Hillary Clinton’s Emails and Federal Law – Sherman & Plano, TX Criminal Defense Lawyer (Part 4)

From the “facts” as disseminated in the media, there are also problems with the apparent destruction of records on the Clinton side.   Following the Enron Collapse and the Arthur Anderson scandal, Congress passed the Sarbanes Oxley bill which overhauled accounting and recordkeeping at financial institutions.   In that law there was also a new obstruction of justice law that created an easier statute to prosecute than most of the old obstruction of justice statutes, as it did not contain a “willful” requirement.  18 USC section 1519, destruction, alteration or falsification of records in federal investigations and bankruptcy,  states that “Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”  Thus, if there were emails and chains of emails destroyed in the investigation without explanation, a prosecutor could likely obtain an indictment on the conduct from all persons who have probable cause to have destroyed or ordered the destruction of the emails with the intent to keep them from availability in an investigation.  Also, the case law requires that the emails actually be destroyed and not just moved from one folder to another.