So, what to do about Hillary?

Now that the election is over, what do we do about Hillary and her email scheme?

Congressional Clinton probes will go forward post-election, GOP lawmakers say

At least four congressional investigations into Hillary Clinton’s personal email use and mishandling of classified information are expected to go forward even after the former secretary of state’s election loss last week, Republican lawmakers tell Fox News.

The probes, which cover allegations that Clinton lied to Congress about her email practices in October 2015 and that government records were destroyed, are ongoing and not dependent on the election’s outcome, two senior Republican senators said.

“I still don’t have the information I need,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, told Fox News. Johnson said the work of his committee, with jurisdiction over government records and the mishandling of classified information, would be careful not to disrupt President-elect Donald Trump’s priorities.

“I think it’s one of the messages of this election that the public is disgusted when they see double standards, when they think people in high places, high government officials can get away with what ordinary citizens can’t,” he said. “So, I just think it’s extremely important to follow this thing through and get all the information. Make it public.”

A spokesperson for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said answers, not the political calendar, are driving investigators.

Continuing with the investigations into her exclusive use of an illegal, private email system designed to hide her activities while SecState from Congress and the American people, and the quid-pro-quo/pay-to-play allegations regarding the Clinton Foundation and the State Department, certainly seems worthwhile, but is it really? Here’s Andrew C. McCarthy’s take –

Will Obama Pardon Hillary? Should He?

White House press secretary Josh Earnest raised some eyebrows on Wednesday when he engaged on the question whether President Obama would pardon Hillary Clinton before leaving office. Earnest did not indicate that the president had made any commitment one way or the other, but the fact that he is clearly thinking about it is intriguing.

The question primarily arises because there is significant evidence of felony law violations. These do not only involve the mishandling of classified information and the conversion/destruction of government files (i.e., the former secretary of state’s government-related e-mails). It has also been credibly reported that the FBI is investigating pay-to-play corruption during Clinton’s State Department tenure, through the mechanism of the Clinton Foundation — the family “charity” by means of which the Clintons have become fabulously wealthy by leveraging their “public service.” Thus far, Mrs. Clinton has been spared prosecution, but we have learned that the e-mails aspect of the investigation was unduly limited (no grand jury was used); and the legal theory on which FBI director James Comey declined to seek charges is highly debatable, even if it has been rubber-stamped by Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

So, if you’re a law and order type, like me, you’re probably cringing, like me, at the prospect that she could be pardoned – in effect, sweeping everything about this under the rug – thus proving without a doubt that there is a two-tiered “justice” system, one for the so-called elites, and one for everyone else.

If President Legacy doesn’t pardon her (perhaps in retribution for her not covering his rear end by losing, thus putting his “legacy” in peril), would President Elect Trump do so after he is sworn in? Let’s check in with Jazz Shaw on that –

So I guess we’re seriously discussing a pardon for Hillary Clinton now

Lock her up!

How many times did you hear that during the endless campaign of 2016? I lost count long ago. With the President Elect not tipping his hand at this point as to whether or not there will actually be a special prosecutor looking into Hillary Clinton’s “situation” we have no guidance as to how we should proceed. But as long as the possibility exits, plenty of pundits are speculating on the possibility that Barack Obama might want to issue a full and complete pardon to Clinton before he leaves office. Not too long ago I would have scoffed at the idea, but in what has already been one of the strangest years in American politics on record I’m no longer quite so sure. [Emphasis in the original]

After citing Andrew C. McCarthy’s article linked to above, he continues –

I’ve been mulling this one over for a couple of days and it seems to me that it’s a double edged sword for both the Republicans and the Democrats. Right up front I absolutely agree with Andrew’s statement in the linked article that, there is significant evidence of felony law violations. (And he explains the details very well.) If we look at this from an unbiased, law and order perspective, you can certainly make the argument that a full investigation is called for and a trial if the results indicate such is required. This is essentially the argument in favor of going after her. But this is one of those cases where you simply can’t extract the politics from the equation.

Arguments against pursuing such a course of action seem to be centered on the political fallout and potential blow back from Democrats in Congress and among their rank and file voters. That’s probably overstated. It’s not as if the Democrats are lining up to “work with the new President” in any meaningful way and most of Hillary’s voters weren’t going to be helping us out in the midterms anyway. But it could certainly build on the perception of Trump as a bully who is seeking to punish his enemies via the power of his office and that might turn off some of the voters in the middle. [Emphasis in the original]

I too have been mulling this over the last couple of days, but I differ slightly with Jazz here, in that, if Trump does push for a Special Prosecutor, I think blow back from Democrats, both in Congress and the rank and file, is something to be taken into consideration, if you also consider the outrage machine quaintly known as the MSM that would be in full throat, spilling vast quantities of ink. But I do agree that voters in the middle would look askance at Trump – with the accusations coming from the outrage machine quaintly known as the MSM that Trump is being the big, bad bully that they always said he was.

