Are We Headed For A Constitutional Crisis? Updated.

UPDATE – Well, the one thing I didn’t take into consideration – at all, which was a big mistake on my part – happened Sunday. FBI Director Comey punted again, just like he did in July, which means just about everything I wrote below is now moot. I’m leaving it up though as a “teaching moment”, both to myself and to anyone else that is thinking about (or is) blogging, and that would be to think things through as far as you can before you embarrass yourself …

Original post follows –

Maybe.

It depends.

It depends on a number of things happening.

It depends on what we, as a voting body, do this coming Tuesday.

It depends on what is found on a certain laptop, in a certain investigation. Actually, in two investigations.

Let’s look at this starting with the on-going investigations – plural. One investigation is, ICYMI, whether or not Hillary Clinton, during her term as Secretary of State sent and/or received classified material through her private, illegal, non-secure home-brew email server(s). As you may recall, during his now famous (infamous?) press conference back in July, FBI Director James Comey told all of us that yes, classified material went through her private, illegal, non-secure home-brew email server(s), but that she had no intent to harm US National Security, and because she had no intent to cause any harm, no reasonable prosecutor would seek to indict her, irrespective of the fact that the pertinent statute doesn’t require that there be intent. There has been a tremendous amount written on this subject, including by yours truly (mainly in a different venue than this), both in praise, and vilification, of Director Comey’s decision. More on that decision later.

The other investigation, which was first reported by Fox News at the beginning of this year, but largely ignored until they couldn’t any more by the MSM, due to the negative nature in regards to their “favored one”, is about the investigation into the pay-to-play allegations leveled at the Clinton Foundation, the allegations being that donors to the Foundation were given “special access” to Hillary Clinton, and by extension the US Government, while she was Secretary of State, and that those donations were in fact bribes that enriched not only Hillary, but especially Bill as well.

It has been reported (originally by the WSJ, but a subscription is required, so no link – sorry.) that the DoJ has tried to either slow walk both investigations, or to even halt both investigations, and as a result, there is a feud between FBI investigators who want to see these investigations proceed to their natural conclusion no matter what that is, and DoJ attorneys who, as Lynch loyalists – and by extension, Clinton loyalists – want all of this to just go away. Unfortunately for the DoJ, and fortunately for We the People, several Congressional Committee Chairs have said that they will be investigating all of this no matter what happens this coming Tuesday, which is what I want to explore now.

This Tuesday, those of us who are eligible to vote (if you’re dead, please stay in the ground – this election is weird enough already), if we decide to vote, have the unenviable position of having to choose between two people who are the least liked candidates in modern memory to be running for the Presidency of the United States. Much has been written by many, including by yours truly, decrying these choices as the awful choices that they are, each candidate being declared to be unfit for the office that they seek, for a multitude of reasons. Only one candidate, however, is under not just one, but two, FBI criminal investigations (they are most certainly not “security reviews” – the FBI does not do “security reviews”), and that candidate is Hillary Clinton.

So, what happens after Tuesday, after all of the votes have been counted?

One of two things may occur. Either the FBI will be investigating a private citizen (who will probably be pardoned by the current occupant of the WH, effectively ending the investigation where she is concerned), or the FBI will be investigating President-Elect Hillary Clinton. No matter what the current occupant of the WH does in regards to a pardon, if she wins the election Tuesday, in my opinion we are headed for a Constitutional crisis. Remember Comey’s decision in July? At the time, I was stunned. I felt sure that they were going to indict her, and eventually we would be rid of this horrid, horrid woman. Imagine my disappointment.

I think I now understand why he made that decision, with information that has come to light since that decision. Information such as what Andrew C. McCarthy of NRO has detailed (see link above), and the big one – that the current occupant of the WH had communicated with Clinton, using an alias, and sending it to her via her private, illegal, non-secure home-brew email server(s), despite telling the American people that he learned about her private, illegal, non-secure home-brew email server(s) from the news. Comey knew that if he went after Clinton, he would also have to go after the current occupant of the WH, which would trigger a potential Constitutional crisis right there. As a secondary consideration, Comey had to know that if he did push for an indictment that it would be “career suicide”. So, he punted. Kicked the can down the road. Deferred action. Hoped that nothing new would come up …

Oops.

The bombshell revelation that Anthony Weiner, estranged husband of long time Clinton aide Huma Abedin, who is being investigated for sexting with a minor girl, had approximately 650,000 emails on his laptop, tens of thousands of which are known to have gone through Clinton’s private, illegal, non-secure home-brew email server(s), kicked that can right back down the road in front of God and everybody, making it impossible to ignore, despite every attempt by the MSM to do just that. By following through on his promise during his Congressional testimony to notify Congress of any new developments in the case (his decision also lit a firestorm of criticism as several on the Left have called for his resignation, with Harry Reid even going so far as to laughably insinuate that Comey had violated the Hatch Act, which he has not), his decision has caused many, including me, to wonder “What’s next?”, hence this post.

