Like You and Me, Only Better

Hypothetically speaking, let’s say you’re in a position where you handle classified data. Through your own actions this data is handled improperly. What do you expect will happen when the higher up find out? If you’re a contractor for an organization that is illegally spying on every American and you improperly handle the data to blow the whistle you will end up exiled in Russia. On the other hand, if you’re a presidential candidate who is married to a former president you’ll have the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) recommending charges not be pressed against you:

Good morning. I’m here to give you an update on the FBI’s investigation of Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail system during her time as Secretary of State.

After a tremendous amount of work over the last year, the FBI is completing its investigation and referring the case to the Department of Justice for a prosecutive decision. What I would like to do today is tell you three things: what we did; what we found; and what we are recommending to the Department of Justice.

[…]

As a result, although the Department of Justice makes final decisions on matters like this, we are expressing to Justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case.

It’s good to be better than everybody else. What makes this decision interesting isn’t the decision itself; because let’s face it, we all expected this outcome; it’s the brief moment of honesty displayed by FBI Directory Comey:

To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.

He flat out admitted that they were giving Clinton extra special treatment. In cases such as Edward Snowden’s the FBI would likely recommend summary execution but in cases involving people whose last name is Clinton it is recommended that no consequences befall the law breaker.

It used to be that the State would at least hold a meaningless public display of reprimand when one of its own did something like this. But more and more the State is moving away from the facade of everybody being equal under the law and outright admitting that some animals are more equal than others. Part of me appreciates this honesty but another part of me knows where this kind of behavior leads and it’s a damn dark place.