Upon hearing the news of Hillary Clinton’s closeted email server, progressives went into their natural state – attack mode.
The former secretary of state unambiguously violated the law by housing her official emails in her mansion’s basement rather than government servers, but true believers couldn’t care less. In the same week retired General David Petraeus pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material for giving his mistress access to information for his biography, progressives are unconcerned with the idea of untold numbers of classified communications with administration officials and world leaders sitting on an unsecure server in an estate in Chappaqua, N.Y.
The phrase “double standard” comes to mind, but, as the saying goes, without double standards progressives would have no standards at all.
Upon learning of Clinton’s private storage facility for state secrets, loyalists lined up to throw their credibility on their sword to protect the Bill and Hillary machine.
Lanny Davis, whom I like personally, took to the pages of USA Today to deflect “innuendo,” as he calls it, away from Hillary’s ignoring the law. He wrote of Hillary using a private email account that “the law restricting such private accounts by public officials was changed in 2014.” Indeed, long after she’s left office.
But what Davis doesn’t want you to know is the law also was changed in 2009 to require all official electronic communications regarding government work, including emails and texts, be conducted on government email (which Hillary didn’t use) or a personal one (which she used exclusively) for preservation on the servers where the person works. Since Hillary’s were (and presumably still are) sitting in her basement and not on government servers inside the State Department, well, you can see how that is not following the law.
Davis tries to brush this off by saying, “Secretary Clinton's e-mails were preserved on the server, regardless of whether it was located at home.” That would be fine if the Federal Records Act required emails be stored “somewhere,” but it doesn’t. It requires they be stored in the agency itself.
As it stands now, the only proof they have been preserved at all is the word of Hillary Clinton. That and $2.50 will get you a cup of coffee.
Then Davis writes what will become the mantra of Clintonistas, “More than 50,000 pages had already been turned over.” Some use the number 55,000, but whatever number they use is irrelevant because they’re talking about “pages,” not emails.
An email reading, “Lunch today?” is one page. An email with a news story pasted into it can be any number of pages depending upon how long it is. So 55,000 pages is a worthless number used to sound big, not to give any real information.
And remember, those “pages” are the ones Team Clinton agreed to turn over to the State Department. Which emails were withheld? For what reason? How many were permanently deleted from the private server that housed them because they’d hinder Hillary’s ambitions? After all, the people who “deemed” these pages relevant have their entire financial future resting on Hillary Clinton being elected president.
Deleting emails now can mean a huge payout down the road. Incentives, matter, as much as many would like you think they don’t. And Hillary’s staff has the largest incentive to protect her anyone could imagine.
Lanny then writes, “Fact: To those who argue Mrs. Clinton's server at home was less secure than the one used by State, I answer: Really? Heard of Edward Snowden?” This is too cute by half.
Davis is implying that Clinton’s emails would be no safer at the State Department than they were at her house. There are two problems with this: 1. We know about her secret personal email address only because of a hacker named Guccifer; and 2. The law required them to be stored on State Department servers.
The only purpose of Clinton’s illegal email practices was to shield her communications from congressional investigators conducting their constitutional oversight duties, the national archivists whose job it is to preserve them and the taxpayers who paid for each and every character in them.
I don’t mean to single out Lanny Davis in this. His is just the last defensive piece I read before writing this. It easily could have been countless others who scrambled to explain away the reality of Clinton’s deception.
One common tactic employed by almost all of them is to claim Jeb Bush and Scott Walker did the same thing in their careers. It sounds like “Everyone does it,” right? The only problem is Jeb Bush was governor of Florida at the time, and therefore not subject to the Federal Records Act (the word “federal” is a bit of a giveaway there). And Scott Walker was a county commissioner.
Neither position requires compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. States have their own versions, but the federal law is fairly unambiguous – and every FOIA request that was returned without Clinton’s emails was a direct violation of that law.
So why would people who are otherwise sane (which doesn’t necessarily include Media Matters founder David Brock, who spent a few days on TV looking like a meth-head trying to recite the alphabet backwards to win a hit) go out and embarrass themselves to protect one person? Because there’s money and power in it.
The Clintons have left a wake of ruined lives in their path, but they’ve also created incredibly wealthy people too. Loyalty to the Clintons, especially if you’re willing to sacrifice your credibility to protect theirs, is rewarded as handsomely as disloyalty is destroyed. Those riches come with the caveat that you will be thrown under the bus should it be necessary to protect themselves, but if you make it out the other end unindicted, you will be taken care of.
You could end up broke and in prison, or you could end up a rich Wall Street banker or even an ABC News host. The possibilities are endless. All it will cost you is some integrity and a little piece of your soul. But if you’re inclined to serve the desires of that secretive, law-breaking, power hungry family, how much of either did you really have to being with?