You have to hand it to the Clintons. They bring sex into politics over and again -- and not in the lame fake way people like Gloria Allred bring up accusers against Republican candidates, but instead with real evidence that cannot be dismissed so easily. The press has looked the other way through countless administration and Hillary scandals, downplaying if even reporting such things as her breaches of national security, the pay-to-play Clinton foundation slush fund, Hillary’s malfeasance and lies about the Benghazi slaughter, her close connection to the political thugs and election hijackers, the thousands of Wikileaks establishing the gangster nature of her operation. Throw in a little sex though and the mainstream media briefly halts emailing mash notes to Hillary and files the story.
Oddly enough, the latest scandal sounds awfully like the beginning of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Bill’s tale where he lied and said he “did not have sex with that woman”. Even bombing an aspirin factory couldn’t kill that story.
This time, Anthony Weiner, former Congressman, failed mayoral candidate, and husband without portfolio of Hillary’s closest, round-the-clock aide, Huma Abedin, insisted that the claim that he sexted a minor was a hoax. The capable and incorruptible U.S Attorney Preet Bahara looked into the claim, along with FBI and New York Police Department officers. In the course of their investigation it appears that they found on the computer Weiner shared with his estranged wife some email material the existence of which they’d previously been unaware. This induced FBI chief James Comey to make the astonishing announcement, eleven days before the election, that he was compelled to reopen the investigation into Hillary’s handling of classified materials on a private server because of newly discovered evidence.
The announcement came amid a series of revelations -- some clearly from inside-the-department leaks -- which established how poorly handled the initial investigation was.
The whole thing was so shoddy. As Holman Jenkins at the Wall Street Journal reminds us:
The reality is that Mr. Coney’s Clinton probe has been a kid-glove exercise all along. Only days before he prematurely ended the investigation and proclaimed that “no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case” -- a decision for the Justice Department, not the FBI -- Bill Clinton met with Attorney General Loretta Lynch on a Phoenix airport tarmac.
When the FBI later released its investigation summary and interview notes on the Friday before Labor Day weekend, they showed Mrs. Clinton telling agents that she “could not recall” or “did not remember specifically” key details and events 27 times. The interview wasn’t taped, and Mrs. Clinton wasn’t put under oath, though it is a crime to lie to the FBI.
Recent revelations include the immunity deals extended to Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson to get them to surrender their laptops. The FBI could have sought a subpoena or search warrant to do as much, but Justice didn’t empanel a grand jury. Ms. Mills and Ms. Samuelson were allowed to serve as lawyers for Mrs. Clinton at her FBI interview, despite being material witnesses. Their deals specified that the laptops would be destroyed, meaning they can’t now be re-searched and cross-checked against Mr. Comey’s new information.
This week we learned that Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe steered more than $675,000 to the political campaign of the wife of FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, who oversaw the Clinton investigation in the FBI’s Washington D.C. field office. Mr. McAuliffe is a longtime Clinton friend who is under FBI investigation himself over campaign finances.
As is his wont, Iowahawk describes the initial FBI investigation in far fewer words:
“FBI: what does this email mean?
Clintonite: I want immunity
FBI: you got it. What does --
Clintonite: I plead the 5th
FBI: OK you're free 2 go”
The real danger to Hillary is probably not the immediate pre-election legal consequences of the inquiry. Doubtless we will in time find further evidence of what we already know: she and her aides carelessly handled and transmitted classified information (some of it exceedingly sensitive and to be protected) in completely careless ways in violation of the law.
Ed Rollins, who served on the ill-fated and scandal-tainted Teneo Corporation at the same time as Huma (wearing one of her many hats simultaneously) surmised in a TV interview that she had such information as well as the Teneo material on her home computer and probably assumed that when Teneo scrubbed old emails it covered the Clinton private emails as well.
“We don't know what this means yet except that it's a real bombshell. And it is unthinkable that the Director of the FBI would take this action lightly, that he would put this letter forth to the Congress of the United States saying there is more information out there about classified e-mails and call it to the attention of congress unless it was something requiring serious investigation. So that's where we are...”
Hillary’s minions and spinners were temporarily thrown off guard. She was on a flight to Iowa when the announcement was made, a flight reportedly with no wi-fi so that she didn’t know until the plane landed what had happened, Back home dozens of her staff must have worked frantically to prepare remarks for her after her scheduled rally appearance. They vet almost every of her public utterances. (At the rally, a giant fly perched on her forehead. This is the second time that has happened he recent weeks. Her rallies may be ill attended but I don’t want to hear ever again anyone saying she could not draw flies.)
In the video of her very brief conference you can see her continue her pattern of lying, projecting in a way that’s almost satirical.
