2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Of course Hillary won't get indicted. All that will happen is that the FBI will RECOMMEND indictment [View all]Jarqui
(10,122 posts)I think AG Lynch will follow the old conflict of interest avoidance procedure to appoint an independent counsel to review the FBI report plus the reports of the Inspector General of the State Department and the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (both IG's recommended the FBI review the matter). The idea being that the Independent Counsel would make recommendations when they've completed their review (like they did with CIA Director Deutch).
A key in my assumption is whether AG Lynch has to reveal what the reports say before they get reviewed by an Independent Counsel. If she does, then she may respond differently than I project.
The Independent Counsel cannot possibly get acquainted with all the facts and make a decision before the election because all three reports won't even be completed for a while yet. The Deutch decision took about a year and it was a simpler case. This will effectively run out the clock before the election.
With a new administration and probably a new Attorney General in Nov-Jan 20th period, the independent Counsel may never get to finish the task - it may get passed on to someone else - particularly if the GOP win the White House.
What Hillary really needed was to get cleared of the email and the Clinton Foundation concerns. I do not see how they can do that credibly in the time remaining. It's too complex. If they try that, the GOP would be all over it.
The GOP will be all over it regardless but the Dems needed a solid legal footing. I do not see how they can get it at this point before the election.
I agree this is poison for Hillary and the GOP will pound her on it.
Unlike you, I like Bernie better but I think we wind up pretty close to the same place on where this is likely to go and the impact it is likely to have.