Hillary stonewalled and has now outsourced her problem to attack-dog subordinates and Democratic stalwarts who, she believes, have Hillary—or no one—for 2016. I guess the message is “I’m lying, so what?”
Remember Richard Nixon’s vain attempt to keep Watergate tapes because he alone had determined that some were only private in nature and did not relate to government business or subpoenas—and the subsequent reaction to his “gaps.” That is Hillary Clinton’s absurd line of something like “secretary of state privilege,” and thus her press conference could only end in disaster. After all the obfuscation, the only thing that one can take away from this embarrassing performance is that Hillary Clinton envisioned her own personal server for just such contingencies: to trash a large percentage of her incoming and outgoing e-mails after becoming the sole arbitrator of what constituted her own, and her government’s, business, and thus the preserver or destroyer of all her communications.
Some depressing details:
Hillary used a U.N. forum as a prop to address a private scandal, largely because she assumed the press pool might be a little different and she could suggest that the e-mail scandal was incidental rather than essential to her more important global messaging. But in typical Clinton fashion that gambit proved counter-productive: She inappropriately used the U.N. prop, and the reporters were not necessarily D.C. pets, as she learned when she abruptly cut off their questions.
Then she reviewed her feminist credentials, omitting her own role in gender-pay inequalities, the misogynist nature of the benefactors to her foundation, and, of course, her husband’s recent troubles in regard to feminist issues.
Then she accused Republican senators of either wishing to help the Iranians or to undermine their commander-in-chief.
That was a warm-up to her defiant replies:
1) She confuses device and account: Many people have one device and two e-mail accounts. In the private sphere, one does not need two devices to have two different e-mail accounts. Teenagers can set up two in 30 seconds. If not, Hillary should make the case that one cannot do that with government accounts and that the problem affected her alone and not others of similar status. When her fable of the one phone/two phone dilemma is reviewed, her veracity will be again questioned, as it will when we learn she still probably used multiple phones like most D.C. grandees do.
2) She seems to think that her dilemma was unique and no other high government official faced the same private/public quandary that required her special solution; if she were correct, then almost any other cabinet member would have had only a personal account with his own private server to conduct all government business. No one apparently has ever had a BlackBerry with a separate government and a private account without a private server.
3) There will be no third-party adjudicator to determine which of her e-mails were private and which non-private, and those she determined were private are now apparently already destroyed.
4) She confused, again deliberately, State Department rules. When Hillary refers to “my practice was” that is not the same as the law demands: She seems to think not turning over all her e-mails on her sole account when she left office was okay because the State Department and / or the government in theory could always spend thousands of hours to hunt down all the recipients of her supposedly purely government e-mails. Try that with the government, as for example not paying your taxes on April 15 on the theory that you can always pay when and if the government hunts you down and comes after you and fills out your 1099 for you.
Her final message? It’s over; get over it; and the messages are destroyed even if you had wanted to have determined that I lied about the private/public divide. What are you going to do—hound the likely next president of the United States?
What’s next? We are back to 1998–99 where the law does not apply to the Clintons; and if it did, it pales in importance to their progressive efforts on our behalf; and if you doubt it, there are plenty of hirelings who can make life miserable for you right-wing conspiracists and disbelievers.
Hillary Threw Down the Gauntlet
Hillary apparently seemed to be saying: “Most federal high-ranking employees have personal and private e-mail accounts; when they leave office they turn over their .gov accounts and keep their own. But I didn’t like that, so I gained sole control of both my private and public accounts by mixing them up on my own private server. That way, unlike others, I alone could make the decision what was private and public, and that decision is now irrevocable due to the use of my own server.”
The obvious intent was not so much to shield her own private e-mails, as to protect her government ones by the red herring excuse of combing both into one account and thus making her the only judge of which was which, and what was to be deleted and what survived.
Of secondary importance is why the Obama Admin let Ms. Clinton get away with this.
Fortunately Ms. Clinton is often as sloppy as she is arrogant. She may well have her own backups that can be subpoenaed.
According to BO, he only learned of Hillary’s email shenanigans from watching cable news, which means he’s about as credible as she is.
“It’s good to be king.” – Mel Brooks
I love that movie although his best, in my opinion, is Young Frankenstein. Cheers.
She gets away with is as the opposition is leaderless and useless.
Two big thumbs up, Irishawk!!
Just wondering why persons of substance, integrity, wisdom, common sense, and intellectual depth seem so unavailable in high politics? All these years building a decent ‘village’ and the voters repeatedly ignore a good range of potential mayors in order to elect another village idiot to run things?
It’s not that difficult to understand.
One of the old cliches is about the types of politicians that get sent to office.
At this level there is a great deal of “Rules for thee bt not for me”
1. The first type- and by far the most numerous – are those who want the power that goes with it.
2. The second type are those that want the office to prevent the first type from exercising it.
The major problem is how to recognize the second type and how to prevent them from morphing into the first. I don’t know that there are any of the second type running at all.
The last good example of the latter was Pres. Reagan. He was comfortable with what he he believed and both said and acted like it. He also never much worried about whether his opponents liked it or not.
As much as I like Walker and Jindal it isn’t clear- at least to me- that they actually believe that the innate unlawfulness of the majority of the US Gov’t is the cause of most of the Nation’s major problems. Cruz sounds good but as a Jr. Senator he has no authority to actually do what he claims he wants. Palin could have been but was sabotaged and destroyed by the 1st type.
The village idiot knows you are a fearful victim of (fill in the blank).