She tars Comey by suggesting only Republican Congressmen received the Comey letter in which he stated his reasons for reopening the investigation, Actually all the committee chairs (Republicans) got it as did all the ranking members (Democrats). Then she demanded that Comey release all the emails he found immediately, prompting two more priceless Iowahawk tweets:
“I gotta say this "the FBI needs to answer these questions!" gambit has to be the Clintoniest thing ever.”
"I am not going to sit here while you badmouth the United States of America! Gentlemen!"
The truth is Huma was on the plane with Hillary -- all she had to do is (a) ask her what was in that material on her home computer and (b) tell her to release it publicly -- she doesn’t need the FBI to do it.
This evening in Iowa, Hillary Clinton made a brief statement to the press about the FBI’s decision to reopen its criminal investigation into her email scandal. She even deigned to take three questions.
The best question, as is almost always the case, was a simple factual one: Have you spoken to Huma Abedin about this development? Clinton did not answer. Instead, she said she doesn’t know any more than anyone else about the matter.
Like virtually every utterance Clinton makes, this statement is false. Abedin reportedly is traveling with Clinton. Regardless of whether she is, there can be no doubt that as soon as Team Clinton got the news about the investigation [snip]she asked her closest aide what might be of interest to the FBI on her device and those of her husband. [snip]From Abedin, Clinton must have learned more than the rest of us know about what has piqued the FBI’s interest. Her claim to be totally in the dark surely is a lie.
During the press conference, Clinton called on Director Comey to tell the public what the newly recovered emails say. She insists that the public, which has already started voting, has the right to know.
Comey isn’t in a position to discuss the emails at the outset of his expanded investigation, but Hillary Clinton is.
In the interest of the public’s right to know, Clinton could describe for us, to the best of her understanding, the nature of the emails Abedin sent and received on the devices in question. Alternatively, she could have Abedin do it. Whether anyone would believe Clinton or Abedin is another matter.
During the press conference, Clinton also complained that the FBI acted so close to the election. Naturally, the timing has Clinton seething, but she has no valid complaint about. The timing, I assume, is a function of when the FBI obtained Abedin’s device. If Abedin turned it over sooner, the FBI presumably would have acted sooner.
There’s lots of speculation about what prompted the dramatic turn of events. I’ve never thought much of Comey myself. When he as acting attorney general I thought his refusal at the eleventh hour to reauthorize the NSA surveillance program was a preposterous drama queen act. Seven years later when Comey was nominated for the post of FBI head, the Wall Street Journalnoted the effusive Democrat outpourings of support for the nomination of this Republican, suggesting the praise was unwarranted if one scrutinized his record -- and then proceeded to make its very solid case.
Doubtless, Hillary now wishes her party had heeded this warning.
A terminally blinkered Jennifer Rubin thinks the reopening is a plus for Hillary: “@JRubinBlogger
The Weiner thing is actually helpful for HRC, turning this all into farce and a punchline.”
Everyone else, including her campaign operatives, acknowledge it’s a disaster for her.
Another source the Democrats might have paid more attention to was Donald J. Trump, who as early as August of 2015 wrote on twitter. “It came out that Huma Abedin knows all about Hillary’s private illegal emails. Huma’s PR husband, Anthony Weiner, will tell the world.”
My best estimate of the rationale behind this breathtaking decision is that besides the reported furor in the FBI ranks about his earlier decision to give Hillary a pass; leaks and the released FBI report which underscored the unserious, corrupted nature of the initial investigation, the presence of Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and the NYPD meant that the Washington FBI and Attorney General Loretta Lynch no longer had a monopoly on how to conduct the investigation and were unable to lock up from scrutiny what criminality was found.
Others have advanced plausible theories. Thomas Lipscomb asks, “Andrew McCarthy, Judge Napolitano and others have posited that once it became clear that Obama had lied and was totally implicated in the Hillary e-mail scandal, Comey was not allowed to go forward with an indictment.WHAT IF The Weiner-Huma-Hillary evidentiary route has no such problem?”
And Jerome Corsi questions why Hillary Clinton sent marked classified information to a nonsecure Abedin account. Huma Abedin sent tens of thousands of emails to her home unsecured home account and, hints there might have been espionage.
Jerome Corsi @jerome_corsi
Hillary aide HUMA ABEDIN emailed to herself at humamabedin@yahoo.com CLASSIFIED State Dept DOCS unsecured http://www.wnd.com/…/hillary-sent-marked-classified-info-t…/ … ESPIONAGE?”
In the meantime, the networks were forced to cover the story, headlines writers are having a field day “Dickileaks,” “Stroking Gun,” and bloggers are displaying their creativity.
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