Hillary's best asset: Friends in high places
It is Saturday of Labor Day weekend, and for the fourth time, an agency has dumped more damaging Clinton email records over a holiday. The Obama administration has raised this behavior to an art form. Yesterday we found out that Hillary told the FBI that she "could not recall all her briefings" during the period after her accident (concussion) and resulting blood clot. Wow – it is scary enough to think that our secretary of state was incapable of performing her job during her last weeks in office, but this legitimizes some of the questions about her health. It also makes one wonder how many other secrets she may have mishandled.
Further, it makes FBI director Comey's assertion that there was no evidence that Clinton intentionally misused governmental secrets harder to swallow. How do security briefings on the way out relate to those at the beginning of her term? Does he truly believe that she forgot the details of the information given in 2009? How could she assert that when she signed several such papers? Moreover, she set up her server in 2008 long before her memory lapse and used the Clinton Foundation server to boot. Worse yet, she had 13 (we now discover) different devices, not one or two, as she stated at the U.N. Beyond that, two were destroyed by hammers by staff. A capable lawyer knows that you do not lie to the FBI, but lack of recall was never so astutely used.
But wait, as it gets worse. The FBI knew that the server was wiped clean by BleachBit software intended to erase the data. Normal deletion involves delinking the file from its directory header, allowing recovery of the actual data. No need to use a cloth, as few people would have known that this software exists. Now they advertise the ability to defeat the FBI computer searchers.
Let's reward more bad behavior, the liberal way. After a year-long investigation, did only sympathetic agents get to interview Hillary?
One must wonder why she still attracts supporters with a continuous release of evidence of her deceitful behavior. During President Clinton's term in office, he asked Dick Morris how to handle the Lewinsky scandal. He determined that if the information was released slowly and he stonewalled, the population would grow used to the detrimental information, and he could survive the scandal. This included lying under oath about sex (in the Paula Jones affair). Hillary has taken a page from the past, as her friends in high places (the White House and Justice Department) have dribbled out the material (over a one-and-a-half-year period) ever so slowly.
A quick review demonstrates clear deception by Hillary. At the U.N., she claimed that no emails contained secrets, which Comey refuted. Under oath, she told the House Committee further that she turned over all work-related emails. Again, it now appears that after turning over 30,000 e-mails, she forgot almost 15,000 others with work relationships uncovered by the FBI by backtracking to recipients. These include 30 or more involving Benghazi.
The State Department argued that it could not provide the meeting schedules before Dec. 2016 to FOIA requests, but after judicial prodding, State decided to produce these records by Oct. 15. Efforts by the AP, Citizens United, and Judicial Watch have been ongoing for up to seven years. It pays to have friends in high places, "unaware" that Clinton had a private server. Using a private server does help avoid FOIA requests, but is not foolproof.
Only after the NY Times reported a private Clinton server did the machine get wiped clean. More curious, it is reported that many government employees did not get headers with the entire Hillary email address. This could occur only with specific effort, but according to Comey, it was not intentional.
Selective amnesia is a curious medical condition. Despite her faulty memory, Hillary is sure she did not order anyone to erase her server of necessary documents. Yet she stated that she turned over all work-related emails after it became evident that they did not exist in the State Department records, but not upon leaving office.
If the slow release of damaging material can inoculate Hillary, will the danger of commingling of Clinton Foundation and governmental functions finally be the disease that trips her up?
Clearly, Comey was correct to indicate that a prosecutor in this administration would not prosecute Hillary under secrecy laws. The laws are not being uniformly applied; ask recently prosecuted military personnel and General Petraeus. You don't have to be right, but you must have the president on your side.