On Tuesday, Trey Gowdy, the chairman of the Select Committee on
Benghazi, formally invited Hillary Clinton to participate in a private,
transcribed interview to be held on a date of her discretion but no later than
May 1.
This special invitation to the former Secretary of State stemmed from the reply the committee received to their request that Hillary’s private email server, of which she conducted State Department business on, be turned over to an independent third party for further scrutiny. In the reply from Hillary’s attorney, it was stated that not only would the Clinton email server not be made available but that it was unnecessary to do so as the period in which the committee was interested in scrutinizing {the period in which Hillary served as Secretary of State} had been scrubbed from the server’s hard drive as well as all back-up sources.
Short of the hard drive being destroyed or coming up missing, extraordinary measure continue to be taken to prevent the emails records of the former Secretary of State from being made available to the various congressional oversight committees, as well as the media and general public.
The efforts taken to control the custody of her emails, dating back to the creation of a private email account and on to the more recent effort to conceal the contents of what may be on the Clinton’s private email server, are highly troubling to say the least and certainly not they kind of actions one would expect from a person considering to take a run at the White House. This begs the question as to who might be more interested in keeping the contents of Hillary’s emails out of the hands of the people she served than Hillary herself?
When the story of Hillary’s private email account and server first broke, it was immediately obvious that the media had only a cursory interested in the story. This created the opportune time for Hillary to get in front of the spin, to come clean and let the story run its course. The Clinton’s have been finding their way through political tight spots for decades and this would have been a cake walk for Hillary. The media would have played soft ball with the grand confessions of the 2016 presidential hopeful and the story would have been over almost before it started.
But something is very different this time and with each poorly played chess move made by Hillary, the situation worsens. These are not the actions a typically well planned Clinton offense with the quarterback reading the lineup and calling an audible. Instead what we seem to have is poor plays being sent in from someone on the sidelines with a very different end game in mind than scoring the big “W” for the Hillary.
Of all those who we can speculate might get hurt if something damaging exists on the Clinton email server, Hillary has the least to lose. Sure, she would find it nice to make history and be the nation’s first woman president but Hillary is also well aware that under the given set of circumstances she would have, at the very least, a troublesome presidency being that she would be follow a failed administration led by someone who democrats wish to portray as a legacy. There would be a big push from within the party for her to tread lightly and move slowly so as not to make the previous administration look like a total failure. Hillary also knows she would face a large contingent of liberal democrats who would push hard for her to move more to the left. And these are just the challenges she would be facing from her own party! Hillary would be 69 years of age if she were to win the White House in 2016, does she really need all of this?
President Obama has more to lose than Hillary. If in fact information that resides on the Clinton email server could implicate him in committing or being a part of what could be defined as a higher crime or misdemeanor he could face impeachment. But if evidence of this nature were to be found, this would merely sets the wheels of impeachment in motion. A great deal of footwork would be necessary so as to be certain that actions warranting articles of impeachment to be filed truly did exist. Impeachment is not a matter to be taken lightly as accusing the leader of the free world, of whom was elected “by the people”, will have a significant negative implications both home and abroad, guilty or not!
And if such evidence that would warrant articles of impeachment were uncovered, the question would then have to be answered if enough time remains to impeach a sitting president and if so, does the will of congress exist to do so? Considering the time it will take to finally learn what might be on the Clinton email server, assuming we ever do, and then the time it would take to do all the necessary investigative work and build a case sellable to congress, the odds of impeaching President Obama, while still in office, is pretty slim and grows smaller with each passing day. While the expiration of service from office does not put an automatic end to impeachment proceedings, it does make them a moot point as other than to be used as an entry in history books, the only action of impeachment is to remove someone from office.
Keeping all this in mind, if in fact President Obama did engage in some form of wrong doing, the secrets of which are hidden on the Clinton email server, what the president does have to lose is how he will be portrayed in the history books. If the president were to be impeached there would be chapters, even entire books written on his failed and corrupt presidency while if he were to leave office prior to the completion of the impeachment proceedings, which would most likely be the case, the impeachment process would foster little more than a paragraph.
This special invitation to the former Secretary of State stemmed from the reply the committee received to their request that Hillary’s private email server, of which she conducted State Department business on, be turned over to an independent third party for further scrutiny. In the reply from Hillary’s attorney, it was stated that not only would the Clinton email server not be made available but that it was unnecessary to do so as the period in which the committee was interested in scrutinizing {the period in which Hillary served as Secretary of State} had been scrubbed from the server’s hard drive as well as all back-up sources.
