“Our investigation uncovered substantial evidence of mismanagement, poor judgment … but poor judgment is not a crime.” – Asst. Atty. Gen. Peter Kadzik
Secret e-mail accounts and a coincidental server crash are meaningless.
Mismanagement and poor judgment are not a crime said a DOJ report on its investigation of Lois Lerner and the IRS targeting of conservative groups. (worldmag.com)
In his letter regarding the investigation of Lois Lerner and the IRS to the House Judiciary Committee, Kadzik stated that “What occurred is disquieting and may necessitate corrective action; and while they found mismanagement and poor judgement, (they found) no evidence that would support a criminal prosecution.”
While the work of the Select Committee on Benghazi is yet to be completed, Kadzik’s statement reminded me of one of the findings of the Accountability Review Board on Benghazi.
“Certain senior State Department officials,” the report stated, “demonstrated a lack of proactive leadership and management ability … however the Board did not find that any individual U.S. Government employee engaged in misconduct or willfully ignored his or her responsibilities, and therefore did not find reasonable cause to believe that an individual breached his or her duty so as to be the subject of recommendation for disciplinary action.”
So, like the ARB, the Justice Department closes its two and a half year investigation and won’t charge former IRS official Lois Lerner over the targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.
The DOJ found that while Lerner used “poor judgment” in using her IRS e-mail account to send personal messages voicing “political views” they found no evidence that she exercised her official authority in a “partisan manner generally” or that her views influenced her actions with regard to the tax-exempt applications.
Just as the ARB referred to the lack of leadership and management by “senior State Department officials” without naming Hillary Clinton, the DOJ didn’t mention Lerner when it referred to “leadership lapses in D.C.”
We have now seen that replacing Eric Holder as attorney general with Loretta Lynch has made no difference at the DOJ.
Will the reporting of the FBI to Homeland Security make a difference in its findings of the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s e-mails and her mishandling of classified documents? Are FBI wordsmiths already scouring the Thesaurus for alternative words for “poor leadership” and “poor judgment?” After all, she’s a candidate for president.
