UPDATE: I should have made clear that to get a subpoena to force her to come in and be questioned a federal grand jury needs to be empaneled. That requires a decision by the Justice Department to empanel a Grand Jury, a decision I can only assume would, in a case of this magnitude, one that is so politically charged, be bumped up to at least the Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, who may very well pass the buck to the President. The FBI may still be able to recommend an indictment and the DOJ might still indict Clinton using a grand jury, absent an interview with her, but I doubt they would take that step. They would want to question her first, just to cover all their bases in such a high profile case. Thus, this refusal to grant an interview is a power play move by Clinton. You want to talk to me, she is saying, then get a subpoena. You want a subpoena, empanel a Federal Grand Jury. It's leads to the proverbial question: What are you, Justice Department, prepared to do to get Clinton? How far are you willing to take this?

This is the same reason Clinton - through the State Department - is seeking to squash any deposition of her in the Judicial Watch lawsuit, as that would, again, be under oath, and whatever she says could be used as grounds to indict her.

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It may appears incomprehensible to some why Hillary Clinton would have her lawyer send a message to the FBI yesterday that the agency will have to effectively obtain a subpoena to question her with respect to the ongoing investigations regarding her private email server, etc. But when you dig a little deeper, one starts to discover a pattern as to why now, after months of pledging full cooperation, she has decided to play hardball with James Comey, the FBI Director and the Justice Department. Let's begin with this report by David Shuster on Al Jazeera America on March 30th (video and transcript posted at Mediaite), two months before his tweet last night:

The FBI, led by Director James Comey, has now finished examining Clinton’s private emails and home server. And the sources add that Comey’s FBI team has been joined by the Justice Department prosecutors. Together, they are now examining the evidence, analyzing relevant laws, and attempting to arrange interviews with key figures in the investigation. Those interviews, according to attorneys, will include former State Department aides Philippe Reines, Former Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, and Clinton herself. Soon after those interviews — in the next few days and weeks — officials expect Director Comey to make his recommendation to Attorney General Loretta Lynch about potential criminal charges.

So, months ago, before Shuster tweeted that Hillary's lawyer, David Kendall, made it clear Clinton would not cooperate with the FBI, his sources were telling him that the FBI's investigation was nearing completion and that Justice Department prosecutors were working with Director Comey and his agents. All they needed to do interview two of Hillary's aides, and Hillary herself. If Clinton truly was unconcerned about the result of this investigation and wanted to end the cloud hanging over her that it had created, she should have been more than willing to speak to the FBI as soon as possible. Instead, she chose the path of resistance. That doesn't square with her many public proclamations that she would cooperate and that the concerns regarding the use of a private server in her own home to manage her email use while Secretary of State was all a big to do about nothing.

However, there were quite a few indications prior to last night that the Clinton camp was taking this matter far more seriously than they portrayed publicly. For example, we now know that Cheryl Mills, Clinton's former Chief of Staff, raised the attorney client privilege to avoid answering numerous questions during her deposition in the Judicial Watch civil lawsuit held last Friday. As has been reported, Mills raised that privilege to refuse to answer a number of questions by the attorneys for Judicial Watch and otherwise gave vague and incomplete responses (i.e., "I cannot remember" or "I have no recollection," etc.) to those questions she did answer in what has been described as a "contentious deposition." Excerpts from her deposition transcript can be found at The New York Times.

Now recall that Mills was designated by Hillary Clinton to decide which of her emails to turn over to the State Department months after Clinton left office, and which of them Clinton could retain as not having any connection to her official duties (the 30,00m plus "private" emails Clinton deleted shortly thereafter). This is the time frame when Mills claims she began acting as Hillary Clinton's legal counsel:

“I began representing the Secretary, when she departed from the department, on a number of matters,” Ms. Mills said about her legal work for the former secretary of state. Ms. Mills represented Mrs. Clinton on the matter of what emails got ultimately turned over to the government after Mrs. Clinton left office—a key issue in the Judicial Watch lawsuit. [...] In her testimony, Ms. Mills declined to elaborate on how and why the server was set up, saying that was information she learned while representing Mrs. Clinton as her attorney. Legal ethics rules forbid attorneys from disclosing certain information about their clients, a privilege often protected in state and federal law. “The knowledge that I have has come through my representation of her as counsel,” Ms. Mills said.

Now recall that Mills walked out of her interview with the FBI earlier in May when she asserted the very same attorney client privilege to refuse to answer certain questions, as reported in The Washington Post on May 10th. The Post's story paints her actions in as positive light as they can, referring to Mills as a cooperative witness. That report further blames the FBI agent for Mills abrupt exit from the interview room, going so far as to state that, according to unnamed law enforcement officials, "[Justice Department] prosecutors were somewhat taken aback that their FBI colleague had ventured beyond what was anticipated." Nonetheless, Mill's actions are consistent with a clear pattern by Clinton aides to hide knowledge regarding Clinton's emails, and whenever possible refuse to answer questions in the various investigations and lawsuits that have focused on the Clinton's private, unauthorized email server and Clinton's use of it to conduct official State Department business.

Also recall that several of Hillary's top aides, "Cheryl Mills, Deputy Chief Jake Sullivan, Mills’ deputy Heather Samuelson, and Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines," hired the same attorney to represent them, an unusual development. As Jonathan Turley, renowned law professor, scholar and lawyer, noted, using a single attorney to represent all four of Hillary's aides was an odd choice by them as potential targets of a criminal investigation, unless they were doing so to present a united front to protect their boss, the former Secretary of State.

