Skip to content

The FBI claims a ‘lack of public interest’ in Hillary Clinton’s emails justifies withholding information

August 29, 2017

  The FBI has rejected a FOIA request for documents related to Hillary Clinton’s email scandal by claiming the public does not care about it. Here is more:

Hillary Clinton’s case isn’t interesting enough to the public to justify releasing the FBI’s files on her, the bureau said this week in rejecting an open-records request by a lawyer seeking to have the former secretary of state punished for perjury.

Ty Clevenger, the lawyer, has been trying to get Mrs. Clinton and her personal lawyers disbarred for their handling of her official emails during her time as secretary of state. He’s met with resistance among lawyers, and now his request for information from the FBI’s files has been shot down.

“You have not sufficiently demonstrated that the public’s interest in disclosure outweighs personal privacy interests of the subject,” FBI records management section chief David M. Hardy told Mr. Clevenger in a letter Monday.

“It is incumbent upon the requester to provide documentation regarding the public’s interest in the operations and activities of the government before records can be processed pursuant to the FOIA,” Mr. Hardy wrote.

  I am going to take a different approach than usual here, we can break it down logically like this:

1: Public interest determines which FOIA requests should be honored–in this case Hillary Clinton’s email scandal.

2: The mainstream media drives public interest by determining which stories should be covered.

3: The mainstream media is not interested in a topic–Hillary Clinton’s email scandal–so it is not covered.

4: Because the mainstream media chooses not to cover a story the public does not know about it so there is no public interest.

5: Because the public is not interested the FBI does not honor the FOIA request.

  Objection: The mainstream media determines which stories to cover based on what the public is interested in.

Answer: The public looks to the mainstream media for its news and is dependent upon accurate news on which to base its interest. 

  Conclusion: Because the public looks to the media for newsworthy subjects and not the other way around the objection is based on a fallacy. In this case the mainstream media has basically shut down this aspect of Hillary Clinton’s email scandal by refusing to cover the story, thereby “justifying” the FBI’s non-compliance with the FOIA request. Mission accomplished…

malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium

12 Comments leave one →
  1. petermac3 permalink
    August 29, 2017 8:57 pm

    What the hell the FBI is right. The public wasn’t interested in the murder of her lover Vince Foster or husband Bill’s murder of Ron Brown or his giving our nuclear weapon capabilities to Lora which then gave them to the Chicoms. E-mails containing sensitive national secourity secrets, a mere bag of shells of no interest to the public. And the 43 Whitewater related deaths under curious circumstances, no interest by the public. The Clinton Crime Family Foundation, no public interest. Besides the media will be too preoccupied with the upcoming Lard Ass Raging Bullshit book tour as will be the public. If she wears a little black dress with the cottage cheese on the back of her thighs showing only them would I be interested.

    Liked by 2 people

  2. August 29, 2017 11:30 pm

    LIARS, LIARS…liars. Fiends (evil spirits)!
    Richie states it right. (7.08 mins)

    Better watch it before it’s taken down by utube AI (the Machine)!

    Liked by 1 person

  3. August 30, 2017 7:16 am

    I ask once again where is Sessions. The FBI reports to him… I know, chasing MS-13.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Dr. Jeff permalink
    August 30, 2017 4:49 pm

    Tell me if I’m wrong, but I always understood the FOIA to be a matter law, not public opinion.

    The law says that within the limits of national security, the requested information must be released. Public opinion has nothing to do with it. Exactly who is requesting the information has nothing to do with it either.

    So what’s the b.s. about no one caring about Hillary Clinton being a criminal and how does that render the law unimportant?

    On top of that, there are MILLIONS of us who believe that she is a criminal and we want the evidence brought to light so that she can be prosecuted. That’s a lot of public interest.

    Finally, none of this would be an issue if the FBI had done its job in the first place.

    Have I missed anything?

    Liked by 3 people

  5. Dr. Jeff permalink
    August 30, 2017 4:53 pm

    One more bit: Ms. Clinton ceased to be a private citizen decades ago, rendering this part of the FBI claim even more ridiculous.

    “The FBI says it will only release records from its files if a subject consents, is dead, or is of such public interest that it overrides privacy concerns.”

    Liked by 1 person

Leave a comment