The hits just keep coming in Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, which is why suddenly even the most preposterous has-been Democrats are starting to mutter about jumping into the 2016 election.
This story gets worse for Clinton by the day… and we’re still only talking about a couple of emails out of a mere forty reviewed by inspectors general, culled from over sixty thousand emails total, half of which Clinton destroyed in defiance of subpoena.
The latest revelations from the Associated Press bring us some more details about the two Clinton emails discovered thus far that contain top-secret information. It turns out one of them pertained to drone strikes in the Middle East… and that’s the less damaging of the two:
The officials who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity work in intelligence and other agencies. They wouldn’t detail the contents of the emails because of ongoing questions about classification level. Clinton did not transmit the sensitive information herself, they said, and nothing in the emails she received makes clear reference to communications intercepts, confidential intelligence methods or any other form of sensitive sourcing.
The drone exchange, the officials said, begins with a copy of a news article that discusses the CIA drone program that targets terrorists in Pakistan and elsewhere. While a secret program, it is well-known and often reported on. The copy makes reference to classified information, and a Clinton adviser follows up by dancing around a top secret in a way that could possibly be inferred as confirmation, they said. Several officials, however, described this claim as tenuous.
But a second email reviewed by Charles McCullough, the intelligence community inspector general, appears more suspect. Nothing in the message is “lifted” from classified documents, the officials said, though they differed on where the information in it was sourced. Some said it improperly points back to highly classified material, while others countered that it was a classic case of what the government calls “parallel reporting” — different people knowing the same thing through different means.
Ironically, one of the few things helping the Clinton syndicate to keep a lid on this story is that you can’t even talk about what was in her emails without running afoul of security classifications. She was so reckless with national security that intelligence officials can’t openly discuss how reckless she was.
Clintonworld’s current fallback position, aided and abetted by some within the Obama Administration, is that it’s debatable whether some of the material she handled through her server should have been classified. That’s a ridiculous dodge. The Secretary of State is not empowered to unilaterally overrule the intelligence community and declassify material because she thinks the protections in place are excessive.
And it’s not clear that Hillary herself authorized the removal of classification markings – in fact, she and her spokes-drones are currently insisting she was unaware the material in these emails was classified, some of it at the highest levels, because the classification markings were removed. That’s why the carefully parsed talking point included in an email filled with lies and misdirection circulated by her campaign says her server didn’t process material that was “marked classified at the time.”
If you’re scratching your head while reading that, minutes after reviewing the inspector general’s unambiguous statement that the information was classified at the time, you’re missing the significance of the Clinton Clause “marked.” The material was classified, but it wasn’t “marked” as such, because someone removed the markings. This is like saying a crate of dynamite wasn’t explosive at the time you tossed it out the window, because someone had peeled off the HIGH EXPLOSIVE stickers.
An anonymous State Department official told Fox News that removing classification markings would “constitute a felony, in and of itself,” and wasn’t something any “rank-and-file career [State Department] employee” would have done… so it was “most likely done by someone in her inner circle.”
And that someone will make an excellent fall guy – or gal – when it’s time to sacrifice a minion to keep Hillary out of the hottest of hot water. Certain top Clinton aides might want to start clearing their calendars for the next 20 years or so.
The Associated Press goes out of its way to demonstrate how “Clinton’s advisers appear cognizant of secrecy protections” in the emails… except sometimes “the line was blurred”:
Among Clinton’s exchanges now censored as classified by the State Department was a brief exchange in October 2009 with Jeffrey Feltman, then the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East. Both Clinton and Feltman’s emails about an “Egyptian proposal” for a reconciliation ceremony with Hamas are marked B-1.4, classified for national security reasons, and completely blacked out from the email release.
A longer email the same day from Clinton to former Sen. George Mitchell, then Mideast peace envoy, is also censored. Mitchell responds tersely and carefully that “the Egyptian document has been received and is being translated. We’ll review it tonight and tomorrow morning, will consult with the Pals (Palestinians) through our Consul General, and then I’ll talk with Gen. S again. We’ll keep you advised.”
If foreign hackers got into Clinton’s insecure system, as is highly likely, then at the very least she gave them some excellent targeting information for further juicy secrets they could track down. She gave hackers a pirate treasure map to dig up buried intelligence gold.
Needless to say, no one as irresponsible, arrogant, and untrustworthy as Hillary Clinton has proven herself to be should be permitted anywhere near classified information ever again, especially given the patently false story her campaign drones are still pushing that she did all this for the mere “convenience” of not carrying two portable email devices. (Look at the insane mess inspectors have already unraveled, and the chaos unleashed upon Washington, and compare it to what would have transpired if she had simply used the secure State Department system she deemed “inconvenient.” Her ability to judge costs and benefits is so poor that she can’t be trusted to run a taco stand.)
The Washington Times reports that a number of security experts and intelligence community veterans have begun demanding to know if Clinton retains the security clearances she was given as Secretary of State, and urging the State Department to rescind them if so. That’s basic prudence given what we’ve already learned about ClintonMail.com, and of course it would instantly and totally disqualify her from occupying the presidency, or any other high government position.
Time to pack Hillary away and pick another candidate, Democrats.
Even if you can force yourself to believe the insultingly stupid excuses she’s been foisting upon you, she clearly lacks the judgment that voters of every ideological stripe should demand… and, you would think, sincere advocates of almighty Big Government should demand most fervently of all. How can any rational person be comfortable with the government spying on American citizens in countless ways, while political royalty gets to violate every rule and procedure on a whim… and it’s not even officially noticed until a citizen watchdog group, Judicial Watch, files lawsuits and gets federal judges involved?
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