Cenk is seriously misinformed when he said Hillary's emails were "clearly marked classified" at the time they were sent. None of them were marked classified at the time they were sent or received and Comey confirmed that in his testimony to congress when he admitted the FBI only found three emails that contained "partial" markings...meaning they were improperly marked and could've been reasonably judged as not classified....
REP. MATT CARTWRIGHT: You were asked about markings on a few documents, I have the manual here, marking national classified security information. And I don’t think you were given a full chance to talk about those three documents with the little c’s on them. Were they properly documented? Were they properly marked according to the manual?
JAMES COMEY: No.
REP. MATT CARTWRIGHT: According to the manual, if you're going to classify something, there has to be a header on the document? Right?
JAMES COMEY: Correct.
REP. MATT CARTWRIGHT: So if Secretary Clinton really were an expert about what's classified and what's not classified and we're following the manual, the absence of a header would tell her immediately that those three documents were not classified. Am I correct in that?
JAMES COMEY: That would be a reasonable inference.
It's well established in criminal law and upheld by the Supreme Court that intent is "essential" and "required" for an offense to occur and to prove guilt at trial....
Mens Rea refers to
criminal intent. Moreover, it is the state of mind indicating culpability which
is required by statute as an element of a crime. See, e.g. Staples v. United States, 511 US 600 (1994). Establishing the mens rea of an offender is usually necessary to prove guilt in criminal trial. In doing so, the prosecution must prove beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the offense with a culpable state of mind. Justice Holmes famously illustrated the concept of intent when he said “even a dog knows the difference between being stumbled over and being kicked.”....
“Mens rea” is Latin for “guilty mind” and refers to the state of mind an accused had when committing a crime. See Black’s Law Dictionary 1134–35 (10th ed. 2014). At common law, in order to secure a conviction the prosecution was required to prove two essential elements: the actus reus (or “guilty act”) and the mens rea of the accused. See United States v. Apfelbaum, 445 U.S. 115, 131 (1980) (“In the criminal law, both a culpable mens rea and a criminal actus reus are generally required for an offense to occur.”).
As the Supreme Court recently reiterated in Elonis, this concept reflects the basic principle that “wrongdoing must be conscious to be criminal” and that a defendant must be “blameworthy in mind” before he can be found guilty. 135 S. Ct. at 2009. Thus, mens rea is “the rule of, rather than the exception to, … Anglo-American criminal jurisprudence.” United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 438 U.S. 422, 436 (1978).
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/mens_rea
No reasonable prosecutor would indict or take this case to trial.
