Hillary Clinton lies with the recklessness of someone who’s gotten away with countless acts of corruption in her career. Who can really blame her? Here she is today:
I can’t believe we’re still talking about this, but my emails…
As Trump’s problems continue to mount, the right is trying to make this about me again. There’s even a “Clinton Standard."
The fact is that I had zero emails that were classified.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 6, 2022
None of what Clinton says in her thread is even remotely true.
Hillary contends that “Comey admitted he was wrong after he claimed I had classified emails.” Even if the former FBI director had changed his mind, it would not have mattered very much once he was out of office. But Comey never did any such thing. After scrupulously detailing Hillary’s numerous evasions of laws governing the handling of classified information in July of 2016, Comey let the former Secretary of State skate, maintaining the FBI couldn’t prove intent. Clinton, he said, had merely been “extremely careless” in “handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.” Comey didn’t charge Hillary, probably to save himself the trauma of indicting someone he believed would be the next president.
If you truly believe that Hillary, the most “qualified candidate ever,” had stumbled into setting up a secret server that was specifically used to circumvent government transparency, you’re a gullible fool. Whatever you believe, though, according to the FBI, Clinton sent 110 emails with clearly marked classified information — 36 of those emails contained secret information, and eight of those email chains contained “top secret” information. And the FBI also found that Hillary should have known many other topics under the discussion were classified, even if they were not so marked. “We assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account,” Comey explained at the time. The New York Times concurred.
None of this has ever been disproved or debunked or challenged by evidence. At no time ever did Comey, or anyone else at the Justice Department, assert or admit or imply that Hillary’s server had “ZERO” classified emails on it. A State Department investigation concluded in 2019 found that though Hillary and her staff may not have “systemically” used the server to discuss classified information, they did engage in 600 security violations — not only corresponding with other state officials and aides but with partisan hacks like Sidney Blumenthal, as well.
And the claim made by Clinton apologists that she cooperated with the investigators is one of the most misleading. In March 2015, Clinton alleged that she “never sent any classified material — nor received any — marked classified.” In September of that year, Hillary told reporters, even as her staff was trying to destroy evidence, that her email scandal was “another conspiracy theory.” Comey noted in his original congressional testimony that Hillary’s staff had “cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery.” There is no definition of “cooperation” in existence that includes people under subpoena using BleachBit to destroy 30,000 emails and breaking cell phones with hammers.
In 2018, Comey was still professing that Clinton’s server emailing wasn’t premeditated criminal behavior, conceding that he “should’ve worked harder to find a way to convey that it’s more than just the ordinary mistake, but it’s not criminal behavior, and find different words to describe that.” Even then, he never walked back the FBI’s conclusion that the emails were classified and top secret. Considering the FBI’s partisan disposition these days, that says a lot.
Rather than being thankful that she spared an indictment, the shameless Hillary went on to blame the “Comey letter” for her loss. Let’s remember that the laptop with classified emails that sparked the letter was found in the possession of Hillary’s top aide’s skeevy husband, who was sexting with a teen girl.
Paul Krugman and others claimed the FBI had “rigged” the 2016 election with the letter. Of course, the FBI letter would never have been necessary if Hillary hadn’t engaged in her typical shady behavior or admitted her actions and cooperated early on. Comey not only had an ethical obligation to write Congress, as he had promised to do so if new evidence emerged, but also a legal obligation to inform a congressional committee investigating the scandal.
Those who argue that Comey should have quashed developments in the case are really maintaining they believe the DOJ should have kept quiet about an existing investigation to help a Democrat win the presidency. This is what Democrats have come to expect from the FBI. But the retconning of the Hillary email scandal is a transparent effort to shield the crass hypocrisy of those now clamoring for the prosecution of Donald Trump over his possession of classified documents.
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Source: The Federalist
