Playing dumb only works if people actually believe the act. This is just pitiful:
Keilar pressed Fallon about why the former secretary of state deleted personal emails from her server, and the two had an exchange about the propriety of deleting those emails. "Why didn't she keep them on the server?" Keilar asked. "I don't know what the relevance, the pertinence of that would have been," Fallon replied. "She did keep a copy, an electronic copy in the possession of her lawyer." Fallon added that the State Department initially provided the so-called relevant emails in paper copy and then later Clinton lawyer David Kendall delivered them to the Justice Department in digital form. "Just to be clear, Brian, this is an electronic copy that I imagine is a PDF form that David Kendall retained or is this the actual e-mail with the metadata on it?" Keilar pressed. Fallon said the Justice Department also has possession of the Clinton server. "I don't know what the FBI is going to do with it but they very well may seek to perform any kind of operation on it," Fallon said. Keilar interrupted to clarify. "The wiped server?" she said. "The wiped server, right, Brian?" "I don't know what 'wiped' means," Fallon responded. "The e-mails were deleted."
Advertisement
In fairness to Fallon, he was merely following in the lame footsteps of his boss, who also feigned ignorance about server-wiping machinations. He went on to suggest that the former Hillary staffer who set up Clinton's improper, unsecure email server has decided to plead the fifth in order to avoid a "partisan swirl" on Capitol Hill. But people invoke their Fifth Amendment rights to shield themselves from self-incrimination, not political spectacles. With the FBI investigating the scheme -- including examining whether Hillary's scandalously vulnerable server was exploited by foreign governments -- Bryan Pagliano and his lawyer might suspect that the Clintons may find themselves in the market for some convenient scapegoats as the weeks and months drag on. Pagliano may have concluded that protecting Mrs. Clinton's political ambitions just isn't worth the risk of incurring criminal charges. And then there's this:
The former aide to Hillary Clinton who helped set up and maintain her private email server has declined to talk to the FBI and the State Department inspector general’s office, as well as a congressional committee, invoking his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself, sources familiar with the investigation confirmed to Yahoo News. The move by Bryan Pagliano, who served on Clinton’s 2008 campaign and later as a technology officer in the State Department, to decline to cooperate in two federal probes considerably raises the stakes in the Clinton email investigation, the sources said. It confronts the Justice Department with a decision about whether to grant him immunity in exchange for his testimony...
Advertisement
He's not just running from a political show in Washington, you see; he's declining to cooperate with the feds, too. So much for that spin. Fallon also claims Hillary's campaign has urged Pagliano to cooperate fully with authorities, which he insists Clinton herself has done. This is nonsense: Hillary Clinton has sought to avoid accountability at every turn, starting with the establishment of her unsecure server, the purpose of which was to exert total control over her communications, at the expense of the rules and national security. She only belatedly handed over her emails (the ones she didn't unilaterally delete) to the State Department under heavy pressure -- and State, in turn, only made those hand-picked emails public under court order. Plus, Clinton refused to hand over the server she'd ordered wiped clean until the FBI came knocking. And she's told lie after verifiable lie to justify her reckless and arrogant conduct. I'll leave you with NBC's Today Show crew stating the obvious -- namely, that the blows keep coming for Hillary Clinton, and that Pagliano's actions "do not look good" for her:
Join the conversation as a VIP Member