To me the “What’s next?” is, if Trump wins Tuesday, Clinton will get an immediate pardon, stopping any and all investigations of her personally (but not necessarily the Foundation), and keeping her out of prison, but also, I think, effectively removing her from public life, thus no Constitutional crisis. However, a Trump victory is not a sure thing. If Clinton wins?

All bets are off.

See above.

Friday Emailgate update

Emailgate. It ain’t over, folks. Not by a long shot.

In spite of the almost manic attempt of the Left and their media allies to deflect and distract from the fact that these two investigations of their “chosen one” are on-going, guess what? They are still on-going.

Also, in spite of the almost manic attempt by some in the DoJ to derail the investigations into Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email system while she was SecState and the pay-to-play scandal involving the Clinton Foundation, thanks to Clinton’s long time aide, Huma Abedin’s hoarding habit, and her husband, Anthony Weiner’s inability to keep his hands out of his pants and off of his phone at the same time, and the feud that has apparently erupted between the FBI investigators (who want to take the investigation to the end) and the DoJ lawyers (who are loyal to Loretta Lynch, and by extension, Clinton, and don’t want this to go anywhere for obvious reasons), we now know that there is mounting evidence – against whom is still unknown at this time – that will almost surely result in an indictment, or indictments, being handed down.

So, what happens if Clinton is elected? Will the investigations stop? Gregg Jarrett of Fox.com has laid out some scenario’s of the possibilities –

She could resign before or after inauguration, leaving President Tim Kaine sitting behind a desk in the Oval Office.

President Obama could pardon her before he departs that same office.

Clinton, as president, could try to invoke broad constitutional immunity from prosecution, delaying her criminal trial until after she leaves office. Or she could pardon herself. 

Yeah, you read that last part right – she could pardon herself. But, that would forever lay to rest any further political aspirations, such as a second term, that she may have, and with her lust for power, you just know that would gall her to her rotten core. Even if she did pardon herself, a Republican led House could (and probably would if she were to be so arrogant as to pardon herself) still bring her up on impeachment charges.

As for the investigations stopping if she’s elected? That won’t happen – they will continue, as Bret Baier explained in the video above. The evidence is mounting for both cases, including the fact that new emails are on the Abedin/Weiner laptop that are not duplicates of emails previously released (whether those are significant or not remains to be determined).

The other thing to consider here is that it is being reported that there is a 99% certainty – certainty – that Clinton’s unsecured email server was hacked by foreign operators, thereby exposing all of that classified material that she falsely claimed was not there, despite her assertion to the contrary (after all, there were Secret Service agents at her house, so the server(s) must have been safe, right?).

One of the more ludicrous claims being made, is being made by President CoverHisAss, that all she did was make “an honest mistake” –

The words “honest” and “Clinton” are like oil and water. They do not mix, they are not compatible together, they are polar opposites. Hillary simply cannot be honest. It’s just not in her. She’s a congenital liar, as William Saffire so eloquently pointed out in 1996!

She is criminally unfit to hold office – any office.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next bombshell(s) in the continuing Emailgate saga?

Bret Baier: FBI Sources Believe Clinton Foundation Case Moving Towards “Likely an Indictment”

Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier reports the latest news about the Clinton Foundation investigation from two sources inside the FBI. He reveals five important new pieces of information …

1. The Clinton Foundation investigation is far more expansive than anybody has reported so far and has been going on for more than a year.

2. The laptops of Clinton aides Cherryl Mills and Heather Samuelson have not been destroyed, and agents are currently combing through them. The investigation has interviewed several people twice, and plans to interview some for a third time.

3. Agents have found emails believed to have originated on Hillary Clinton’s secret server on Anthony Weiner’s laptop. They say the emails are not duplicates and could potentially be classified in nature.

4. Sources within the FBI have told him that an indictment is “likely” in the case of pay-for-play at the Clinton Foundation, “barring some obstruction in some way” from the Justice Department.

5. FBI sources say with 99% accuracy that Hillary Clinton’s server has been hacked by at least five foreign intelligence agencies, and that information had been taken from it.

Check out the two videos at the link.

Also, in this related article, [t]he FBI’s investigation into the Clinton Foundation that has been going on for more than a year has now taken a “very high priority,” according to sources within the FBI, as they look into possible pay-to-play schemes between the State Department during Clinton’s term as SecState, and the Clinton Foundation.

