8/3/16
And Now; HRC
Let me please say first – Not a Huge Fan.
That said, Still Better. Former First Lady, New York U.S. Senator, Former
Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton, the imminently more qualified
Presidential Candidate. I’m not alone here – the Nice Folks over at Fox News
reported results of an 8/3 Poll which found that %56 of those polled Trust
Hillary Clinton with the Nuclear Codes, as opposed to %34 for Trump. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2016/08/03/fox-news-poll-aug-3-2016/ (Question # 32)
There
is so much Clinton-Lore, so much ‘baggage’ here, I’m not able to address it all
here, now. But I’ll do the best I can.
Where to begin? I suppose that given where we
are now the first mess to address is the ‘Vanished’ State Dept. e-mails. We’ll
leave for a bit later on, Benghazi, Whitewater, Pres. Clinton’s Impeachment
(Not Guilty), the Clinton Foundation.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton: As
part of the Investigation into the Benghazi catastrophe, the House Select
Committee on Benghazi conducted a comprehensive and exhaustive Investigation
into, and issued a comprehensive Report on the incident. http://benghazi.house.gov/NewInfo
From the Committee Report:
“Committee document requests resulted in
approximately 75,420 pages of new material: • The State Department produced
approximately 71,640 pages of documents not previously provided to Congress. •
The CIA produced 300 pages of new intelligence analyses. • The White House
produced 1,450 pages of emails. • Sidney S. Blumenthal produced 179 pages of
emails. • The FBI produced 200 pages of documents. • The Defense Department produced 900 pages
of documents. • The National Security Agency produced 750 pages of documents”
The next passage in the Report goes on to
complain that this documentation response was Massive, ‘misleading’ and
‘inconclusive’. This Committee and especially its leadership, was made up of
veteran, seasoned D.C. Insiders who had to know that when they summoned ‘All’
and ‘Every’ Documents related to Benghazi, they were going to be buried under a
massive avalanche of paper.
Knowing this, they could then complain about
it.
To be fair to the Committee’s complaints, it
is true that Former Secretary Clinton failed to provide nearly 3,000 e-mails
which she claimed were Personal in nature. This goes to the heart of the
matter: Clinton’s practice of using a Private Server for Official State
Department Communication. Secretary Clinton offered 2 explanations in her
defense – One, that previous Secretaries had done the same thing without
question or penalty, and, that there were no Classified or Secret
Communications on her private account.
Subsequent investigation proved the claim
about sensitive information to be false. Thus ensued a bureaucratic,
administrative and investigative dispute about how and why, and when, certain
items were designated Classified or Secret. Mistakes were made on both sides
about the particulars of the situation, with Mrs. Clinton found to be wrong in
certain instances, and correct about others. It’s the ones she was wrong about
that were an issue.
Appropriately, the FBI was directed to
investigate to see if any laws had been broken. As that proceeded, there was
speculation in Congress, and the public, if any Criminal Charges would be
brought against a member of the Obama Administration, and Democratic
Presidential Candidate. Responding to inquiries about the issue, Attorney
General Loretta Lynch replied that she would follow the findings and
recommendations of the FBI Investigation. Despite the howling disdain of the
Anti-Clinton camp, this is Standard Procedure. The FBI conducts Investigation
into Criminality and reports its findings and recommendations to the Office of
The Attorney General for any further action.
In this case the FBI found that there were
‘Irregularities’ and ‘Rules Violations’ by Clinton, but that these did not rise
to the level of Criminal Charges. Therefore Attorney General Lynch reported
that the Justice Department would not seek Charges against Hillary Clinton.
There are a variety of Lawsuits still
proceeding into the affair. Some seek further action against the State Dept.,
and perhaps the former Secretary. With AG Lynch opting not pursue the case
those are practically a dead-end. There are though continuing Freedom of
Information Act cases that may or may not produce any interesting results.
I think a Judge in one of the FOIA Cases gave
the most succinct observation of the debacle. From The Washington Post:
‘U.S. District Judge Sullivan cited that
email as part of the reason he ordered the State Department produce records
related to its initial failures in the FOIA searches for Clinton’s records’.
‘Sullivan said legitimate questions have been
raised about whether Clinton’s staff was trying to help her to sidestep FOIA’.
“We’re
talking about a Cabinet-level official who was accommodated by the government
for reasons unknown to the public. And I think that’s a fair statement: For
reasons heretofore unknown to the public. And all the public can do is
speculate,” he said, adding: “This is all about the public’s right to know.”
That’s where things presently stand with the
Clinton e-mail Investigation. Knowing all that, the findings are to me,
disappointing, and disturbing. I agree however, that they do not constitute
Criminal Misconduct. I would rather have in the Oval Office, a President who
committed some risky procedural e-mail errors, than a man who cannot decide if
knows Vladimir Putin or not.
Next; Benghazi
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