So Hillary Clinton admits that she deleted more than 30,000 emails from her private email account — which also included every single email she sent or received during the four years she served as Secretary of State. And we’re supposed to trust her that absolutely no mistakes were made in separating everything into the two piles?
Sure thing. After more than 20 years of lies, evasions and cover-ups by both Hillary and her ex-president husband, we’ve repeatedly seen how willing they are to twist the truth. They’ve proven they will squeeze through even the tiniest of loopholes to justify — or at least disguise — their very questionable behavior. Just a partial list from Hillary’s past includes Travelgate, the Rose law firm billing records, Vince Foster’s files (and death), her 10,000 percent profit in cattle futures, and so much more that she’s swept under the rug.
Trust Hillary Clinton for full disclosure now? It is to laugh.
Hillary says that the reason she used a private email account, with the server somewhere at her home, was that she just couldn’t be bothered carrying two separate devices. It was a matter of “convenience,” don’t you know.
Yet now she admits to using four devices. She said on national TV two weeks ago that she currently carries an iPad, an iPhone, a BlackBerry and an iPad Mini. Well, an aide probably totes most of the electronic gear for her. But still, that’s quite a difference from when she was flying hither, thither and yon as our Secretary of State and insisted that one private device was all she needed.
Ever since 2005, the State Department has had a policy of discouraging the use of personal accounts for government communications. In fact, in 2011 the State Department issued a memo to all employees advising them to “avoid conducting official Department [business] from your personal email accounts.”
That memo was signed by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In typical Clinton fashion, the rules applied to everyone else, but not to her.
And it’s not like that policy wasn’t enforced. Former Ambassador to Kenya Scott Gration told The Daily Caller on March 6 that he was fired by Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills in 2012 in part because of his “use of private email for public work.”
“I make no apology for ‘rocking the boat’ in the State Department to improve physical security, to enhance cyber policy, and to conduct several other initiatives that the State Department Inspector General misrepresented to build the case that Secretary Clinton’s Chief of Staff used to terminate my tenure as the US Ambassador in 2012,” Gration wrote in the email to TheDC and other outlets.
But of course Hillary shouldn’t be expected to abide by every petty-fogging rule, should she? How many times over the years have we seen this attitude of arrogant entitlement?
Hillary says that about half of the emails on her server were business related and have been turned over to the State Department. The total came to some 55,000 printed pages.
She says that the other half, or some 30,000 emails, were personal. They were about such mundane matters as “planning Chelsea’s wedding, my mother’s funeral arrangements, condolence notes to friends, as well as yoga routines [and] family vacations,” she told a press conference on Tuesday.
And here’s the kicker: Hillary claims that all of those personal emails have been deleted from her system. Why? And who made the determination which were business and which were personal?
It’s absurd to think that Hillary herself reviewed every one of more than 60,000 emails, which would come to more than 100,000 pages of documents. The lady has far more important things to do with her time. So who did it? What sort of security clearance did they have? When did it happen?
And most important of all, why was it done? It would have been easy to retain copies of all that correspondence. Wouldn’t have cost anything, either. It would have been smart, too, just in case questions arose later, as they have now. Unless there was something damaging or embarrassing on them.
Instead, somebody — or more likely, a whole bunch of somebodies — spent an enormous amount of time to print off copies of half of her emails and delete the rest.
Something stinks here. What is Hillary Clinton trying to hide?
We may never know. Although several people have suggested that she allow an independent third party to review her server, she says that’s not going to happen. It’s all a matter of privacy, don’t you know.
How much damage will this latest scandal cause? Those who idolize Hillary Clinton will no doubt continue to do so. And those who don’t trust her — count your loyal scribe among them — will remain convinced she is one of the most venal and ambitious politicians this country has ever produced.
But what about the folks in the middle? How much will they care about this strange and suspicious story? If all of this had happened to a Republican, the media would be in a feeding frenzy. Can they ignore the blood in the water now?
We’re about to find out.
Until next time, keep some powder dry.
Chip Wood was the first news editor of The Review of the News and also wrote for American Opinion, our two predecessor publications. He is now the geopolitical editor of Personal Liberty Digest. This article first appeared on PersonalLiberty.com and has been reprinted with permission.