The village idiot feels your pain.
The village idiot promises to make things better if elected using the money of the oppressors (taxpayers).
Please note that the word “citizen” has been expunged from politics.
I listened to a bit of the NPR coverage of this issue yesterday, which included Democratic campaign supporters Diane Rheam and Eleanor Clift. They couldn’t sweep this under the rug fast enough, and are only embarrassed into talking about it at all because of some vestigial memory of the function of the press, and a vague inclination that Nixon’s tape fiasco seemed to be important to them for some reason, although they couldn’t say on what moral basis they thought that way back when.
What’s wrong with Democrats? When did they decide this kind of stuff is okay for their side? And let’s not pretend it’s okay for all. I can hear in my mind’s ear, the caterwauling from these voices if a Republican were to do this.
I only hope that Hillary Diane Rodham-Clinton-Nixon becomes one of the Republican memes for the 2016 campaign.
Benghazi girl has proven yet again that she is unfit for higher office. Her assertions that she needed separate electronic devices for separate email accounts and a private server to conduct (and apparently hide) her public affairs as Secretary of State are utterly risible, and clearly show that she is willing to place her political ambitions and power lust above the law. Do the American people really want to elect someone to the presidency who is not only incompetent, but who shamelessly lies whenever she pleases? Out of 320 million people, you would think we could do better than this privileged hack.
And the Republicans will blow off a lot of steam, but in the end do nothing or call her out on this scandal.
Well, there is Trey Gowdy. I am impressed by this man – he’s not some grandstander or promoter, but a serious, reasonable guy out to find the truth about these scandals, and if there is any legal culpability. Though I certainly do share your frustration – it seems GOP leadership has yet to find a hill they are willing to fight for. Everything seems so lawless lately, that yeah, it does seem like much steam blowage and nothing doage.
Trey Gowdy, loud and cocky, gave the nominating speech for Boehner last November during a conference meeting and readily admits he would have voted for Boehner as Speaker had his flight not been delayed. Boehner, a RINO, is the root of a powerless Congress as he has the spine of a jelly fish and won’t stand up to the corruption raft in the Obama administration.
Well said, Hoi Polloi Boy.
Boehner is such a sad and pathetic excuse for an opposition leader. He stands for nothing, won’t fight for anything and has few firm convictions, if any. And he won’t get out of the way and let someone else take on Obama and the Marxist radicals. It’s just a dreadful state of affairs.
I do too…and also Lindsey Graham..
Instead of a 50-year-old victim, Hillary Clinton is now a 70-year-old victim of the right wing conspiracy. What is different this time that media is not coming to her aid. The media is not circling the wagons screaming sexism like they did with Obama and the charge of racism.
Hillary is obfuscating, rather neatly. She reportedly has several accounts on her server. Presumptively one or more is for her really private emails – love letters, I would suggest. Hillary is anything but a cold fish. And those are the last things she would want the Obamites to get. Just think what David Axelrod could do with them! She has no reason to love Obama – or Axelrod – her brutalization at their hands in 2008 would earn at least a touch of compassion from the worst of her enemies. I note that her two aides – Huma and Cheryl – happen to have accounts on Hillary’s server.
The low quality of the women she has brought in to the State Department will leave an enduring legacy of incompetence in the management of US foreign policy.
Mr. lewis, respectfully—– “” Hillary is anything but a cold fish”” Did you take a gander at her U.N. video? The second-fiddle to Monica gave a performance eerily reminiscent of Linda Blair in 1970’s—- head turning side to side, a dead-eyed look. The Soul has departed. Pray the creature does not gain power.
Liberals in the US seems always to believe that they have been given a ” passe droit ” wich allow them do pretty much what they want, without regard to the law or the existing rule.
This is the latest and perhaps best-all-time example of the political wisdom: “Wash your dirty laundry early so it doesn’t stink later.” Get it out now. Let it smell. And then, because the American Voter has the attention span of a gnat, perhaps less, it will be gone before it matters.
Thank you Mr. Hanson. Thank you every day, for every article.
Her picture should be in the dictionary next to the word “hubris”.
Wait for it…..Wait…..Wait…..
“What difference does it make”?
VDH,
How can one forgive Hillary Clinton for giving nuclear secrets to China in the 1990s? What will be the next episode for Clinton and her emails come showtime if she runs for President? She is much better suited for Showtimes’ hit series Shameless than America’s most wanted future presidential candidate. Making a recipe for beer in a basement is less destructive on America than what she has done with our health care. A comparison the treason of Hanoi Jane (Jane Fonda comes to mind) (ie: Vietnam) William Maceys’ characters’ vitality and kidney holds more promise then America’s under Clintoncare/Obamcare 2015…..
Best,
jwc
Caruthers, Ca
Victor, I am afraid you overlook the single most important implication of Clinton’s behavior. Clinton made herself vulnerable to blackmail. Hiding potentially compromising communication from the public can be exploited by anyone who gets access or even only pretends to have access to that information. That makes her a vital risk to US national security. She must never become Commander in Chief.
“At this point, what difference does it really make?” – Hilarious Clinton
Surely it is a Federal offence to destroy Federal government property, in this case emails to and from a Secretary of State.
Why, then, does not the FBI simply subpoena and physically seize her home server, and then dissect its contents at leisure? Its experts will surely be able to reconstruct the deleted files.
Alternatively, ask the Chinese and/or Russian and/or Cuban security services for copies of her emails as they will certainly have hacked her server.