Most Democrats Care About Criminal Intent Only When It Comes to Hillary Clinton

FreedomWorks today urged Democrats who have opposed criminal intent legislation in Congress to reconsider their position following the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) controversial and questionable recommendation not to pursue federal charges against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“For more than a year, many Democrats have been hypocritical on criminal intent reform in Congress, working to create misleading narratives and unnecessarily politicizing the issue. Apparently, intent matters to Democrats only when it comes to Hillary Clinton and classified information stored on her private servers,” said FreedomWorks CEO Adam Brandon. “There are two criminal justice systems in the United States, one for Hillary Clinton and another for everyone else.”

Legislation proposed in the House and Senate would assign a default level of criminal intent when a federal criminal law does not require it. Without intent requirements, American citizens can be convicted of crimes they never intended to commit. Many Democrats have suggested that this is an unnecessary reform and have refused to move forward with wider criminal justice legislation because they believe that this protection of rights would make it more difficult for federal prosecutors to convict Americans of regulatory crimes.

“The wide latitude granted to Clinton by prosecutors for her supposed lack of intent pales in comparison to how most Americans faced with federal prosecution have fared,” Brandon continued. “The charging power of prosecutors has proved too difficult for the average American, who may not have the financial means or political clout of the Clinton machine, to overcome.”

The FBI determined that Clinton did not have the requisite level of intent for her actions to be considered a crime.

“However rigged the system may be for the politically connected, Clinton’s brush with criminal prosecution is an opening for Democrats who’ve so unwisely smeared criminal intent reform to revisit the issue, this time without disingenuous populist grandstanding,” Brandon added.

FreedomWorks aims to educate, build, and mobilize the largest network of activists advocating the principles of smaller government, lower taxes, free markets, personal liberty and the rule of law. For more information, please visit www.FreedomWorks.org or contact Jason Pye at JPye@freedomworks.org.