MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski may be voting for Hillary Clinton, but she’s not too particularly happy about it. It’s been on the main points of criticism the Morning Joe has lobbed against the Clinton campaign, which is their utter inability, or apathy, towards being fully transparent regarding the former secretary of state’s email usage. So far, virtually every thing Clinton has said about her email usage has been undercut, or straight-up torpedoed, by the discovery of new work-related emails, like the 30 related to Benghazi that she deleted and didn’t turn over, the inspector general report from the State Department that showed that Clinton didn’t come to officials to seek authority to set up a private email server and if she had—it would’ve been rejected. Then, FBI Director James Comey delivered a blistering statement in July, where he pretty much killed the rest of the Clinton narrative regarding her email usage. He said that 110 emails on 52 separate emails chains were later determined to contain classified information. While he refused to press charges, citing lack of intent, Comey did say that Clinton and her team were “extremely careless” in handling sensitive information:
For example, seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters. There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.
Clinton incredulously said that Comey just reaffirmed that everything she has said about her emails has been truthful. Not true. She later said that she short-circuited in that response. Regardless of what the Clinton campaign tries to spin from the FBI’s findings, the issues surrounding her email usage isn’t going away. In fact, it could reach renewed discussion with the latest discovery of unreleased Benghazi communications.
Brzezinski nailed how the public will see this: Clinton, Benghazi, and hidden emails. Oh, with the added character flaw that she’s untrustworthy. Former CNBC host Donny Deutsch said that this development was “mushy,” which the MSNBC host responded by saying, “ No, it’s not mushy. Oh my god, people are not that dumb.” Deutsch conceded that Clinton is untrustworthy. She’s not going to shake that, but voters view Trump as unstable, which will lose to issues of untrustworthiness at the ballot box. David Rutz at The Washington Free Beacon clipped the exchange:
But you know what, people, when they get out there in the ether, today’s headline is 30 emails. Benghazi. Hidden,” Brzezinski said. “That doesn’t help. Sorry. 30 missing emails about Benghazi? That just doesn’t help.”Liberal “branding expert” Donny Deutsch tried to spin, saying it was simply making Clinton’s case “mushier and gooshier,” but Brzezinski balked.
“No, it’s not mushy. Oh my God,” she said. “People are not that dumb.”
“Not a matter of dumb,” Deutsch said, “She’s untrustworthy. We get it. What’s baked into [Donald] Trump is he’s dangerous and unstable.”
In May, Brzezinski hit Clinton and her minions for continuing the narrative that they didn’t do anything wrong, prompting her to ask fellow MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell if Clinton is straight-up lying at this point regarding her emails. Mitchell declined to indulge, but did say that there are many inconsistences with her story about her email server. I mean, I guess one redoubt in Clinton’s defense is that the emails that were later determined to be classified weren’t properly labeled. It amounted to about three documents, which Comey clarified when asked by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) if it was true that Clinton did not send of receive any emails that were marked classified. Comey said that wasn’t true.
So, Clinton didn’t know what information was actually classified, despite being an original classification authority. She was just too unsophisticated to know what the markers meant. That’s not exactly the best defense, framing the former secretary of state as too incompetent to know what information was sensitive so it was permissible for her to be reckless in safeguarding potential state secrets.
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