The investigation into the Clinton Foundation has been a parallel investigation into the on-going email server investigation, which according to Andrew McCarthy of NRO and the compartmentalization and separation between the two has hampered the investigation into the email server case, which he questions seeing as how they are related. Perhaps the Weiner laptop will be what breaks down the wall, and the two investigative teams can begin to cooperate.

In related news Catherine Herridge reports the FBI is using over-lapping shifts of analysts from their Computer Analysis and Response Team, or CART to quickly sift through the 650,000 emails on the laptop using special software, and that those folks will be working 16 hour days, checking to see if any of Abedin’s emails contain classified information.

With only days to go before the election, if you are a Clinton supporter you have to ask yourself one question if you are honest with yourself, “Can I vote for someone who may potentially be indicted?”. If you don’t care about the rule of law, you’ll pull the handle/punch the hole/color in the circle for her anyway, laws and ethics and morality be damned. But if you do care for the rule of law, can you in good conscience, cast your vote for her? I think your answer has to be “No, I can’t vote for her.”

Wednesday Emailgate update

FBI never asked Clinton aides for all their devices

The FBI never asked Hillary Clinton’s top aides to turn over all the computers and smartphones they used while Clinton was secretary of state, an omission that is now triggering questions from Republican lawmakers.

While the FBI made a concerted effort to obtain all the computers that were used as Clinton’s private server and ultimately asked two of Clinton’s lawyers for laptops used to review her email messages, investigators never requested or demanded all equipment her top staffers used for work purposes during her four years at State, a source familiar with the investigation told POLITICO.

“No one was asked for devices by the FBI,” said the source, who requested anonymity.

The decision left the FBI at least partially dependent on the aides’ attorneys’ decisions about which messages were work-related and therefore might have contained classified information the agents were looking for. Those messages were turned over to State in response to its request last year.

GOP lawmakers say the decision not to demand the aides’ electronics, or even to ask for them, raises doubts about how the FBI and prosecutors handled the probe.

“The more we learn about the FBI’s initial investigation into Secretary Clinton’s unauthorized use of a private email server, the more questions we have about the thoroughness of the investigation and the administration’s conclusion to not prosecute her for mishandling classified information,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) told POLITICO on Tuesday.

This entire investigation was going nowhere, really, from the beginning because of one salient fact – President Anonymous and Hillary Clinton communicated with each other via her illegal, private, home brewed email system before he denied knowing about it before learning about it through media reports “just like everybody else”.

That’s why no grand jury was ever formed. That’s why no subpoena’s were ever issued, let alone requested. That’s why the odd side deals and immunity grants were made. That’s why this case was closed.

That’s why the revelation that there are upwards of 650,000 stored emails on a laptop shared by Anthony Weiner and his estranged wife, Huma Abedin, of which thousands (possibly more than 10,000) of emails are known to have gone through Clinton’s email server is so important, and that is why Senator Grassley’s letter to FBI Director Comey is important as well, as Grassley asks Comey to explain just what really happened in the investigation of Clinton’s email system and also the investigation into the Clinton Foundation. Grassley has requested that all of the questions be answered by Comey no later than November 4th.

The following is my opinion only, based on pure speculation, which should be taken with a large grain of salt, honestly. I have no crystal ball, or any “secret knowledge” – I just have time to think about stuff, roll it around in my brain and see if anything remotely logical plops out. Ready? Here goes.

If Comey replies that his investigators were frustrated or impeded by DoJ officials through denial of subpoena’s; that the DoJ refused to form a grand jury; that DoJ officials told FBI investigators to back off in any way, this will possibly cause a constitutional crisis of greater magnitude than Watergate ever was. It could, might, maybe, possibly force Clinton to step down – either as candidate for President, or from the office itself if elected. This all depends, of course, on how Comey responds to Sen. Grassley.

We have between now and November 4th to find out.

Monday Emailgate update

It’s Monday, and a lot has been reported over the weekend regarding the FBI investigation into Clinton’s exclusive use of a private server during her term as SecState, quite a bit of which I linked to in my previous posts which you can see by scrolling down from this post. Let’s get to the latest stuff though, shall we?

Laptop in FBI’s Weiner sexting case had ‘state.gov,’ Clinton-related emails, source says

FBI Director James Comey’s decision to revisit the Hillary Clinton email-private server case was triggered by the discovery of Clinton-related emails in a separate sexting investigation involving ex-New York Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner, a government source told Fox News on Sunday.

The source said an analysis of the metadata on Weiner’s computer has turned up “positive hits for state.gov and HRC emails,” which led Comey to revisit the FBI investigation into Clinton using a private email server system while secretary of state. A second law enforcement source confirmed the account.

Weiner is the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. He resigned from Congress in 2011, after a sexting scandal.