Short of the hard drive being destroyed or coming up missing, extraordinary measure continue to be taken to prevent the emails records of the former Secretary of State from being made available to the various congressional oversight committees, as well as the media and general public.
The efforts taken to control the custody of her emails, dating back to the creation of a private email account and on to the more recent effort to conceal the contents of what may be on the Clinton’s private email server, are highly troubling to say the least and certainly not they kind of actions one would expect from a person considering to take a run at the White House. This begs the question as to who might be more interested in keeping the contents of Hillary’s emails out of the hands of the people she served than Hillary herself?
When the story of Hillary’s private email account and server first broke, it was immediately obvious that the media had only a cursory interested in the story. This created the opportune time for Hillary to get in front of the spin, to come clean and let the story run its course. The Clinton’s have been finding their way through political tight spots for decades and this would have been a cake walk for Hillary. The media would have played soft ball with the grand confessions of the 2016 presidential hopeful and the story would have been over almost before it started.
But something is very different this time and with each poorly played chess move made by Hillary, the situation worsens. These are not the actions a typically well planned Clinton offense with the quarterback reading the lineup and calling an audible. Instead what we seem to have is poor plays being sent in from someone on the sidelines with a very different end game in mind than scoring the big “W” for the Hillary.
Of all those who we can speculate might get hurt if something damaging exists on the Clinton email server, Hillary has the least to lose. Sure, she would find it nice to make history and be the nation’s first woman president but Hillary is also well aware that under the given set of circumstances she would have, at the very least, a troublesome presidency being that she would be follow a failed administration led by someone who democrats wish to portray as a legacy. There would be a big push from within the party for her to tread lightly and move slowly so as not to make the previous administration look like a total failure. Hillary also knows she would face a large contingent of liberal democrats who would push hard for her to move more to the left. And these are just the challenges she would be facing from her own party! Hillary would be 69 years of age if she were to win the White House in 2016, does she really need all of this?
President Obama has more to lose than Hillary. If in fact information that resides on the Clinton email server could implicate him in committing or being a part of what could be defined as a higher crime or misdemeanor he could face impeachment. But if evidence of this nature were to be found, this would merely sets the wheels of impeachment in motion. A great deal of footwork would be necessary so as to be certain that actions warranting articles of impeachment to be filed truly did exist. Impeachment is not a matter to be taken lightly as accusing the leader of the free world, of whom was elected “by the people”, will have a significant negative implications both home and abroad, guilty or not!
And if such evidence that would warrant articles of impeachment were uncovered, the question would then have to be answered if enough time remains to impeach a sitting president and if so, does the will of congress exist to do so? Considering the time it will take to finally learn what might be on the Clinton email server, assuming we ever do, and then the time it would take to do all the necessary investigative work and build a case sellable to congress, the odds of impeaching President Obama, while still in office, is pretty slim and grows smaller with each passing day. While the expiration of service from office does not put an automatic end to impeachment proceedings, it does make them a moot point as other than to be used as an entry in history books, the only action of impeachment is to remove someone from office.
Keeping all this in mind, if in fact President Obama did engage in some form of wrong doing, the secrets of which are hidden on the Clinton email server, what the president does have to lose is how he will be portrayed in the history books. If the president were to be impeached there would be chapters, even entire books written on his failed and corrupt presidency while if he were to leave office prior to the completion of the impeachment proceedings, which would most likely be the case, the impeachment process would foster little more than a paragraph.
So Hillary Clinton might have to forfeit a run for the presidency and President Obama might have a harsh paragraph written about him in the history books if in fact there were something on the Clinton email server that implicated either of them of wrong doing. Initially, conservative media outlets would be demanding prosecution and jail time while the liberal media outlets would spin a story that he or she {or both} made a “poor choice” and then drop the story from the news cycle before weeks end. And within a few months, the fallout would be over and a lucrative speaking career would commence.
But there is in fact a big loser in all of this if damaging information from the Clinton email server does manage to surface that implicated either Obama or Hillary and that loser would be the entire Democratic Party!
Over the two and a half years since the Benghazi tragedy, congressional democrats, democratic pundits and millions of self-proclaimed political experts from the left have been unrelenting in their efforts to create the perception that “There is no there there”, but it has proven difficult for their efforts to gain any traction due to the constant drip drip drip of new events that contradict the “There is no there there” argument. These continued drips of new events gives the clear appearance that the State Department is hiding something, the most recent and certainly the most compelling of course being the concealing of emails and email server by the former Secretary of State. This coupled with the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) complete lack of interest in looking in to any of the apparent wrong doings and the Chief Executive’s failure to compel the DOJ to do so, has put the Democratic Party in a very precarious position if a cover-up or scandal is ever exposed.