The joint representation is an extremely important development, which is likely to reassure Clinton’s personal counsel. It is however a curious choice for the individual clients in an investigation that covers a large number of emails and actions over a long period of time. They could have serious potential conflicts of interest in the mishandling of classified evidence or the circumvention of security protocols and rules. There is little reason why all four would prefer the same counsel unless they wanted to present a uniform account. Generally, it is clearly to a person’s advantage to have a single lawyer who is solely and exclusively pursuing your own interest. Moreover, there is little question that the Clinton campaign would prefer key witnesses to be represented jointly. [empahsis added]

And then of course, we know that none of Hillary's top aides, nor Secretary Clinton herself, spoke to, or cooperated in any way with, the Office of the Inspector General for the State Department in its independent review, as detailed in the OIG report (scroll down to bottom of page to see the text of the complete report) issued last week. Suffice it to say that everything that could be done by Secretary Clinton and her top advisers and staff to stall these multiple investigations - those being conducted by the FBI, the Judicial Watch FOIA civil lawsuit, and the Inspector General's investigation - has been done.

Thus, for months all the signs have indicated that, despite Hillary's repeated claims she would fully cooperate with the FBI, and further, her many statements that she violated no laws, civil or criminal, was pure political theater meant to deceive a gullible media and the public at large. No doubt, these delaying actions were taken in the hope that Obama's Justice Department would call off its "FBI dogs" and end or suspend the agency's multiple investigations. Certainly, Bernie Sanders' refusal to make an issue over her "damn emails" and the media obsession with whatever preposterous thing Donald Trump said or did on a daily basis worked to her advantage. However, because the the FBI investigation was not suspended, and the time to avoid "cooperating fully" with the FBI investigation is running out (i.e., Secretary Clinton and her remaining top aides agreeing to interviews by Federal agents), we are seeing that her goal all along was to stonewall this scandal.

And the spinning still continues. Here is what Turley had to say about his appearance on the Diane Rehm Show on NPR only hours before Shuster's tweet that revealed the Hillary's lawyer basically indicated the FBI will have to get a subpoena in order to interview Secretary Clinton to complete its investigation:

I was on NPR yesterday on the Diane Rehm Show to discuss the Clinton email scandal. Appearing on the show was Brian Fallon, spokesperson for Hillary Clinton, who offered a new and rather implausible spin on the worsening scandal. Fallon said that Clinton was relying on her knowledge that Colin Powell used a personal email account as the reason that she thought her server was approved. [...] As I noted at the time, this is a new explanation. After the report said uncategorically that Clinton never asked for approval and would never have received approval for her unsecure personal server, she has switched from claiming that her server was “allowed” to she “believed it was allowed.” First, this does not square with repeated concerns raised by security staff that were dismissed by Clinton aides. Second, it does not square with policies signed by Clinton herself telling people not to use personal email for State Department business. Finally, it does not square with the fact that Clinton resisted turning over her phone to go into secure areas and was repeatedly seen using the device in secure area (a major breach of security). However, the biggest problem is that the new spin suggested that Clinton knew that Powell had used personal email years before her tenure. That seems highly dubious. Indeed, Clinton only started discussing the Powell emails after a disclosure from the State department that it found two classified emails had been sent by Powell (emails retroactively identified as classified). Now the campaign is claiming that Clinton knew the details of Powell’s email system (in the early days of email use) and was relying on that knowledge.

Before Shuster learned that David Kendall, Hillary's lawyer, essentially told the FBI to shove their request for a Clinton interview where the sun don't shine, this is what he said on air about where the FBI investigation into Clinton stood:

[T]here is now every sign the Clinton email investigation is quickly headed towards a conclusion, whether it’s her exoneration or indictment. In terms of timing, sources expect the conclusion to come in weeks, not months. And they add that Hillary Clinton’s interview with the FBI, which could come in days, could be crucial.”

Well, it now appears that Hillary is not operating on the same timetable as the FBI. Instead of acting to help the FBI conclude this matter as expeditiously as possible, she has chosen to delay the investigation as long as possible. Remember all those stories that stated an indictment of Hilary was considered highly unlikely, and that "investigators have found scant evidence tying Clinton to criminal wrongdoing?"

I guess the Clinton campaign, and her own legal team is not as sanguine in their assessment of potential criminal charges being brought against her as they have publicly led us to believe. Otherwise, why put off an interview that would bring this matter to a conclusion prior to the Democratic Convention? Why force the FBI's hand to seek a subpoena? Does Clinton expect that President Obama and/or Attorney General Lynch will refuse to authorize the FBI from obtaining a subpoena to force an interview, despite the President's public "guarantee that [he exerts] no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department or the FBI," because nobody "gets treated differently when it comes to the Justice Department, because nobody is above the law," or is this a brazen attempt by Hillary to force the administration to back off because she has, after all, already won the nomination?

One can only speculate, but it seems clear that Hillary Clinton is is much deeper legal and political trouble than she has claimed repeatedly on the campaign trail. To go from saying you will fully cooperate with a criminal investigation in which you are the primary target, to taking measures to delay the completion of that investigation, if not actively pressure the President and/or the Attorney General to shut it down, goes far beyond anything we have ever seen before in the modern history of U.S. presidential elections.