That Clinton-related emails were on Weiner’s computer, which he purportedly shared with Abedin, was reported first by The Wall Street Journal. [Note: Subscription required]

From what I’ve read elsewhere, the WSJ reports that there are approximately 650,000 emails that the FBI will have to sift through to pull out any that pertain to the case against Weiner, and any that pertain to Clinton, from all of the rest of the emails, which I’m going to presume are not related to either case (family, other work related, etc. – you know, the usual stuff everybody has). Apparently though, as I reported yesterday, there are approximately 10,000 emails directly pertaining to Clinton, which is an astonishing number. Granting that many, if possibly not most, are duplicates of emails already discovered elsewhere during the investigation, any new emails will have to be checked for classified information, which will take potentially weeks, well after Election day, to complete. Regardless of what is found, the mere fact that there were any Clinton related emails on this laptop may prove problematic for Abedin, as she could be brought up on perjury charges for not turning over these emails after previously swearing under oath that she had turned over all work related emails. Apparently Clinton has yet to talk to Abedin about this situation. I imagine that it may be a bit awkward, don’t you think?

There is more to read there so I encourage you to do so. In related news –

FBI Obtains Warrant for Newly Discovered Emails in Clinton Probe — as Reid Accuses Comey of Hatch Act Violation

The FBI obtained a warrant to search emails related to the probe of Hillary Clinton’s private server that were discovered on ex-congressman Anthony Weiner’s laptop, law enforcement officials confirmed Sunday.

The warrant came two days after FBI Director James Comey revealed the existence of the emails, which law enforcement sources said were linked to Weiner’s estranged wife, top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. The sources said Abedin used the same laptop to send thousands of emails to Clinton.

The FBI already had a warrant to search Weiner’s laptop, but that only applied to evidence of his allegedly illicit communications with an underage girl.

Agents will now compare the latest batch of messages with those that have already been investigated to determine whether any classified information was sent from Clinton’s server.

Comey’s disclosure included few details about what the emails contained. In a letter to Congress, he said the FBI learned “of the existence of e-mails that appear to be pertinent” to the Clinton probe, but he added that the agency “cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant.”

As I reported earlier (see previous posts), the FBI couldn’t look at the contents of the Clinton related emails because they were outside the scope of the search warrant in the Weiner investigation. Apparently there was enough in the headers of the Clinton related emails to seek and obtain a search warrant for those Sunday, which leads me to speculate that there really are new emails that have not previously been seen in the Clinton investigation that they prompted the FBI to seek the warrant on Sunday. If they were “old news”, or mundane, they would have waited until today at the earliest to seek the warrant.

The revelation ignited fierce criticism. Citing the longstanding practice of avoiding even the appearance of acting in a manner that could tip the political scales, former Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller said that “most people, when they hear that the FBI is involved, automatically assume the negative.”

Clinton called the move an “unprecedented” departure from FBI policy, and on Sunday, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid scolded Comey for potentially breaking the law.

“Your actions in recent months have demonstrated a disturbing double standard for the treatment of sensitive information, with what appears to be clear intent to aid one political party over another,” the letter says. “I am writing to inform you that my office has determined that these actions may violate the Hatch Act.”

The act bars government officials from using their authority to influence elections.

Reid also accused Comey of shielding Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump from scrutiny over his connections to Russia, saying “it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination” between Trump and his advisers and the Russian government.

As I also reported yesterday, Comey came under fire from the Left for releasing the letter he sent to Congressional Committees stating his intent to re-open the case against Clinton because of what they found in the unrelated Weiner case, without specifying what case it was, which was the “cover” the Left used to express their “outrage” toward him, when in actual fact, they were outraged that he had the temerity to continue investigating Clinton after “exonerating” her (which he didn’t).

Clinton’s comments notwithstanding, what is truly “unprecedented” is a Cabinet Secretary exclusively using a home brewed, private, email system in order to cover up and conceal all of her communications from government over sight, and the American people. Not only is that unprecedented, it’s also illegal.

As for Senator Reid? I think this is his last act before retirement, and I don’t think his comments are to be taken seriously. Indeed, it’s my personal opinion that Senator Reid himself should not be taken seriously. Of course, YMMV.

John Sexton of Hot Air has his take on the warrant topic here, and is worth the read – especially the silly tweet near the end by HuffPo writer Sam Stein. Timing is everything Sam. (Sorry, I won’t link to HuffPo)

Last, but not least, for this post, Fox News contributor KT McFarland has an excellent opinion piece on the wrong lessons learned by Hillary Clinton in her early career here that is definitely worth the time.

Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t

James Comey: Caught between the Devil and the deep blue [C]

From Hot Air columnist Jazz Shaw –

The rest of the Hot Air team covered the FBI bombshell last night quite thoroughly and not a lot has changed overnight. We still have that letter to Congress from the Director sitting out there like the proverbial turd in the punch bowl, with proclamations and demands coming in from the candidates and spokesmodels for both parties. Without more information to go on in terms of precisely what was found on the “device” shared by Huma Abedin and her estranged (with emphasis on the “strange” part) husband, political analysts are left with little to sink their teeth into.

Related, from Allahpundit, also of Hot Air –

Just a reminder: Democrats and their lousy candidate left Comey with no good options

Back in July, when Comey gave his presser stating that Clinton was reckless among other things, with her email set up yet let her off the hook, many on the Right – including me – howled with outrage at the fact that, in essence, the FBI and DoJ had “punted” on a sure fire, slam dunk (to mix metaphors) easy case, stating at the time that no prosecutor would file charges.

I had been blogging for months (at a different venue) about Clinton’s email scandal, along with many others that A) write at venues that actually have readers, and B) get paid to do this, and so I had a vested interest in hearing what Comey had to say. To say I was disappointed in what he said at his news conference is a gross understatement. Rather, I was quite shocked and, yes, outraged at his conclusions. I mean, he goes to all the trouble to say how bad this all was, but wasn’t going to do anything about it? C’mon, man! SERIOUSLY?!?!?! I can only imagine how people such as Catherine Herridge and Pamela K. Browne at Fox News, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, John Schindler at XX Committee, et al. felt at the same time, after all of the hard work they did covering this scandal (that I admittedly piggy back on – hey, I don’t have their sources, so they are my sources, ok?).

The backlash to his statements from the Right was nearly instantaneous, and was blistering in the heat applied with many calling for his resignation (including me), while at the same time those on the Left, who had been excoriating the investigation the entire time, saying it was a waste of time and tax payer dollars, and incessantly calling on Comey to end it all, were now suddenly coming to his defense, saying what an honorable, honest, and fair broker he was, and that the Right should leave him alone because he “did the right thing” by “exonerating” Clinton (when he did nothing of the sort).

Everyone on the Left was now happy and mollified, thinking this was all behind us, put to bed, buried, so totally over, while those of us on the Right, although down, weren’t out of this fight quite yet, and kept digging, and digging, sharing with the world whatever we were able to dig up, and then BOOM! A bolt out of the blue that absolutely NO ONE saw coming. FBI Director James Comey sends a letter to various Congressional Committee Chairs AND TO RANKING MEMBERS (that means Democrats, folks), stating that new emails had come to light in the case against Clinton, and that they were reopening the case. In that letter, Comey left things quite vague as to just what exactly they had found, but we have all since learned that it was because of tens of thousands of emails found on a computer shared by Huma Abedin, senior aide to Clinton, and her husband Anthony Weiner, that were from/to Hillary Clinton during her tenure as Secrtary of State that were not turned over to State when Abedin left, as required by law. She has made a statement saying that she has no idea how all of those emails got there, but I’ll leave that for another post.

Well, by sending that letter, Comey has rather annoyed some folks, including his boss AG Lynch, and several Democrat Congress types, who are saying that “it’s unprecedented!”, “it’s something that just isn’t done!”, “it’s OUTRAGEOUS that he did this so close to the election!”, among other aspersions thrown his way, and many on the Right now saying how brave he is, it’s the right thing to do, etc. in an effort to come to his defense, and for those on the Left to leave him alone.

In July, it was damned if he did, and damned if he didn’t. Amazingly enough, now that it’s the end of October, he still finds himself in basically the same position. I, for one, would NOT want to be in his position.

New Emailgate information revealed

Oh, man … where to begin?

As I posted yesterday, FBI Director Comey sent a letter to various members of Congress generally stating that because of information from an unrelated case, they were re-opening the case concerning Clinton’s use of a private email server during her (entire) term as Secretary of State. Naturally, this landed like a bomb in that it came so close in relation to the election. As of my original post on this, what new information the FBI had warranting the reopening of this case was not precisely known by anyone outside of the FBI investigation, but various reports since last night have revealed that information, and it’s a true shocker.

The new information is that Huma Abedin’s (one of Clinton’s top aides) estranged husband Anthony Weiner, who is being investigated for (insert the obligatory allegedly) sexting with a 15 year old girl, apparently had thousands of Clinton emails on the device he used to engage in the (insert the obligatory allegedly) sexting, because Huma had also used that same device to download those Clinton emails so she could print them for Clinton, and then apparently, simply forgot to delete them. Now, whether any of those new emails the FBI found have classified information or not, is not known at this time, as the FBI hasn’t looked at them, because they are outside of the scope of the investigation into Weiner’s activities, and they will need to get a search warrant to look at them. Remember – in order to obtain a search warrant, there needs to be a grand jury.