Protecting President Obama and his scandal ridden administration has created a very difficult situation for the Democratic Party. The party has so deeply invested itself in this effort and done so for so long that any truth brought to any of the scandals and cover-ups surrounding the administration will have a long and lasting negative impact on the democratic brand. The number of times leading democrats have gone on-record in defense of questionable actions of this administration are too numerous to count as well as are the number of times they have demonized republicans, claiming they are on a witch hunt in an effort to cause harm to the president. In far too many cases, the demonization of republicans by these democrats has included a racial component to them, making their situation even worse.
If their effort to protect the president and his administration fails, any democrat that has jumped on the “There is nothing there” bandwagon will be void of any credibility as well as will have opened themselves up to what will no doubt be a great deal of public scrutiny that will follow them for the rest of their political careers.
And if Emailgate breaks and has legs to a Benghazi cover-up, this will be just the tip of the iceberg as once it is learned that one cover-up is real, Republican’s will be relentless in their efforts to expose the truth behind the countless other scandals and cover-ups that surround the Obama Administration and this time they will not have to push back against democratic lawmakers or the liberal media as they will have all been silenced. If Emailgate breaks, it could get really ugly for Democrats.
So what is this all about anyway, what could anyone possibly be hiding that makes it worth the risk of damaging the party so deeply? Nobody knows for certain, with exception of Hillary and possibly some of her closest confidants, exactly what digital secrets lie embedded on the hard drive of the Clinton email server, but for the betting man or woman, the answer to the question is Benghazi!
From all the congressional investigations that have taken place, we know with a high level of certainty, of the failures that took place within the State Department during the months, weeks and even days before the Benghazi attack. There is also a reasonable level of knowledge of what took place in the days and weeks after the Benghazi attack with exception of a few remaining unanswered questions. But what is still a great mystery is what took place between the White House and the State Department during the critical eight hours of the attack itself.
No reasonable explanation has ever been given as to why neither the President nor the Secretary of State ever found their way to the Situation Room at any point during the entire eight hours of the Benghazi ordeal. The President was in the White House the entire time, spending some time at his residence and the majority of his time in the Oval Office. Some of the President’s time in the Oval Office was filled by a lengthy scheduled phone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and a 30 minute meeting with a few of his staff. Beyond that, the president is believed to have been alone in his office for most of the attack. There were no other scheduled meetings or phone calls on his schedule and no account of the remainder of his time has ever been provided.
The Secretary’s story is similar. During the entire Benghazi ordeal, to the best of anyone’s knowledge, she remained in or near her State Department office, just a few blocks away from the White House and Situation Room where the attack was being monitored and where the real time information is received. No explanation has ever been provided as to why neither of them made their way to the Situation Room at some point during the lengthy attack.
Initially, it was reported, by the White House, that the President and the Secretary never spoke directly until just before the Rose Garden speech and then had their first formal meeting shortly after. It was not learned until a few months later, and only due to an accidental slip of the lounge by then Press Secretary Jay Carney, that the President and the Secretary had a brief phone conversation just minute before Hillary released the public brief which included the first blaming of the attack on an internet video. Prior to this slip by Jay Carney, it had been denied that the President and Secretary had spoken or corresponded directly, at any time during the attack.
Nobody has ever ascertained just exactly who was in charge, here at home, during the Benghazi attack. White House spokespersons have been very elusive when ask the question and answer by saying that “the president’s team” kept him abreast of the situation. There has never been a direct tie to who the Secretary or the President spoke with, during the attack nor who was making critical decisions. And of course, no answer has ever been given as to who directed, or even suggested to Hillary to float the claim that the attack was a result of an internet video.
Answering all the unanswered questions surrounding the eight hours of the Benghazi attack was the goal of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. This committee encountered tremendous pushback and a lack of cooperation during their investigation, not just from the White House and State Department but from the Democrats on the committee. While this committee’s investigation is still open, it has been placed on hold in lieu of the more able Select Committee on Benghazi being formed.
And it is the result of the work from the Select Committee on Benghazi that has led to the discovery of the Secretary’s private email addresses and the Clinton email server, which now has become the focal point of the investigation, only because of the refusal by the former Secretary to turn the email sever over to a third party for scrutiny.
Based on the extreme effort being put forth to keep the contents of the Clinton email server secret, one can only conclude that it contains something very damaging to someone, something so damaging that they are willing to protect the contents of the server by any means possible.
And to think, all this because of someone’s bad decision to blame a terrorist attack on an internet video!
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