The FACTS of the Hillary Email Scandal

The Clinton email scandal may have broken just this past March but the facts surrounding the scandal date back to Hillary’s confirmation as Secretary of State.  Since that time a slow but steady drip of facts, which build a telling case in regards to the inappropriate use of Mrs. Clinton’s private email account and handling of the public record, has amassed.  Here are those facts!

FACT:    Facing certain confirmation as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton had a private email server set up in her home to which her private email account would reside on, an email account which she used exclusively to conduct official State Department business throughout her tenure at the State Department.  This meant that no agency within the Federal Government, or anywhere else for that matter, had access to her record and her record was not being archived.

 

FACT:    Hillary Clinton was sworn in as Secretary of State on January 21, 2009.

 

FACT:    In December of 2009 the National Archives and Records Administration issue regulations requiring agencies which allowed employees to conduct official business on nonofficial email accounts to ensure those records were preserved “in the appropriate agency recordkeeping system.”

 

FACT:    On the evening of September 11, 2012, the US consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya was attacked.  4 Americans lost their lives in the 8 hour attack and many more were injured.

 

FACT:    On September 20, 2012 chairman of the House Oversight Committee's Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations, Rep. Jason Chaffetz sent a letter to then-Secretary of State Clinton asking for "all information … related to the attack on the consulate {in Benghazi}."

 

FACT:    Just prior to Hillary’s departure as Secretary of State, officials at the National Archives and Records Administration were in communications with the State Department regarding plans on how they were going to go about preserving Hillary’s record during her tenure as Secretary of State.

 

FACT:    In a letter dated December 13, 2012, to Hillary Clinton, from Representative Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, he asks “Have you or any senior agency official ever used a personal email account to conduct official business?”  In the letter he also asked, “If so, please identify the account used.”  Hillary Clinton never responded to Issa’s letter.

 

FACT:    Hillary Clinton’s final day as Secretary of State was February 1, 2013

 

FACT:    Upon Hillary’s departure from the State Department, she willfully and consciously did NOT turn over any form of her record to the department or the National Archive, which is required by all senior officials in government.

 

FACT:    On March 27, 2013 the State Department responded to Darrell Issa’s December 13, 2012 letter to Hillary Clinton, which asked several questions pertaining to whether Hillary Clinton had a private email account and Department policies on the subject.  The State Department did not respond to any questions pertaining to private email accounts and gave only general answers to policy related questions.

 

FACT:    On March 29, 2013, in a letter addressed to Darrell Issa {then Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee}, from State official Thomas Gibbons, Gibbons addressed the Chairman’s frustration with the State Department’s failure to provide access to requested documents.  Gibbons wrote that the Stated Department had "provided Congress with access to documents, comprising over 25,000 pages to date, including communications of senior Department officials regarding the security situation in Benghazi,".  The documents Gibbons was referring to where those that oversight was provided only “camera review” access to in a supervised environment.

 

FACT:    On August 1, 2013 congressional oversight committee investigating the attack on Benghazi issued a subpoena to the State Department {addressed to Sec of State John Kerry} demanding that all documents that had previously been made available to oversight only in “camera review” as well as others relating to Benghazi be turned over to oversight so that they could be properly reviewed.

 

FACT:    On September 29, 2013 the House Committee on Foreign Affairs releases its report on Benghazi in which it stated:

“The State Department has refused to provide copies of critical documents to the Committee, including emails and memoranda between key officials. For over a year, it has permitted Committee staff to review them only in camera, which means that the Committee cannot maintain possession of the documents and is not allowed to make photocopies. The Department has further insisted that one of its own employees be present during limited review periods, which constrains the ability of staff to speak openly about the information. These circumstances are unique to the Benghazi investigation, and the Department has refused to offer a legal justification for its behavior.”

 

FACT:    On January 15, 2014 the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence releases its report on Benghazi in which it stated:

                “Disturbing Lack of Cooperation by the State Department  -  As the Committee attempted to piece together key events before, during, and after the attacks, we faced the most significant and sustained resistance from the State Department in obtaining documents, access to witnesses, and responses to questions.”

and

“While the Committee has completed its report, important questions remain unanswered as a direct result of the Obama Administration's failure to provide the Committee with access to necessary documents and witnesses. We believe the Administration's lack of cooperation is directly contrary to its statutory obligation to keep the congressional intelligence committees fully and currently informed and has effectively obstructed the Committee's efforts to get to the ground truth with respect to these remaining questions. Too often, providing timely and complete information to Congress is viewed by the Administration as optional or an accommodation, rather than compliance with a statutory requirement.”

 

FACT:    On October 28, 2014, the State Department, for the first time, asked Hillary Clinton to return her public record to the State Department.

 

FACT:    Sometime after October 2014, but not before scrutinizing and printing out what she and her lawyer(s) determent to be the public record, Hillary Clinton made the decision to have the hard drive of her email server wiped clean thus deleting the only known and complete public record of her time served at the State Department.

 

FACT:    On December 5, 2014, attorneys of Hillary Clinton delivered dozens of boxes containing 50,000 pages of printed emails to the State Department, roughly 900 pages {about 300 emails} of which the State Department later claimed were related to Benghazi.

 

FACT:    On February 13, 2015, from the 50,000 pages provided to the department on December 5, 2014, the State Department turned over approximately 300 of Hillary Clinton’s emails {roughly 900 pages} the department deemed related to Benghazi.

 

FACT:    Sometime in mid-February, while reviewing a group of about 300 emails the State Department turned over to the Select Committee on Benghazi, investigators discovered the private email address that Hillary Clinton had been using while serving as Secretary of State.

 

FACT:    On March 2, 2015 New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt broke the story of Hillary Clinton’s home brewed email server.

 

FACT:    On March 10, 2015, while attending a UN Conference, Hillary held a press brief where she for the first time spoke publically on the matter of her private email account and private server arrangement.  Hillary stated “I feel like I've taken unprecedented steps for these emails to be in the public domain", "I went above and beyond what I was requested to do."  Hillary also stated that she did not use the server to send any classified information, and only emailed one foreign leader {from the United Kingdom} during her time at State.  Hillary also stated that her email server would remain private.

 

FACT:    In a letter from Hillary’s lawyer David Kendall to Chairman Trey Gowdy, dated March 27, 2015, in response to Gowdy’s earlier request that the Clinton email server be turned over to an independent 3^rd party, Kendall informed Gowdy that the hard drive had been erased of all emails “Thus, there are no hdr22@clintonemail.com emails from Secretary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state on the server for any review, even if such review were appropriate or legally authorized,”

 

FACT:    On June 22, 2015, the Select Committee on Benghazi released emails to/from Hillary, it had obtained during the course of its investigation, that should have but were not included in the documents turned over to the committee from the State Department thus discrediting any claim that the State Department obtains or has turned over the complete record of Benghazi related documents to the committee.

 

FACT:    On July 24, 2015 government investigators release the news that they found classified information on the private email account Hillary Clinton used during her tenure as Secretary of State.

 

FACT:    On August 11, 2015 it was revealed, by investigators, identified two emails, from Hillary’s private email account, which contained “Top Secret” information.

 
These are the facts and nothing but the facts.  What do they tell us?  We’ll that all depends on what a particular person’s interpretation of the fact are and/or, how much fiction is injected in between the facts and how politically motivated one might be to alter the facts to best suit their agenda and how many of the facts are simply ignored.

Who Stands to Lose the most from Emailgate?

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.

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!