ANALYSIS/OPINION:

What if the folks who run the Department of Political Justice recently were told that the republic would suffer if Hillary Clinton were indicted for espionage because Donald Trump might succeed Barack Obama in the presidency? What if espionage is the failure to safeguard state secrets and the evidence that Mrs. Clinton failed to safeguard them is unambiguous and overwhelming?

What if President Obama never really liked his former rival whom he appointed as his secretary of state? What if he had no real interest in seeing her succeed him because he and his wife simply could never trust her?

What if, when Mrs. Clinton suggested to the president that the United States wage a secret, undeclared war against Libya, the president went along with it as a no-lose proposition? What if he assumed that if her secret war succeeded he’d get the credit, and if her secret war failed she would get the blame?

What if the means of fighting the secret war consisted of employing intelligence assets rather than the U.S. military? What if Mrs. Clinton concocted that idea because the use of the military requires a public reporting to the entire Congress but the use of intelligence assets requires only a secret reporting to a dozen members of Congress?

What if Mrs. Clinton expanded her war by permitting American and foreign arms dealers to bypass the NATO arms embargo on Libya by selling heavy-duty, military-grade arms directly to militias in Libya? What if this was Mrs. Clinton’s dream scenario — an apparent civil war in Libya in which the victorious side was secretly armed by the United States, with democracy brought to the country and Mrs. Clinton the architect of it all?

What if the CIA warned Mrs. Clinton that this would backfire? What if the CIA told her that she was arming not pro-Western militias but anti-American terrorist groups? What if she rejected all that advice? What if providing material assistance to terrorist groups is a felony? What if the Department of Political Justice actually obtained an indictment of an American arms dealer for going along with Mrs. Clinton’s schemes?

What if Mrs. Clinton’s secret war in Libya was a disaster? What if she succeeded in toppling the Libyan leader, Col. Moammar Gadhafi, only to have him replaced by feuding warlords who control anti-Western terrorist groups that not only failed to produce democracy but instead produced destruction, chaos, terror, torture and death?

What if Mrs. Clinton managed her Libyan disaster using a non-secure email system even though she regularly sent and received state secrets? What if she sent many emails containing state secrets about her Libyan war to her friend Sid Blumenthal? What if Mr. Blumenthal had been turned down for a State Department job by the president himself?

What if Mr. Blumenthal did not have a government security clearance to receive lawfully any state secrets? What if Mrs. Clinton knew that? What if the FBI found that Mr. Blumenthal’s emails had been hacked by intelligence services of foreign governments that are hostile to America?

What if there were terrible secrets that Mrs. Clinton wanted to keep from the public and for that reason she used private servers and nongovernment-issued mobile devices? What if those terrible secrets involved her enabling the unlawful behavior of her husband and his shoddy, unlawful foundation? What if Mrs. Clinton made decisions as secretary of state that were intended to enrich her husband and herself, and she needed to keep emails about those decisions away from the public?

What if the president recognized all this and authorized the FBI to conduct criminal investigations of Mrs. Clinton?

What if, after the ascendancy of Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primaries, the president warmed up to his former rival? What if Mr. Trump so got under the president’s skin that it drove him to embrace Mrs. Clinton as his chosen successor and as the one Democrat who could prevent a Trump presidency?

What if the president sent word to the Department of Political Justice to exonerate Mrs. Clinton no matter what evidence was found against her? What if, in response to that political interference, the FBI investigation of her failure to safeguard state secrets and her corruption took irregular turns?

What if FBI management began to intimidate FBI agents who had the goods on her? What if FBI management forced agents to sign highly irregular agreements governing what the agents can tell anyone when it comes to what they learned about Mrs. Clinton?

What if the Department of Political Justice never subpoenaed anything from Mrs. Clinton? What if it never convened a grand jury to seek and hear evidence against her? What if the FBI requires a grand jury to subpoena documents and tangible things? What if it is highly irregular for a major FBI criminal investigation to be undertaken without a grand jury?

What if the attorney general was involved in a publicity stunt with Mrs. Clinton’s husband and then used that stunt as an excuse to remove herself and her top aides from making decisions in the case? What if this was a sham, done so as to make it appear that FBI professionals — rather than someone politically motivated, such as the president or the attorney general — were calling the shots in the case?

What if Hillary Clinton has engaged in espionage and public corruption and FBI agents know that she has? What if they have evidence to prove it but they could not present anything to a grand jury because President Obama wants Mrs. Clinton, and not Donald Trump, to succeed him in office? What if this blatant political interference with a criminal investigation is itself a crime? What if, midstream in this criminal investigation, the fix was put in?

What do we do about it?

• Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is a contributor to The Washington Times. He is the author of seven books on the U.S. Constitution.

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