Hillary’s midnight tweet may have earned some headlines that spared her from awkward questions about her e-mail habits, but judging by the way this story has simply refused to die, I think we can be sure that it won’t be going away any time soon. Under fire, the State Department has agreed to release Clinton’s e-mails, but officials are now saying that the process could take months:
Clinton tried to cool the brewing firestorm late on Wednesday, saying she wanted the State Department to release the emails quickly. But a senior State Department official told Reuters on Thursday the task would take time.”The review is likely to take several months given the sheer volume of the document set,” the official said.At the same time, the department is investigating whether Clinton violated policies intended to protect sensitive information when she conducted all of her official business through a personal account while serving as secretary from 2009 to 2013, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing a senior department official.
It’s a convenient (but in all likelihood realistic) timeline, which will give Team Hillary plenty of time to whip out some mirrors and a smoke machine; but if we play our cards right, we have more than enough ammunition to keep the story rolling.
We know that she used servers in her own home—and that it’s unclear whether or not those servers were approved, or if anyone even checked to see that their use was legal.
We also know that both independent groups like Judicial Watch, and the United States Congress, are ready to take this crap sandwich through official channels to see what’s inside.
We also know that it’s gotten to the point where top Dems are pushing the “who gives a shit” line (literally) to the liberal faithful in an attempt to do damage control:
The only move left on this chessboard is to ignore all that and simply insist that voters won’t care regardless. That’s not untrue, but it’s revealing that this is what Team Blue has been reduced to arguing.
Clinton supporters have pushed back against the media and Republicans, waving off the stories as yet another Twitter-fueled much-ado-about-nothing that has little resonance with the typical voter beyond Washington.“Voters do not give a sh-t about what email Hillary used,” said Democratic strategist Paul Begala, a longtime Clinton ally and CNN contributor. “They don’t even give a fart.”But if regular voters aren’t paying attention, the Democratic power brokers who hold sway over the nomination process in key states — the legislators, local party chairmen and plugged-in activists — most definitely are. The questions some of them are raising are less about the specifics of the stories and more about the long-established narratives they feed: That the secretive Clintons, enabled by unquestioning loyalists, play by their own rules.“The questions relating to Hillary are more about, are we tired of the same old thing?” asked one prominent Democratic state Senator in South Carolina who wished to remain anonymous.
Meanwhile, the White House has found itself in an awkward position, being forced to defend itself while at the same time being careful so as to not throw anyone else under the bus.
From Yahoo News:
The White House counsel’s office was not aware at the time Hillary Clinton was secretary of state that she relied solely on personal email and only found out as part of the congressional investigation into the Benghazi attack, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person said Clinton’s exclusive reliance on personal email as the nation’s top diplomat was inconsistent with the guidance given to agencies that official business should be conducted on official email accounts.
Never mind the rampaging hypocrisy:
Greta has it:
Fox News has exclusively obtained an internal 2011 State Department cable that shows Secretary of State Clinton’s office told employees not to use personal email for security reasons, while at the same time, HRC conducted all government business on a private account. Sent to Diplomatic and Consular Staff in June 2011, the unclassified cable, with Clinton’s electronic signature, makes clear to “avoid conducting official Department from your personal e-mail accounts” and employees should not “auto-forward Department email to personal email accounts which is prohibited by Department policy.”
This wasn’t just a matter of personal preference; using her own personal e-mail to relay sensitive information, if that happened, was an actual violation of State Department policy:
I’m not sure how this will play out, but I do know that, at least for now, we have a truckload of evidence to suggest that Hillary Clinton isn’t comfortable with either transparency or accountability. Democrats are going to do their best to convince voters not to care about her e-mails; that’s fine. Let them. What we need to focus on is her disregard for her role as a public servant.
This is one instance where I think that we could pull off the “you work for us” narrative with real results. Why? Here’s why:
It’s just one poll, but it’s more than we had a month ago.
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