In an ironic (and idiotic, imo) twist, Allahpundit reports that Rush is pushing the idea that this story has been pushed to distract from the WikiLeaks dumps of Clinton campaign chief John Podesta’s emails, apparently saying that this move is supposed to help Clinton? According to someone I follow at Twitter, Just Karl, he thinks Rush knows Trump is still going to lose, so he’s still working the “rigged” scenario. Possible, but just how Rush came to that conclusion is beyond me … of course, imo, Rush lost pretty much all cred with me because of the oxy use, but that’s just me. YMMV.

In yet another ironic twist, several “leading” Democrats, who in July hailed Comey’s decision to close the case against Clinton, now are excoriating him for sending the letter to Congress, and are calling on him to A) release the emails, and B) divulge whatever information they have uncovered in this on-going investigation, echoing Clinton’s own call for the new emails to be released.

There’s only two little problems that my non-lawyerly mind can see with this, A) the FBI needs to determine if any of the thousands of emails contain classified information before any of them can be released to the public, and they can’t do that until they look at them, and they can’t do that until they get a new search warrant, and B) this is an on-going investigation (into Weiner), and the FBI does not divulge any information regarding an on-going investigation. For a real lawyers take on this seemingly never ending scandal revolving around Clinton, read this excellent piece by Andrew C. McCarthy at NRO.

Now, there has been some rather breathless speculation that Clinton’s chances are doomed, and that these new revelations will propel Trump to the White House, and I must admit that I got a little breathless myself when I first learned last night that the case was going to be re-opened (not that Clinton’s chances are doomed, and that these new revelations will propel Trump to the White House – wanted to make that clear), thinking that maybe Comey was doing this because he wanted to “atone” for his dereliction, but I don’t think it’s so much an “atonement”, as maybe it’s just his way to mollify those in the FBI and DoJ that were gobsmacked by what he said back in July. As a minor side note to this, apparently an obscure PAC has filed a complaint with the Department of Justice against FBI Director Comey. The complaint accuses Comey of interfering in the election. Like that’s gonna work.

This has been quite the unexpected whirlwind (hence the term “October surprise”, eh?), hasn’t it? Will this prove to be Clinton’s undoing, elevating Trump to the Presidency, or will this, in the end, not really matter as to the effect on the election? As of today, we have ten more days to find out, and they may be the longest ten days of our lives. I think we can all agree on that, at least.

Coincidence, or were the wrong 33,000 emails deleted?

Emails show close Clinton allies in dark, shocked over ‘insane’ server setup

Some of Hillary Clinton’s top advisers were in the dark about the scope and depth of her controversial email system as the scandal broke in March 2015, with even her now-campaign manager professing ignorance about the private system at the time, according to emails released Thursday by WikiLeaks.

One close ally, Center for American Progress leader Neera Tanden, was still fuming months later, pressing now-Campaign Chairman John Podesta on who gave Clinton permission to use the system.

“Do we actually know who told Hillary she could use a private email? And has that person been drawn and quartered?” Tanden wrote in July. “Like whole thing is f—ing insane.”

The tenor of the emails belies the assuring tone Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, and her campaign took as they publicly downplayed the controversy in the months after it broke. The emails showing Hillaryland’s initial reaction to the news were discovered in a batch of more than 33,000 hacked from Podesta’s account and subsequently posted to anti-secrecy site WikiLeaks.

While some of Clinton’s closest aides, particularly those who worked with her at the State Department, such as Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, appeared to be well aware and deeply involved in her email setup, others apparently were not.

Salty tongued Neera Tanden has seemed, to me, to be the only person associated with Clinton that has been even slightly honest in this whole sordid mess.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has his take on this as well, a portion of which is below (mainly for the way he expressed it), but make sure you read the whole thing.

Tanden called the scandal a “Cheryl [Mills] special,” and wondered why the Clintons didn’t air all of this out themselves after leaving the State Department. She then answered her own question. “I guess I know the answer,” she wrote to Podesta, “they wanted to get away with it.”

For the most part, though, they did. The FBI mysteriously discovered a need to find intent in a statute (18 USC 793f) that specifically does not require it, and the Department of Justice happily concurred. The same people who called Hillary’s e-mail “f****** insane) and had no idea how deep the rabbit hole actually was spent the last 19 months insisting that there was no rabbit hole at all. They continue to insist that Hillary Clinton has been the most transparent Secretary of State in the history of Secretaries, in the history of States, and in the history of “ofs” even after ripping their fellow Clintonistas for hiding the scandal until it exploded in their faces. That worked, too, at least with the media and voters, who picked up on their transparency arguments and in many cases downplayed the significance of the classified-information spillage — and hardly mentioned the corruption of important checks and balances on executive-branch agencies.

