Disgracing himself at the end of a long career of public service, it now seems fairly evident that F.B.I. Director James Comey had a political agenda, not one of serving justice, with his investigation into Hillary Clinton’s illegal use of a private email server. It is nearly impossible not to conclude that from the beginning Comey fully intending to let Hillary off the hook for what would be considered crimes if committed by someone — anyone — else.

Even the chain of events seems to show Comey had no intention of recommending Hillary be prosecuted. Take the timing of her F.B.I. interview, for instance.

• Clinton was finally interviewed at the very end of the investigation, instead of the beginning like the F.B.I. does in literally every other case. This timing means that Hillary’s words were never in a position to be used against her. This is a complete breach of procedure as the agency normally tries to get a suspect on record early so they can use that testimony against them at a later date, not to mention to use it to try and wring out any details that may lead agents to more evidence.
• Next, the interview came a scant 72 hours before the final report was delivered to the Obama administration which pretty much proves that Comey’s conclusions were already set in stone before Hillary said a single word to them. In other words, her appearance was a sham interview that never had any bearing on the case.
• Then, to top it all off, Comey had his tarnished agency release the transcripts of the interview late on a Friday night before a long, three-day holiday weekend in hopes that it would all be forgotten by the time the media returned to its job of reporting the news the following Tuesday.
• Worse, in his announcement of why he wasn’t going to recommend that Hillary be prosecuted, Comey rambled on and on about how he determined that Clinton had no “intent” to break the nation’s secrecy laws by setting up her own, unsecure email server hidden in her own New York home when she was Obama’s Secretary of State. Yet, the released transcript shows that agents never once asked her about her “intent.”
• Then the F.B.I.’s top man admitted that even though he judged Clinton on this mythic “intent” criteria, he would never let anyone else get away with such a defense insisting he would prosecute everyone else in any similar situation to the fullest extent of the law.

Hillary was even called on her get-out-of-jail-free fortune. At this week’s “Commander-In-Chief Forum” broadcast on MSNBC on September 7. During the forum a Navy Vet said, “Had I communicated this information not following prescribed protocols, I would have been prosecuted and imprisoned. Secretary Clinton, how can you expect those such as myself who were and are trusted with America’s most sensitive information to have any confidence in your leadership as president when you clearly corrupted our national security?”

That is quite an indictment. And in fact, since Hillary was let off Scot free by the F.B.I. a member of the military was convicted of breaching America’s national security laws despite trying to proffer a “Hillary defense” to stave off a prison sentence.

At the beginning of September a Navy Petty Officer was convicted of taking cell phone photos of the classified interior of a U.S. submarine despite that he only intended to keep the photos as a memento of his service. The sailor did break the laws, granted, but he had no “intention” of selling the photos to our enemy, so he and his lawyers wondered why he should be prosecuted when Hillary was let off the hook for her lack of “intention” to put the nation at risk.

Then there are the charges of obstruction of justice. The F.B.I. clearly found evidence that Hillary and her tech team raced to destroy evidence even after having the records subpoenaed.

Fox News’ Catherine Herridge reported this week that after Congress issued a subpoena and a preservation of evidence order that reach her folks on March 9, Hillary ordered her tech team to continue destroying emails.

“By the 25th of that month, there was a conference call with Clinton’s lawyers and then shortly after that, the records were deleted by Platte River Networks using that Bleach Bit technology,“ Herridge said referring to a computer program that irretrievably destroys computer data. “So what you can see here, at least is lining up with the timeline to suggest that there was a deliberate deletion of records when there was an order to preserve.”

Further, even a casual reading of Hillary’s released testimony shows repeated lies and prevarications. Not only that, but some of her staffers also lied to the G-Men. In any normal F.B.I. investigation, lying to the agency is often all one needs to be slammed with the iron boot heel of the federal government. One doesn’t have to directly break a law to be destroyed by the F.B.I. All one really need do is lie to them during the investigation.

You might remember Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was convicted back in 2007 not so much for leaking the names of any C.I.A. operatives but for lying to the F.B.I. and a grand jury over the whole thing. By most accounts, Libby was innocent of the substance of the charges against him, but he did lie to investigators, apparently. Lying is what Libby was nailed for, but in Hillary’s case… crickets.

So, what were some of those Clinton lies?

Let’s start with her staff;

• Clinton’s aides told the F.B.I. that they didn’t know anything about the personal email server hidden away from America’s prying eyes in Secretary Clinton’s home in Chappaqua. Yet some of the emails already released reveals staffers actually asking Clinton if the email server is “okay.”
• In another email a staffer is seen informing Clinton that their secret server had been hacked and need to be temporarily shut down. And in yet another case, even as Hillary’s top aide Huma Abedin claimed she knew nothing about the details of the server, the F.B.I.’s own report states that Abedin was the catalyst for the creation of the secret email system in the first place.

But in the lying department, her staff are pikers compared to Hillary herself. The released testimony shows so many lies, misdirections, and general obtuseness that it would have sent agents joyfully scurrying for an indictment were it anyone else.

Take her claims about what the “(C)” meant on her emails, for instance.

That marking means “classified,” as anyone with any sort of security clearance knows. But Hillary baldly claimed that she thought the classified marking meant “the alphabet.” She seriously tried to get agents to believe she thought the “c” meant that it was “clause c” or some such foolishness. And that is quite despite the fact that there was never included in any of the emails she sent or received a “clause a” or a “clause b” preceding that “c.”

Hillary’s guffaw-inducing claim is also easily debunked by looking at some of the emails released by Wikileaks.

In another case she told the F.B.I. she should be excused for emailing about classified drone information because in her opinion the info shouldn’t have been classified, anyway. So, her feelings about what is or isn’t classified — not the actual fact of what is classified — should be held up as an excuse for her actions. And apparently the agency bought this garbage.

Clinton also lied when she insisted that no one ever warned her that she was putting the nation at risk by using a private, unsecure email server that was not administered by the federal government. At least one news source has reported that a member of the State Department insisted they warned Hillary that her private email server was “not a good idea.” And that is only in addition to Hillary’s own admission that former Secretary of State Colin Powell also warned her against the email server. She went ahead and did it anyway.

Finally, we also discovered a very disconcerting thing buried in the F.B.I.’s document. Hillary said she couldn’t recall any thing she did as Obama’s Secretary of State because she was operating with a concussion. Seriously. A concussion!

That’s right, folks. Hillary admits that she had a head injury that not only kept her limited to a few hours of work a day, but one that damaged her ability to remember important briefings and the complicated information needed to be the nation’s main diplomatic representative.

In any case, it is clear that Hillary Clinton gave the F.B.I. ample reason to recommend she be indicted for her crimes. But the fact is, Comey had a political end in mind for his investigation. As far as Comey was concerned, Hillary’s criminal behavior was going to be papered over from the start.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Warner Todd Huston

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago-based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com and BigJournalsim.com along with all Breitbart News sites, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, and many, many others. He has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs across the country to discuss his news stories and current events and has appeared on TV networks such as CNN, Fox News, Fox Business Network, and various Chicago-based news programs. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.