less serious infractions of the security codes.

I hear from friends with contacts in the intelligence services that  those services were very disturbed indeed about some of the emails she exposed, and that agents and sources may have lost their lives as a result. If that is true, it is a travesty that Hillary paid absolutely no price for her carelessness and thoughtlessness.

But Clinton's infractions, and her ability to evade the consequences, don't worry me nearly as much as the demonstration that the FBI - supposedly above politics and corruption - clearly isn't. During the Nixon debacle they managed not to get entangled in the coverup, much to their credit.  Indeed, in the end it turned out it was a member of the FBI itself that provided the clues that helped exposed the whole sorry affair. (FBI Associate Director Mark Felt was apparently "Deep Throat").  It looks like the Washington corruption has over the ensuring years even invaded the FBI.  Now that is really something to worry about.