Dr. Lott’s newest Fox News piece on FBI Director James Comey’s decision not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton starts this way:
Hillary Clinton likely dodged criminal charges Tuesday for a simple reason: the bar for bringing criminal charges against a politician, particularly a high public official, is so much higher than they are for anyone else. Prosecutions against such high public officials only go forward when there is “definitive” evidence. Evidence that prosecutors know will lead to a certain conviction.
Why do I say that? Because earlier in my career I was chief economist at the United States Sentencing Commission. I worked frequently with prosecutors.
The reputational loss public officials face from criminal charges can be so great that prosecutors feel that they need to be sure of a conviction before going forward. For someone running for president, such as Hillary, that loss of reputation would be tremendous. — It isn’t as if she will be able to pick right back up where she is now in the 2020 presidential race.So much of debate during this election has been over a different standard applying to the Clintons. FBI Director James Comey’s decision Tuesday didn’t treat Hillary differently from other high public officials, but he clearly treated her differently from other Americans.
But politicians aren’t unique. CEOs of major companies or public figures in other areas also face loss of careers simply by being charged. Possibly, prosecutors are simply more sensitive to politicians because they work for them. Politicians also have a lot of political connections…
The rest of the piece is available here. A day after the op-ed was published it was still the most read op-ed on their page.
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