If nothing else, this serves as a reminder that this was a big dea, it was “f****** insane,” and that no one at all got “drawn and quartered” or even reprimanded for it.

Closing thought to chew on. When this entire Emailgate scandal first erupted, we were all told that Hillary had turned over “all” of her work related emails (which we later found out was not true — surprise!), after having her lawyers go through all of them, and then deleting the remaining 33,000 emails, as they were “not work related” (which we, again, later found out was not true — surprise!). Fast forward to this month, and from stage left, enters a new actor in this sad, sordid national melodrama, WikiLeaks who “gifts” us with what is purported to be the hacked emails of John Podesta (who has yet to state that these aren’t genuine), head of the Clinton campaign. And, just how many of Podest’s email has WikiLeaks said they’ve “acquired”? 33,000?

Coincidence, or were the wrong 33,000 emails deleted?

Today’s Emailgate update + New Update

Update:

Clinton Transmitted Classified Information to Her Lawyers

What was their security-clearance level?

What was the legal rationale under which Hillary Clinton quite intentionally shared classified information with her lawyers, including David Kendall, Cheryl Mills, and Heather Samuelson?

As I outlined in last weekend’s column, we know that Clinton’s e-mails were replete with classified information. According to the FBI, the classified e-mails included intelligence graded at the most closely guarded level: eight top-secret e-mails, and seven designated as “special access program” (SAP) information. (While FBI director James Comey’s presentation understandably left this vague, the likelihood is that seven of the eight top-secret e-mails are SAP.) Under President Bill Clinton’s 1995 executive order, top-secret intelligence is information the mishandling of which “could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.” The SAP designation is added when the unauthorized disclosure of intelligence could compromise critical intelligence-gathering methods or imperil the lives of intelligence sources. That is why access to this information is so tightly restricted, and its unauthorized disclosure is routinely prosecuted.

Read the rest.

Original post follows –

Sources: Clinton emails would have been ‘whitelisted’ for Obama BlackBerry

President Obama’s high-security BlackBerry used a special process known as “whitelisting” that only allowed it to take calls and messages from pre-approved contacts, two former senior intelligence officials with knowledge of the set-up told Fox News – pointing to the detail as further proof the White House knew Hillary Clinton’s private account was used for government business.

Well, whitelisting isn’t that special of a process as any IT pro will tell you, but it’s not something the typical user really worries about, relying instead on built in spam filters for email, and caller ID on their phones. I’m pretty careful with email (the number one thing is not clicking on a link from someone you don’t know), and if I don’t recognize the phone number in the display for an incoming call, I don’t answer, and just let it go to voice mail. Being who I am not, I don’t need to have really sophisticated filters/controls on my “communications systems”, whereas the President does need to have that kind of protection/selectivity.

As for who in the White House knew that Clinton had a private server set up from the domain name (clintonemail.com), the President isn’t necessarily one of them, although it is probable he did. I can absolutely guarantee you that he did not set up his BlackBerry contact list, and whoever the IT pro that did set it up quite possibly could have set it up to only show the persons name (and the subject line for email), and not their email address/phone number.

So, the IT department at the WH certainly knew about the clintonemail.com domain, but who else knew is really anybody’s guess. This brings up the following questions though, that if the White House IT department knew about it, did they raise any questions about this unusual arrangement, and if not, why not? Did they in fact raise questions, but were told to not worry about it? Were they, like their counterparts at State, told to shut up and never speak about it again?

Related –

Stop us if you’ve heard this before: State can’t find e-mails from key Hillary email scandal figure

Ho-hum — another day, another stonewall. Give ABC News credit for picking up on a very curious lack of transparency involving a key figure in the Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal. Bryan Pagliano got immunity from the Department of Justice but managed to keep from having to testify when the FBI recommended no action on the case, despite clear evidence of lawbreaking by Hillary and her aides. Pagliano, a State Department information-technology specialist, also has had his internal State communications mysteriously vanish, and the National Archives — and the Republican Party — want to know why …

Easy to speculate about – the aforementioned stonewalling by State has been systematic all through this entire scandal, so Pagliano’s .pst file listing all of his emails going missing is, for this administration, “par for the course” (pun intended) as State has worked overtime on playing the CYA game, not only for itself and many of it’s staffers, but also for Clinton, rather than what it should have been working overtime on, which is following the law.

Time after time, the State Department has either ignored until sued, or glacially slow-walked, every FOIA request or Congressional subpoena. Don’t believe me? Go here and check out their archives to see how many times they’ve had to sue State to get records requested via FOIA. And they aren’t the only entity that has had to sue to get State to cough up records requested through FOIA. And State isn’t the only agency that does this, either.

