Do we have a government of laws, or a government of men?  At what point have corruption and double standards gone too far?  Americans believe that their government is corrupt.  Confidence in a supposedly non-partisan institution like the Department of Justice (DOJ) is low.  Most people disagreed with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recommendation against indicting Clinton in July.  People are not being treated equally before the law.  We are rapidly approaching a tipping point, with elected officials and their political appointees oblivious to the crisis.

Structured liberty is predicated upon just laws being equally applied.  Tall people are not short, short people are not tall, Adele can't grow crops, and the green-thumbed farmer can't sing, but they should all be equal before the law.  That means that law enforcement needs to be neutral and beyond reproach, and people who commit similar crimes should be similarly charged and tried.

Does any honest person believe that Hillary Clinton is being treated like anyone else who compromised classified data, knowingly violated rules for handling government information, coordinated government access with donors for a private foundation, and had data under subpoena destroyed?

Hillary Clinton is not the critical issue; restoring the integrity in the law is the imperative concern.  Why are citizens questioning if the law is being equally applied?

At the announcement that they were closing the investigation into Clinton's private email server, director of the FBI James Comey laid out a near perfect case for prosecution.  According to Comey, Clinton lied repeatedly, there was classified data stored improperly, she was repeatedly told a private server was improper, she was careless, and there was every appearance of a cover-up.  Since then, we've learned much worse.  Immunity was granted to numerous people involved in the scandal and who destroyed evidence, but there were no subsequent prosecutions or indictments.  Why grant immunity if there is nobody to indict?

The FBI itself agreed to destroy laptops after conducting a very narrow search, knowing that there were other parallel federal investigations where the data might be relevant.

At the very least, the relationship between FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe and longtime Clinton operative Governor Terry McAuliffe represents a serious conflict of interest.  McCabe was supervising investigations involving Clinton and the husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin.  A year earlier, McCabe's wife received nearly $700K in donations directed by Terry McAuliffe.  At the very least, McCabe should not be allowed to supervise investigations even tangentially related to politics.  More appropriately, McCabe should be fired for failure to disclose the obvious conflict of interest, or resign because his position is mutually exclusive with anyone taking campaign contributions. The timing precludes any quid pro quo, but a $700K friendship is a blatant conflict of interest regardless.

If the FBI is compromised, the DOJ is completely corrupted.  Days before Comey announced he would close the investigation into the Clinton emails, Attorney General Loretta Lynch met privately with former president Bill Clinton on the tarmac in Phoenix.  While they claimed they discussed only grandchildren, the brazen appearance of impropriety in a meeting between the attorney general and the husband of an investigation target was too much.  Lynch promised to abide by the recommendation of the FBI as to whether to prosecute.

We now know that the DOJ was actively involved in hampering the investigations into the Clinton email server and the Clinton Foundation.  Clinton was allegedly selling State Department access in exchange for foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation.  The Wall Street Journal reported senior Justice personnel pressured the FBI to narrow their investigation or stop sensitive lines on inquiry – basically shutdown the probe into the Clinton Foundation.  At another point, no less than Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik gave Clinton campaign chair John Podesta a "heads-up" about future Capitol Hill testimony and court filings relating to the open criminal investigation into Clinton's email server.  This unprecedented intervention by politicized Justice officials into investigations is egregious and grounds for dismissal and disbarment.

Apparently, the State Department was in on the act, too.  Patrick Kennedy, a senior manager at State, bargained with and repeatedly tried to pressure the FBI to retroactively declassify documents found on Clinton's server.

The president himself is also compromised.  President Obama lied when he said he didn't know about Clinton's private server.  According to Cheryl Mills, Obama knew about it because he had emails from her from her private account.

Beyond the president and Justice Department, the wider executive branch is also corrupted.  Multiple agencies were caught over the last eight years involved in political vendettas and using government power to persecute individuals and companies for their political opposition to the president.  The IRS scandal, where a cabal of political operatives employed by the IRS targeted (and continues to target) conservative groups, is infamous.  In 2013, many Mitt Romney donors claimed they were targeted by the IRS for tax audits because they supported Romney.  The Environmental Protection Agency raided Gibson Guitars supposedly for using exotic wood (legally), but more likely because the owner was a major donor to Republicans.  Like a banana republic, the executive branch turned its law enforcement authority into a weapon to punish political opponents.

There is bipartisan support for the claim that the FBI is compromised with respect to the Clinton investigations.  Democrats who praised Comey in July are now condemning him.  Republicans who condemned Comey in July are now pleased that Comey reopened the e-mail investigation.  Given that both sides now openly question the impartiality and integrity of these federal investigations, there should be broad, bipartisan support for special prosecutors.

First, a special prosecutor should be appointed to take over all investigations relating to Secretary Clinton: her illegal email server, compromising national security secrets, the Clinton Foundation, selling access at the State Department, using State Department personnel for personal purposes, and the cover-up of these matters.

Second, a special prosecutor should be appointed to investigate the attorneys, investigators, and officials at the FBI, DOJ, and other executive branch agencies who interfered with, obstructed, and sabotaged criminal investigations into Clinton, her email server, selling State Department access, the Clinton Foundation, and any other investigations they intentionally disrupted contrary to their sworn duty.

Third, a special prosecutor should be appointed to investigate Russian and other foreign interference in the 2014 and 2016 federal elections, including foreign aid to campaigns, foreign operatives working for campaigns, and foreign cyber-attacks on election infrastructure.  This is not just a bone to Democrats.  There are legitimate questions about Russia and other countries influencing our elections through hacks, leaks, and in-kind electioneering.  Instead of a political witch hunt or a tepid and incurious investigation, the citizenry deserve an exhaustive and thorough probe into this attack on American sovereignty.

Only special prosecutors, independent of the FBI, Department of Justice, and executive branch, can be trusted to restore confidence through equal enforcement of the law in these matters.  Voters of all persuasions should insist special prosecutors be appointed.  The House should deny any funding for the Department of Justice or the FBI – refuse to pass any legislation whatsoever – until proper special prosecutors are appointed.

Equality before the law is the hill worth dying upon.