Last week’s devastating report by the State Department Inspector General has made it plain to all who wish to see that Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, violated numerous regulations pertaining to federal records and cybersecurity, then lied effusively about it to the public.
That State IG assessment has left Clinton’s defenders without much of a leg to stand on if they want an honest, fact-based defense of her actions in EmailGate. Therefore, Team Clinton has resorted to their customary deceptions and dissimulations, buttressed by legalisms designed to obscure truths rather than reveal them.
Here we have Lanny Davis, a top Clinton consigliere for more than two decades, explaining how Hillary is innocent of any wrongdoing, citing five allegedly “indisputable” facts. Then follows the customary litany, cited by her defenders whenever EmailGate comes up. This was legal. Besides, everybody does it. Plus nothing was “labeled” classified at the time it appeared in Ms. Clinton’s private email. To those acquainted with Clintonspeak, the only thing missing is a discussion of the meaning of “is.”
Mr. Davis’ most interesting claim is his assertion that “there is no evidence that Clinton’s private server was ever successfully hacked… all the dire and dark warnings from partisan Republicans about the secretary of state risking the nation’s security by using a private server are, in fact, all speculation—based on no facts whatsoever.”
This is deception of a special kind. In the first place, why has the Romanian hacker Guccifer pleaded guilty to hacking into Hillary’s server if he did not, in fact, do so? Moreover, the FBI has been in possession of said server for months, and they have uncovered several successful hacking efforts into it when it resided in an upstairs bathroom of the Clinton residence in Chappaqua, New York.
“We know it was hacked numerous times, it’s that simple,” explained a senior U.S. counterintelligence official who is privy some of the FBI’s findings. “If I were Vladimir Putin I’d fire the head of the SVR [Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service] if he didn’t get a good look at Hillary’s emails when they were sitting in plain sight online,” he added with a laugh.
Here, Mr. Davis is hiding behind the fact that the FBI has not yet released the findings of its investigation into EmailGate to the public. Until they do, there is indeed “no evidence” of foreign intelligence services accessing Ms. Clinton’s emails—since the FBI considers that evidence classified until it is deemed fit to be publicly released. This is how the classification rules that Hillary and her staff so assiduously ignored actually work. . . .
Republicans are beginning to push back too now. Over the weekend, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin made statements on EmailGate that some considered shocking. “What isn’t being discussed is how reckless and dangerous her private email server was,” he said, adding, “You have to assume that our enemies and adversaries had access to every email that went over her private server.” Sen. Johnson then asked what that might mean: “Did it affect their actions as it related to for example Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Crimea or Eastern Ukraine? What about the negotiations with Iran? What about Assad?”
Although some Democrats acted aghast at these comments, Sen. Johnson was merely asking what anybody acquainted with 21st century espionage would automatically ask about EmailGate. Moreover, as chairman of the Senate’s homeland security committee, the Wisconsin Republican regularly receives classified briefings from our Intelligence Community, so he knows what spies worldwide are looking for in the secret struggle between spy agencies that is seldom witnessed by the public.
Moreover, the notion that Clinton’s emails are in the hands of many foreign intelligence services is anything but controversial among those in the know about spying.
