That’s the headline above Juan Williams’ op-ed at The Hill.
Williams is right, but the innuendo is his as he contributes to the Left’s attempt to cover up Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s misbehavior.
Mainstream news shows have now joined conservative websites and magazines in roiling political waters with the suggestion that Hillary Clinton could be indicted. Such charges, the theory goes, would pertain to her sending secret government information over her personal email account while she was secretary of State.
Or, the NLMSM finally is awakening to the depths of Clinton’s misbehavior.
The email story broke last March when the New York Times reported Clinton “used a personal email account to conduct government business as Secretary of State.” In July, the story escalated when the Times incorrectly reported that requests had been made for a criminal investigation of Clinton’s handling of email.
Even after a correction on that story, her totally legal use of a private server while at the State Department became an acceptable short-hand for political opponents….
Use of the private server may not be illegal, but it is against State Department regulations—her State Department regulations—to use a private email address, much less a private server, for government business. Private email addresses are allowed for private emails, but government business—government emails, for instance—must be handled through government addresses, and so via government servers.
Oh, and that non-existent criminal investigation? The FBI doesn’t do security reviews; they’re running an investigation into the potential of her criminal behavior.
…NBC News reported that emails that had been retroactively declared classified had also been sent to the personal email account of former secretary of State Colin Powell and to key aides of his successor, Condoleezza Rice.
No, they weren’t retroactively declared classified. They were classified from their inception because of the classified information contained in them. They were only marked classified retroactively, in belated recognition of their classified nature.
Therein lies the felony aspect of Clinton’s handling of these classified emails and of her handling them via her unprotected private email server. It’s a crime to mishandle classified information; any markings of classification or their lack is wholly irrelevant to that. Indeed, properly marking classified data is part of the required handling of classified data. Clinton, who has said she’s well trained and knows all about handling classified data—and who, as Secretary of State, is the ultimate classification authority of State-originated classified data—knew all of this at the time of her mishandling.
And that bit about Powell and Rice aides similarly mishandling: that’s the Liberal morality we’ve come to know and love. Somebody else did it, so it’s all right for Clinton to do it, too. The rightness or wrongness of her behavior isn’t at all intrinsic in her behavior. The comparison, also, is cynically disingenuous. Powell’s and Rice’s aides’ dozen or so mishandlings stacked against Clinton’s 1,700? The former are certainly wrong, but the numbers show their accidental nature. This is what’s being compared with Clinton’s deliberate disregard.
It has never been shown that Clinton shared information marked as classified at the time it was sent or received.
That’s Williams’ strawman; no one is arguing otherwise. He’ll have to play with his dolly without me.
And of course there is still no evidence that she broke any law.
On the contrary, there are 1,700 instances of mishandling classified information. 50 US Code § 783 makes this mishandling clear.
More broadly, many people beyond the campaign believe the furor contributes to the perception that Clinton is not honest.
Perhaps that’s because these events are showing her dishonesty. We’re up to those 1,700 emails with classified information in them on her private server, including another 81 in the just-released batch that have been—after the fact—marked classified at one level or another.
