The Clouds Darken Over Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Candidacy
Wednesday, Hillary Clinton’s embattled presidential campaign scrambled to calm supporters and fellow Democrats pushing back at suggestions the handoff of her private email server to the FBI is an admission of any wrongdoing. The server turned out to be “blank” with nothing usable on it.
With new polls showing Mrs. Clinton is behind Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in New Hampshire and her lead slipping in other early voting states, Democrats are worried a long and protracted scandal could ruin the party’s chances at the White House.
In an email to supporters, campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri slammed GOP criticism as “nonsense” and “misinformation,”
Meanwhile, polls indicate a growing vulnerability for the Democratic front-runner, her slide and the investigation into her use of a private e-Mail server while Secretary of State could pose an uphill challenge in the important New Hampshire presidential primary.
Controversy around Mrs. Clinton’s use of private e-Mail for her State Department work reignited with revelations that two e-Mails contained Top Secret information.
The 2 were pulled out of a pool of 40 e-Mails reviewed so far by the IG for the intelligence community, who says there may be hundreds of classified e-Mails among the roughly 30,000 work-related e-Mails Mrs. Clinton has given to the State Department.
“We’re working with the director of national intelligence to resolve whether, in fact, this material is actually classified,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said,
“But in the mean time, we’re taking steps clearly to ensure that the information is protected and stored properly.”
The breach is “stunning,” and means Mrs. Clinton could be subject, to “both civil and criminal penalties,” depending on the outcome of the FBI investigation underway..
“After months of false assurances from Secretary Clinton, we now know that she recklessly maintained a private server containing classified documents, some of which were classified at the highest level,” California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa said in a statement.
“The only remaining question is whether she will be held accountable for her actions.”
By handing over her server and cooperating with the FBI, she’s likely to be seen as a “cooperating witness for a potentially larger criminal investigation beyond Mrs. Clinton herself,” Dan Epstein, the executive director of Cause of Action, a conservative watchdog group said.
Hank Sheinkopf, a New York Democratic strategist and former Clinton aide said that the suspicion of wrongdoing is damaging the former Secretary of State.
“It’s hard to imagine Americans in the Heartland wondering about whether Hillary Clinton gave up an e-Mail server or not,” he said. “But it adds to this constant battering she’s taking, which is that people don’t trust her. It increases the feeling that something is not being told to them.”
Whether or not Mrs. Clinton broke the law depends on whether she herself sent e-Mails containing classified information, recognized information in her inbox that she knew to be classified, or should have realized that information sent to her was obtained from a classified source.
The State Department claims the e-Mails containing classified information were not sent by Secretary Clinton, but merely “circulated” by lower level employees in Ys 2009 and 2011, and spokesman John Kirby said, “ultimately some were forwarded to Secretary Clinton.”
“They were not marked as classified,” he said.
According to the intelligence community’s IG, the 2 e-Mails in Mrs. Clinton’s trove contained information classified as “Top Secret” meaning it should not be shared even with foreign intelligence allies.
There is no quick end of Mrs. Clinton’s troubles in sight. She has agreed to testify before an open hearing of the House committee investigating the Y 2012 attack on an American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.
Stay tuned…
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Paul Ebeling
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