Lynch Claims She Will Not Decide Clinton’s Fate

Attorney General Loretta Lynch is removing herself from the decision-making process over Hillary Clinton’s legal fate, the Justice Department announced Friday morning.

Lynch confirmed the reports in Aspen on Friday, explaining that high-level career prosecutors in the Justice Department, as well as the FBI, would make the final recommendations regarding the decision to level charges against Clinton, and that she will accept them.

The move is a tacit recognition of the fact that the Obama administration has completely destroyed the Justice Department’s credibility.

“They will make recommendations. I fully expect to accept those recommendations,” Lynch said. When asked to clarify whether she “expects” to accept them or will actually accept them, she was emphatic. “I will be accepting those recommendations,” she said.

The move is a tacit recognition of the fact that the Obama administration has completely destroyed the Justice Department’s credibility and comes after Lynch faced a massive backlash this week for holding a private, off-the-record meeting with Bill Clinton on Monday.

Lynch claimed earlier in the week that the meeting was entirely innocent — a friendly, everyday exchange about grandchildren — a claim she maintained in Aspen. “It really was a personal meeting,” she insisted. But many, including some Democrats, were not convinced.

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If Lynch’s decision to have a private meeting with the husband of a woman her department is investigating for criminal wrongdoing seems strange, the circumstances surrounding the meeting were even stranger.

“The former president steps into her plane. They then speak for 30 minutes privately. The FBI there on the tarmac instructing everybody around ‘no photos, no pictures, no cell phones.’ He then gets off the plane, gets on his own plane, he departs, she continues on with her planned visit,” ABC15’s Christopher Sign, the reporter who first broke the story, told Bill O’Reilly.

Lynch claimed Friday that her decision not to be involved in any final recommendations regarding charges was in fact made months ago, but if that is indeed the case one can’t help but wonder why the Justice Department decided to announce that only after the clandestine Clinton meeting, despite the fact it was clear the case was already politically charged.

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Lynch said she was troubled by “how people view the Justice Department because of that meeting.” But people have been questioning the integrity of the Justice Department since Eric Holder’s embarrassing and politically charged tenure, and never before has Lynch seen fit to attempt to allay the people’s fears.

The astonishing decision has significant implications for Clinton. Many pundits have long suggested that the FBI is more likely to want to level charges against Clinton than the Justice Department. If the FBI director is the last person to overlook the report before Lynch receives it, there is a possibility that Clinton’s campaign plans will be inconvenienced by court appearances.

On the other hand, just because Lynch’s employees weren’t appointed along with her doesn’t mean they are free from political bias, and moreover, even if she isn’t involved in the final review of the investigation’s recommendations, it doesn’t mean she — and President Obama — won’t be able to exert pressure on those employees.

Lynch’s move could be merely an attempt to add a veneer of impartiality to an investigation which already has a predetermined outcome — a preemptive strike to ensure no one can blame a decision not to bring charges against Clinton’s on political bias.