So much for the “most transparent administration in history” BS. Make sure to read all of the articles linked to. If I become aware of anything new, I’ll update this at the top.

Emailgate updates, plus an update

Update: Make that three articles of note.

‘We Need to Clean This Up’: More Evidence Obama Lied about Hillary’s Private E-mails

WikiLeaks has released e-mails showing Hillary Clinton’s advisers knew there was a problem when President Obama denied knowledge of Clinton’s private e-mail system.

There was panic in Camp Clinton when President Obama falsely told the public he had not known about then-Secretary Hillary Clinton’s use of private e-mail until he heard about it “through news reports.”

Read the rest.

Original post follows.

Two more articles to add to the ever growing list in the still on-going Emailgate scandal. First up is a good opinion piece from Fox News‘ Gregg Jarrett.

Gregg Jarrett: The perpetual cloud of dirt and scandal that hovers over Hillary Clinton

“Pig-Pen” and his perpetual cloud of dirt.

It follows him wherever he goes and engulfs whatever he does. The beleaguered character in the comic strip “Peanuts” cannot seem to rid himself of the dirt, despite his best efforts. At times, he seems oblivious to the cloud. Or in denial.

Remind you of Hillary Clinton? Metaphorically, that is.

The dirt cloud of scandal has followed Clinton incessantly for years. Not just a single, isolated scandal… but several. Travelgate, Whitewater, cattle futures, Benghazi, private email server, Clinton Foundation, Wall Street speeches, you name it.

It’s one ignominious incident after another. And all of them are of her own making.

Which, of course, she blames on others, most famously being a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy that was “out to get her” (well, kinda, sorta, yeah – duh!)

Clinton tends to stretch the bounds of propriety, dangling her foot over the legal lines.

Yeah, by leaps and bounds. I have never seen a public personae push so hard at stretching the bounds of propriety as she has, and suffer absolutely no consequences! It’s just … surreal.

Two more things from this, and then we’ll get to the other article.

Recall Dr. McCabe and her husband, FBI Deputy Director McCabe?

Her latest scandal kicks up dirt on the FBI for its bewildering (see also, “stupefying”) decision to recommend that Clinton not be criminally prosecuted under the federal Espionage Act for mishandling classified documents and jeopardizing national security as Secretary of State. It seems that Clinton’s close friend shoveled truck-loads of money to the wife of the FBI deputy director overseeing the agency’s investigation of Clinton.

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe was the money man. Through political groups he controls, he saw to it that Dr. Jill McCabe received more than $ 675,000 for her state senate race, according to The Wall Street Journal. It just so happens that her husband, Andrew McCabe, is second in command at the FBI and, as such, likely played a key role in allowing Clinton to escape criminal prosecution. No one has yet proven that Clinton’s fingerprints are on the bags of money. But her longtime friend and ally, Gov. McAuliffe, doesn’t deny he engineered the cash.

If that isn’t a quid-pro-quo scenario … proof or no, it still has the stench.

Last but not least, Gregg asks a question. I think I know the answer.

All along Clinton seemed confident she would not be criminally charged. Did she know something we didn’t know?

Yes, she did. She knew, because a certain individual (let’s call him President CoverHisAss) that had emailed her at her private server email address, and then LIED about knowing about her illegal server, that nothing would befall her. I think that is the precise message delivered by AG Lynch to Bill Clinton in that “spontaneous, coincidental, we were talking about grand kids, but no media, or recording devices, were allowed” meeting on the tarmac.

Make sure you read the entirety of Gregg’s piece. I just wanted to add my humble 2 cents worth.

The second, related article –

‘We need to clean this up’: Clinton aide cried foul on Obama’s email denial

One of Hillary Clinton’s top aides urged colleagues to “clean this up” after President Obama claimed in March 2015 he only learned of Clinton’s private email system from news reports — a statement the aide pointedly challenged by noting the president “has emails” from her non-department address.

The directive from Cheryl Mills, one of the Democratic presidential nominee’s most trusted aides, was revealed Tuesday in the newest batch of Campaign Chairman John Podesta’s emails posted by anti-secrecy site WikiLeaks. It is one of several showing how Clinton’s inner circle scrambled to correct the record after Obama’s initial remarks.

The hacked Mills message stems from a discussion on March 7, 2015, the night Obama told CBS News he found out about Clinton’s email system “the same time everybody else learned it through news reports.”

“We need to clean this up – he has emails from her – they do not say state.gov,” Mills wrote to Podesta just before midnight.

President CoverHisAss knew she had a home brew email server and was using that exclusively, yet lied to the American public on national TV about it, and the “Clinton Team” went into cover up mode to not only cover her ass, but President CoverHisAss’s ass as well, which is how she and her “team” all avoided jail time.

He’s just as complicit as the rest.