Conflicts of interests and blurry ethical lines mark nearly everything the Clintons have ever touched. The more that is known about Hillary’s e-mail scandal, the more obvious it becomes that corruption is something of a family trait. The dog-and-pony show which was sold to the American people as an investigation into Hillary’s e-mail may not have resulted in any real action against anyone of Team Clinton, but recently released transcripts of FBI interviews conducted during the investigation shed new light on just how deep the rabbit hole goes.
One transcript (though redacted in such a way as to leave more questions than answers) shows that Bryan Pagliano was not the only government employee moonlighting to work on Hillary’s unsecured, unauthorized, private e-mail server. A Secret Service agent assigned to protect former President Bill Clinton was also doing work on the server.
The agent (who’s name and dates of service on Bill’s security detail are redacted) told investigators that he worked on the server to provide “network assessments” and other troubleshooting tech support. He also told investigators that he performed similar work for the Clinton Foundation. The transcript says he “assisted the Clinton Foundation in a case related to theft of information on the Clinton Foundation Information systems.”
The transcript for the May 25, 2016 interview with the Secret Service agent says that he
was assigned to the protective detail of WILLIAM CLINTON from [redacted] to [redacted]. Because of [redacted] information technology (IT) skills, he was asked to do network assessments and troubleshoot IT issues at the Clinton Foundation. From [redacted] to [redacted] assisted the Clinton Foundation in a case related to the theft of information on the Clinton Foundation information systems.
That statement, of course, goes against the mantra of Team Clinton that they had no reason to be concerned about the security of Hillary’s server. If the systems at the Clinton Foundation had been breached, it is a short step to the breaching of the e-mail server housed in the Clinton bathroom. After all, hackers routinely penetrate one system to gain information related to other systems operated by the same people or organizations. Once hackers were able to access the Clinton Foundation’s systems, reaching out to Hillary’s private e-mail server would have been the obvious next step.
Of course, this all also supports a reasonable conclusion that there was no clear line of demarcation between the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton State Department or any other entity under the control of the Clintons. Bill and Hillary seem to be missing the basic decency to realize the impropriety of having government employees assigned to them also working for them in other (secret) ways.
Besides showing those blurry lines, the transcript makes it obvious that something is not quite right with the Secret Service agent’s statement. The transcript says the Secret Service agent
was contacted by JUSTIN COOPER in January 2011 to assist with the security of an email server at the Clinton residence in Chappaqua, New York. [redacted] did not physically or remotely access the server in the residence at Chappaqua. [redacted] was not aware of the hardware components of the server or software installed on the server. [redacted] conducted open source research relating to the security of email servers and contacted BRYAN PAGLIANO to recommend adding outbound IP filtering to the server. [redacted] received PAGLIANO’S name and contact information from COOPER. [redacted] was aware of no information pertaining to the email server located in Chappaqua.
Anyone with any understanding of computer problems and solutions sees that there is something wrong here. For the rest of you, perhaps it would be easier to spot by way of comparison. Let us imagine that this transcript was about a Secret Service agent performing automotive mechanical work for the Clinton Foundation’s cars. Then, in 2011 that agent is asked to do research for a problem with one of the Clinton’s personal cars. But — and here is where this begins to come loose — he doesn’t know what kind of car it is, what fuel (gas, diesel, electric) it uses, or how it is driven. He simply does research on how to improve the fuel efficiency of cars and then sends that information along to the guy who has actually seen the car. Make sense? I don’t think so either. Not only would such research be worthless, it is obvious that Pagliano could have easily done the same online search himself, since he had access to the server and could limit the search to the components and software actually being used.
Trying to make sense of almost anything the Clintons have been involved in is like trying to unscramble an egg. And in almost every case, the egg is rotten.
Photo of Bill and Hillary Clinton: AP Images
