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Hillary Email Scandal Tag

This isn't the first time that Mika Brzezinski has said something critical about Clinton world. So maybe it was just a coincidence that on the day it became public that she and Joe Scarborough have become engaged, Mika took a real shot at the decision not to go after Huma Abedin for forwarding classified emails to her husband Anthony Weiner, ostensibly for the purpose of having him print them off. Said Mika, "I don't understand how Hillary Clinton's e-mails are forwarded to Huma Abedin's husband so he can print them out. What? What? I don't know. Maybe there's no law against it. Seriously, maybe there's no law against it . . . It's incredible. It's everything that was wrong with the campaign." When Joe said that in fact there was a law against it, and suggested the Clinton campaign thought it was playing by different rules, Mika concurred: "totally different rules."

FBI Director Comey testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday, where he was grilled on a handful of issues. Comey defended his decision not to pursue charges against Hillary or her associates for the unlawful sharing of classified information. As he explained, he felt the FBI maintained a burden of proving individuals involved, namely Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner, knew sharing classified information was unlawful. Comey concluded they did not.

In October 2016, less than two weeks before the election, FBI Director James Comey disclosed that the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server had been reopened after classified emails from Huma Abedin were found on Anthony Weiner's laptop as part of an unrelated investigation into Weiner's sexting with a teenager. The computer in question belonged to her husband, disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner.  Last November, FBI notes revealed that Hillary had been sending her housekeeper emails containing classified information for the purpose of printing them out. In his Senate Judiciary Committee testimony today, FBI Director James Comey reveals that Abedin had been forwarding classified information to her husband so that he could print it out for her to give to Hillary. He further notes that no charges were pursued because the FBI could not determine intent to violate federal law.

Hillary's email problems aren't going away just because the election is over. A watchdog within the Department of Justice announced Thursday it would be reviewing Director Comey's investigation into Hillary's use of a private email account and a homebrewed server during her tenure as Secretary of State. The DOJ's Inspector General Michael Horowitz indicated numerous "Chairmen and Ranking Members of Congressional oversight committees, various organizations, and members of the public" requested the review.

The FBI published around 300 pages of documents associated with Hillary Clinton's email investigation on Sunday night when the most of us enjoyed football, hockey, or the Golden Globes. These emails include discussions within Hillary's team about the computer hardware during the FBI's investigation:
At first, Clinton was unwilling to surrender her private server, but hacked emails appear to show her team advised her to let the FBI take control of the materials.

The lawsuit probing Hillary's use of a homebrewed server while serving as Secretary of State was revived Tuesday. The District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals found error with a lower court's judgement which tossed out complaints targeting Hillary's emails. Politico reported:
A three-judge panel of the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously Tuesday that a lower court judge erred when he threw out the cases as moot after the State Department received tens of thousands of emails from Clinton and more from the FBI following the criminal investigation it conducted.

A New York judge has unsealed the search warrant giving the FBI permission to search a laptop belonging to disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner and his estranged wife Huma Abedin, one of Hillary Clinton's top aides. The FBI began an investigation into Weiner after it emerged he sexted with an underage girl. The investigation revealed a laptop that may have had new information for the FBI's investigation into Hillary's private email server, which Director James Comey closed in July.

Since the night of the election, when media coverage of election night went from joyous to stunned to near-weepy, the progressive left has been in a self-righteous lather about President-elect Trump's victory.  They are pulling out all stops in an effort to undermine President-elect Trump and his presidency.  Indeed, they seem intent on seeing that he not take office at all. Blaming everything and everyone but themselves and their candidate (with a few notable exceptions), the left took to the streets to riot, they took up their pens to advocate the end of the Electoral College, they bully and harass electors attempting to sway their votes, and they've recently landed on Russian involvement in the elections.

Assuming this statement by Kellyanne Conway proves to be the case, it's a major promise broken by Trump. The NY Post reports:
President-elect Donald Trump won’t subject Hillary Clinton to a criminal inquiry — instead, he’ll help her heal, his spokeswoman said Tuesday. “I think when the president-elect who’s also the head of your party … tells you before he’s even inaugurated he doesn’t wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone and content, to the members,” Kellyanne Conway told the hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” who first reported that the president-elect would not pursue his campaign pledge to “lock up” Clinton, his Democratic opponent.

Our ongoing (and still open) poll on whether President Trump should pardon Hillary shows overwhelming opposition. But, as was mentioned in the comments to that post, we may not get there. Obama may do it first. Jesse Jackson opened up the issue in an appeal to Obama, as reported in The Detroit Free Press:

It is never ever a Clinton's fault when they fail. Never. Of course Hillary has pointed the finger at FBI Director James Comey while others blame outside forces. The only person who has actually pointed the finger at the Democrats and Hillary? President Barack Obama. Hillary told major donors that Comey's letter to Congress a week before the election cost her the presidency:
“There are lots of reasons why an election like this is not successful,” Mrs. Clinton said, according to a donor who relayed the remarks. But, she added, “our analysis is that Comey’s letter raising doubts that were groundless, baseless, proven to be, stopped our momentum.”

When FBI Director James Comey alerted Congress that new emails required a re-opening of the Hillary investigation, I noted Ed Morrissey's observation that this could be another Lucy-Charlie Brown football situation, with Republicans and other opponents of Hillary having the ball pulled away at the last minute. I also polled readers, who by 2-1 said the FBI would not exonerate Hillary before the election. There were signs of pressure from above, with DOJ promising to throw all resources to resolve the issue. Loretta Lynch, who didn't want Comey to make the disclosure in the first place, was not going to let this linger until election day. The Clinton campaign and mainstream media had declared war on Comey. And, SURPRISE, Comey just issued a letter saying no change in FBI decision not to recommend prosecution of Hillary:

The State Department released 74 additional emails to Judicial Watch, a watchdog group that continues to investigate Hillary Clinton's private email server. These emails are the ones the FBI found after it completed its investigation. One email included a chain that the State deemed as classified now....one that Hillary sent to her daughter Chelsea Clinton. The State has blacked out the majority of the email chain, but it came from White House Deputy National Security Advisor Michael Froman and forwarded to Hillary by her policy aide Jake Sullivan. Hillary then sent it to Chelsea. Chelsea Hillary Classified Email

It's understandable that those who thought Hillary had a lock on the presidency are getting pretty frustrated. She may still win, but it's far from guaranteed now that the Clinton Foundation pay-for-play allegations are circulating and the Huma-Anthony computer cache is being scrutinized leading to a reopening of the server/email scandal. Has the FBI become Trumpland? That's what The Guardian claims, 'The FBI is Trumpland': anti-Clinton atmosphere spurred leaking, sources say:

On August 10, 2015, I asked Did Hillary just walk into a perjury trap over her emails?. The document in question was a very curiously worded Declaration under oath signed by Hillary in a Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit:
"1) While I do not know what information may be "responsive" for purposes of this law suit, I have directed that all my e-mails on clintonemail.com in my custody that were, or potentially were, federal records be provided to the Department of State, and on information and belief, this has been done...."

It's hard to rank Clinton scandals. Hillary's email scandal has been the focus for good reason -- it's been more accessible because the records at issue were public records even if hidden and destroyed by Hillary in good measure. The Washington Post reports tonight that the Huma-Weiner computer issue that led to FBI Director Comey's letter to Congress was discovered in early October. The sequence of events leading to Comey's letter was not as quick or haphazard as reported, but fairly methodical to the point that Comey felt word would leak out because prosecutors needed a search warrant: