Poor Hillary Clinton can’t seem to catch a break.
It’s been over six months since the nation first heard about the former secretary of State’s unusual email arrangement, but unlike Obama’s various and sundry scandals, her email scandal refuses to go away.
Six months is a long time in the life of an Obama scandal. It only took two months, for instance, for the IRS scandal to morph from “an outrage” that is “inexcusable” to a “phony scandal” trumped up by Republicans trying to score “political points.” The MSM let that happen. They know how to drop a story when it’s inconvenient, but they hang on like a dog on a bone if it helps further a leftist agenda.
What is the agenda here?
Every day brings new revelations about Clinton’s malfeasance.
– “Hillary Clinton paid to hide the identity of the people running her private email server,” Breitbart News 9/2/15
– “Markings on no fewer than four emails contained on Hillary Clinton’s private system were changed to a category that blocks Congress and the public from viewing their contents, according to State Department whistleblowers,” Washington Free Beacon 9/2/15
– “Staffer who worked on Clinton’s private e-mail server faces subpoena,” Washington Post 9/2/15
– “America’s intelligence agencies are assuming that every communication of America’s Secretary of State for months or more was read by our adversaries. Isn’t that likely to amount to one of the worst intelligence breaches in American history?” National Review 9/2/15
It’s hard to imagine how Clinton’s campaign withstands much more of this without an ace in the hole that magically transforms indictable offenses into a “phony scandal.”
A Daily Beast report from yesterday suggests that this email scandal has the potential to spill into a much wider Obama administration scandal:
Hillary Clinton was far from the only senior Obama appointee to play fast and loose with classified materials, according to Intelligence Community insiders. While most counterspies agree that Hillary’s practices—especially using her own server and having her staffers place classified information into unclassified emails, in violation of Federal law—were especially egregious, any broad-brush investigation into security matters are likely to turn up other suspects, they maintain.
“The whole administration is filled with people who can’t shoot straight when it comes to classified,” an Intelligence Community official explained to me this week. Three U.S. officials suggested that Susan Rice, the National Security Adviser, might be at particular risk if a classified information probe goes wide. But it should be noted that Rice has made all sorts of enemies on the security establishment for her prickly demeanor, use of coarse language, and strategic missteps.
Enter Washington Times columnist and Fox News political analyst Monica Crowley:
The Clintons have never taken a political hit lying down. But given their weak and panicky reactions to Mr. Obama’s current, well-orchestrated hit on her — the FBI investigation into her alleged mishandling of classified material as secretary of state — they have appeared to passively absorb the escalating attack. Until now.
As he presses his attack, Mrs. Clinton has two choices. Option one: fold early and negotiate a mild end to the investigation in exchange for dropping out of the race. But Mr. Obama is not a forgiving sort, and now that he’s drawn blood, he’s likely to go for the kill.
That suggests that the Clintons are going with option two: fight him — as part of an elaborate, unspoken negotiation between them over their secrets and futures. That requires a plausible defense. Their go-to strategy has always been to blame others, or inanimate objects such as documents, servers, “processes” — and to designate a fall guy (or gal) to take the rap.
This is the well-worn path they now appear to be pursuing to try to escape Mr. Obama’s ever-tightening political and legal vise.
A lot depends on how much leverage Ma-Clinton has against Obama.
The Clintons must also go on offense, meaning possibly threatening Mr. Obama with her knowledge of any relationship he may have had with the Clinton Foundation donor network, the lies about Benghazi, and so on.
Crowley speculates that if “Obama holds the meaningful cards in this bloody negotiation, he may greenlight a special prosecutor or indictment of Mrs. Clinton.”
They are in a political death match, for their own futures, and the future of the party, the Obama revolution and the country. It won’t end until one side is destroyed.
Stay tuned, and pop some popcorn!
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