State Department hides disclosure of hidden Hillary emails under cover of pope in New York and Boehner resignation By Thomas Lifson
Doing its best to minimize damage to the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, the State Department released news that new private server emails that were not turned over by her earlier had been discovered. Bradley Klapper of the AP writes:
The Obama administration has discovered a chain of emails that Hillary Rodham Clinton failed to turn over when she provided what she said was the full record of work-related correspondence as secretary of state, officials told The Associated Press Friday, adding to the growing questions related to the Democratic presidential front-runner’s unusual usage of a private email account and server while in government.
The messages were exchanged with retired Gen. David Petraeus when he headed the military’s U.S. Central Command, responsible for running the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They began before Clinton entered office and continued into her first days at the State Department. They largely pertained to personnel matters and don’t appear to deal with highly classified material, officials said, but their existence challenges Clinton’s claim that she has handed over the entirety of her work emails from the account.
There are actually two Hillary Clinton lies revealed by this release. One is that the sworn statement she submitted to a court that she handed over all emails is false. (But there may be Clintonian wiggle room in that statement – see below). The second is a serious lie she propagated about when she started using her private server. Reuters explains:
The emails with Petraeus also appear to contradict the claim by Clinton’s campaign that she used a private BlackBerry email account for her first two months at the department before setting up her clintonemail.com account in March 2009. This was the reason her campaign gave for not handing over any emails from those two months to the State Department.
The Petraeus exchange shows she started using the clintonemail.com account by January 2009, according to the State Department.
This is a deliberate lie, and it most likely means that there was some serious discussion going on during that initial period – discussions that absolutely must not come to light – foundational material that explains what Hillary was up to and why she was adopting the email arrangements she did, for instance.
Given the very lawyerly language of her sworn statement, Hillary may be able to avoid successful prosecution for perjury:
While I do not know what information may be ‘responsive’ for the purposes of this law suit …
Translation: If there is something missing, it was because I didn’t know it was related to the demand for information.
… I have directed that all my emails on Clintonemail.com in my custody that were or potentially were federal records be provided to the Department of State, and on information and belief, this has been done.
Translation: She gave the orders, so if there are any problems, blame them on the staff. In the end, it will come down to a claim of incompetence as a leader. But that is preferable to jail, and any D.C. jury is likely to let her skate.
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