So, what to do about Hillary? Since I think this is now a six of one, half dozen of the other, damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation, I have no idea … nope, I got nothin’.

I do think that something needs to be done, if for no other reason than to change the perception of a two tiered “justice” system, but exactly what, and how to do that unknown what? Like I said, I got nothin’.

How about you? If you could finish this sentence, what would you say? “I think Hillary should …”

Hillary in denial, shifts blame for loss to Comey

Clinton tells fundraisers FBI Comey letter sank presidential bid

Hillary Clinton has offered a couple of private but candid explanations about why she lost her White House bid, telling high-dollar fundraisers Saturday that FBI announcements about a second probe into her emails from her time as secretary of state were too damaging.

Clinton said, “Our analysis is that Comey’s letter raised doubts that were groundless and baseless…” and “stopped our momentum,” a DNC fundraising source who was on the call told Fox News.

The finger pointing blame game continues apace, as Hillary is in complete denial as to the real reason she was not elected, with FBI Director James Comey squarely in the cross hairs, as their “analysis” outlined above, shows that his letters, and his letters alone are the reason she did not get elected.

Nothing mentioned about:

Her private email system perhaps being illegal, and thus very troubling to a large segment of the electorate;
Her inability to appear spontaneously human, therefore coming off robotic;
Her continuous swiveling as she pandered to whichever group she happened to be speaking to at the moment, often countering what she had just said at a previous “rally”;
Her obvious “IT’S MY TURN!” sense of entitlement;
Her overt condescension to half of the electorate in calling them “deplorable” (which became a huge rallying cry for Trump supporters);
Her constant lies – about anything and everything, both big and small;
People becoming convinced that she, and her DNC/Media enablers were doing whatever they could to cheat her into the office.

Yeah, none of that factored into why she lost. It was all his fault because he wrote two letters to Congress (granted, they were both outside “normal protocol”, but what was done was done). And yet, it wasn’t Comey who set up the illegal server which led to all of this, it was Hillary who had that done. It wasn’t Comey who systematically went about keeping records out of the public’s, and Congress’s, view – again, illegally – hiding her activities with the Clinton Foundation while she was SecState. She, and her co-conspirator minions, did that.

Nope. As usual, none of that was Hillary’s fault, it was someone else who was at fault.

Except, it wasn’t.

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.

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.

Corruption conviction in NC

NC judge convicted of trying to bribe federal agent with Bud Light

A Superior Court judge was convicted Friday on charges that he tried to bribe a federal agent with two cases of Bud Light to get copies of text messages from the phones of the judge’s wife and another man.

A defense attorney announced immediate plans to appeal the verdict against Wayne County Judge Arnold O. Jones II. The verdict came after jurors deliberated for less than an hour.

Sentencing is set for Jan. 23. But before then, the defense team will get one more opportunity to argue to U.S. District Judge James C. Fox that the case should not have gone to the jury because prosecutors failed to bring enough evidence.

Jones – the senior resident Superior Court judge in a judicial district that includes Wayne, Lenoir and Greene counties – is on administrative leave from his post but campaigning for re-election in November.

He was convicted of three felonies – paying a bribe to a public official, promising and paying a gratuity to a public official, and corruptly attempting to influence an official proceeding.

Corruption doesn’t just happen at the federal level, as this case plainly shows, but this particular case caught my eye because of the absurdity of what happened, and one particular statement made in a paragraph near the end of the article.

The absurdity – a man, who just happens to be a judge on a commission looking at previous convictions to see if any should be over turned (possibly making law enforcement folks nervous/anxious/jittery/just plain pissed off), thinks his wife is cheating on him and asks a cop to help him find out, offering him Bud Light as his “reward”, which was then later changed to $100.00 (which makes sense – I happen to like BL, but I like $100.00 more, as I can get more BL if I want, right?). Things did not go well for the judge, which is fitting. A side note here, though: If his conviction is upheld, pending appeal, does this not put at risk/prejudice any cases he worked on with the commission?

Now, the usual way to go about finding out the information the judge wanted, if you watch TV and the movies, is to hire a private investigator! Right? Duh! Just goes to show you that just because you’re a judge, that doesn’t make you smart.

Now for that one paragraph I mentioned earlier. Take it away, FBI –

John Strong, special agent in charge of the FBI in North Carolina, added, “Corruption will not be tolerated, no matter the level of government, the complexity of the scheme or the names of those committing the fraud. Rooting out public corruption is the FBI’s top criminal investigative priority, and we rely on our law enforcement partners and citizens to help us identify those offenders who put our democracy at risk.” [Emphasis mine]

I’m sorry, Agent Strong, but FBI Director Comey’s actions in the Clinton case belie your statement, and until such time as he resigns, every time I see a statement like yours, I’ll have to say that.

And that pains me greatly.