Not at the moment.....obviously.
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.--Comey
I'm not questioning what he thought or thinks now. The law says:
violating
18 U.S.C. 793(f), which states:
Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed . . . Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
(emphasis added)
In criminal law, unless strict liability applies, a statute can require four distinct mental states (“
mens rea”) to commit a crime: (i)
purpose, (ii)
knowledge, (iii)
recklessness, and (iv)
criminal/gross negligence.
Is Comey above the law. No. Is Hillary? At the moment, YES.