Hillary’s Classified Falsehoods Is Anything She has Said About Her Private Emails True?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillarys-classified-falsehoods-1441236307
Hillary Clinton has tried to confuse the public about the definition of “classified,” but some in the press corps are cutting though the fog. We’re learning, in particular, that Mrs. Clinton’s self-serving decision to use a private email server for official communications may have resulted in far greater mishandling of classified information.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Mrs. Clinton wrote and sent on her private server at least six emails that contained classified information. This destroys Mrs. Clinton’s statement that she never sent any classified information. It also blows up her campaign’s diversionary argument that nothing she sent or received was “marked” as classified.
Mrs. Clinton was Secretary of State, with greater knowledge than anyone in her operation about national security secrets, and with a duty to protect such information. Whether the classified material she was sending or receiving was marked as such makes no difference to an official’s obligation. Mrs. Clinton knew this.
Meanwhile, Fox News reports that State Department lawyers have been hiding the extent to which Mrs. Clinton handled classified material on her server. According to the Fox account, career State employees initially marked four Clinton emails as classified. State Department lawyers then stepped in to recategorize the emails as “deliberative.” This meant they couldn’t be viewed by investigators from Congress.
Fox reports that State Department sources told intelligence officials that they believe this was done to hide the extent to which Mrs. Clinton was sending and receiving classified material. The Fox dispatch also says that one of the State Department lawyers involved in the email review was Catherine Duval, who once worked in the same law firm as Mrs. Clinton’s lawyer, David Kendall. The State Department told Fox there was no conflict and that its lawyers “perform to the highest professional and ethical standards.”
This week’s batch of Clinton emails—released by State on a timetable imposed by a federal judge fed up with delays—also includes hundreds of exchanges with legendary political hit man Sidney Blumenthal. Mrs. Clinton has previously said she didn’t solicit emails from Mr. Blumenthal, who was being paid by the Clinton Foundation. But in one email Mrs. Clinton tells the specialist in political smears to “keep ’em coming” and that “Bill”—presumably her husband—had dubbed them “brilliant!” Is anything Mrs. Clinton has said about her emails true?
Keep in mind that the Obama Administration barred Mr. Blumenthal from serving as a Clinton aide at State. But it’s clear from the emails that he served as an unofficial Clinton adviser throughout her tenure as America’s top diplomat. If she makes it back to the White House, nothing can stop her from bringing him into a position of real power.
Mrs. Clinton and her defenders say the email story is a sideshow, but the reason it’s important is because it is revealing so much about how she would govern.
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