RUTHFULLY YOURS

A previously unknown e-mail address used by Huma Abedin was discovered on Thursday, just hours before the top Hillary Clinton aide prepares to testify in front of the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

Conservative watchdog group Citizens United discovered the address in an e-mail exchange that shows Clinton Foundation CEO Robert Harrison forwarding a speaking invitation for then-Secretary of State Clinton to both Abedin’s State Department account and an unfamiliar Abedin address on November 6, 2012. “I tried to send this to your ‘clintonemail.com’ address, but it bounced back as undeliverable, so here it is again,” Harrison wrote.

The new address is titled “humamabedin,” and appears to be a private e-mail account. The State Department redacted the account’s domain name, citing a personal-privacy exemption.

Lee Zeldin speaks softly and carries a big stick.

The freshman Republican congressman from New York’s First District sits in a banquette at The Fourth restaurant in Manhattan, sips a cappuccino, and says things at just above a whisper. But his words are the embodiment of peace through strength. Zeldin is a low-key tough guy.

“Nothing threatens America’s security more than the silence that’s coming out of the White House with regards to the way our enemies are testing us,” says Zeldin, 35. “America is being tested right now, President Obama is being tested. North Korea turns a key to a nuclear reactor. Russia is having a submarine off our coast of Georgia, or naval warships off the Pacific Coast. The Chinese naval fleet is just off the coast of Alaska while the president is there. Iran is threatening the United States and our allies while Congress is deliberating whether or not to approve the arms deal. We are being tested and we can’t be silent.”

Being tough doesn’t mean warmongering, Zeldin explains.

“When I say, ‘We can’t be silent,’ it doesn’t mean we want war. That’s what the Left likes to say. There is a huge range of options between silence and war. . . . Our enemies all around the world will continue to test us more and more, until the president and this country have the backbone to stand up for ourselves.”

The mild-mannered Mr. Zeldin generated headlines during the debate over Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. He didn’t just speak softly. He went totally silent.

Zeldin took to the House floor and asked his Democratic colleagues a simple question: “How do you support a deal based on verification without knowing what the verification is?” He offered to yield time and let any Democrat answer. He stood there, and soaked in their silence for ten seconds, as none of them could answer his question. A clip of this moment soon raced around the Internet.

Hillary Clinton’s laugh is so often transparently forced and insincere that it is a staple of Kate McKinnon’s impression of her on Saturday Night Live.

At the Democratic debate in Las Vegas, though, the former secretary of state let loose a long peal of amused delight and relief that had about it a strong hint of genuineness. Vermont senator Bernie Sanders had just said we had heard enough about her “damn e-mails.”

The crowd erupted in a standing ovation. Sanders had the signature line of the night, and it was in the cause of buttressing his opponent. He had put away the e-mail issue for the debate, and perhaps for the duration of the primary campaign.

If Joe Biden was sitting at home plotting his electability case against Clinton based on her ethics, the episode had to give him pause. Democrats evidently have about as much interest in delving into Hillary’s e-mail and related controversies as they do in re-litigating Bill Clinton’s impeachment.

Las Vegas was a reminder that it is awfully hard to lose a nomination if no one truly plausible, let alone formidable, is running against you. The structure of the Democratic race from the beginning has been about propping up Hillary Clinton, and it still is. The party is putting on a master class in how to nominate someone under FBI investigation, and is in willful denial about her vulnerabilities.

Yes, Hillary had a good night. She was polished, knowledgeable, shrewd, and hard-hitting — clearly, not someone to be trifled with. But the debate was a false indicator of her strength.

Democrats and their supporters in the media are congratulating themselves for a job well done in the first Democratic debate. Both Martin O’Malley and Hillary Clinton included in their closing remarks canned celebrations of how civil and morally superior the Democratic debate was compared with the earlier GOP donnybrooks.

The New York Times began its Wednesday editorial extolling the value of civility thus: “It was impossible not to feel a sense of relief watching the Democratic debate after months dominated by the Republican circus of haters, ranters, and that very special group of king killers in Congress.”

Longtime Hillary Clinton pet Lanny Davis churned out a column headlined, “The real winner in Las Vegas Tuesday night was the Democratic party — in stark contrast to the GOP.”

Now, it is true that Donald Trump’s presence in the first two prime-time debates lends a superficial credence to claims that the Republican field is more coarse and insulting. Trump, after all, is coarse and insulting. He uses words like “losers” and “dumb” as if they’re punctuation marks.