McCullough was nominated by President President Barack Obama in August 2011 to be the first inspector general for the 16 intelligence agencies and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He was unanimously confirmed by the Senate Intelligence Committee that October. The full Senate agreed by unanimous consent in November. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who used to head the intelligence committee, described McCullough as “well-qualified.” “He has long experience conducting investigations both as an inspector general and a FBI agent,” Feinstein said in a floor speech in November 2011. “He is an attorney and is well-familiar with the intelligence community.” Other Democrats agreed...

In a powerful interview on Fox News' America's Newsroom, former CIA officer Charles Faddis delivered succinct, devastating responses to anchor Bill Hemmer's questions about the latest revelations pertaining to Hillary Clinton's email scandal. The segment was conducted in a grave tone, with network judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano concluding that it's "hard to believe that the FBI will not recommend indictment for Mrs. Clinton." Why? Regarding the mishandling of classified material (the ongoing FBI probe has expanded into other areas as well), the law, the burden of proof, and the facts already made public all cut against her: Clinton's apparent crime is “the negligent treatment, the failure to protect national security secrets. The government does not have to show that she intended to treat them negligently. The government does not have to show harm. It only has to show negligent treatment. The evidence is overwhelming,” he said. Former CIA director David Petraeus was prosecuted for improperly divulging similarly classified top-level intelligence to his mistress under the same legal standard, which both he and Mrs. Clinton acknowledged in signed declarations . Watch (videos via The DC and Right Sightings ):Whether Napolitano's prediction comes to fruition remains to be seen, and may depend on whether the Obama Justice Department chooses to act on the evidence and recommendations presented by federal investigators. The most damning portion of this discussion was Faddis' clinical breakdown of the facts, based on the laws and protocols in place to protect state secrets. The ex-CIA official said there is "zero ambiguity -- none" about the impropriety of SAP-level intelligence being housed on an unsecure private email server . Faddis added that the very existence of that information on her server means that highly classified information must have been moved off of a "completely separate channel" under a process that is "specifically forbidden." If you had done this while working at the CIA, Hemmer asked, what would've happened to you? Faddis' response: "My career's over, I lose my clearance, I lose my job, and then I go to prison, probably for a very long time." Fades explained that the "consequences are enormous" when information at this level of secrecy is made vulnerable to foreign penetration. "The reason this stuff is in this channel is because it's going to do incredible damage to US national security if it gets out in the open. That's why we protect it this way." When Hemmer inquired whether Hillary's conduct could have cost lives, Faddis didn't hesitate. "Absolutely. Without question," he asserted. I discussed the latest developments in this unfolding scandal on Outnumbered yesterday, citing NBC's report about the level of secrecy involved and taking aim at the Clinton campaign's pitiful charge that the Inspector General is colluding with Republicans to damage Hillary:In addition to the absurd implausibility of the conspiracy they're alleging -- which would necessarily entail the FBI, the US intelligence community and much of the media -- please consider the background and credentials of the IC Inspector General Team Hillary is attempting to smear:A likely right-wing conspiracy participant? Only in the fevered imaginations of a campaign caught up in desperate, flailing damage control mode. The Morning Joe crew isn't impressed with Hillary's buck-passing conspiratorial nonsense: