Posted on 05/24/2015 6:27:34 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Ed Morrisey already highlighted some of the early news coming out of the first round of Hillary Clinton emails released by the State Department and there will no doubt be plenty more to come. But as the media covers these new “revelations” (such as they are) there seems to be a fresh narrative emerging. I noticed a few examples of this in the last 24 hours, one of them being the early morning show on CNN today, where weekend anchor Christie Paul was asking yet another guest for commentary about some of the Benghazi news which was showing up in the formerly private messages.
The question at hand involved the lack of a “smoking gun” in what we were learning. That was a curious thing to say on a couple of levels. To wrap our heads around this, here’s the New York Post’s coverage of the story they were discussing. It involves an earlier incident when then-envoy and later Ambassador Chris Stevens was so dismayed by the lack of security surrounding his team that he almost fled the country.
An email sent to the then-secretary of state’s private account with “high” importance described the shelling and snipers surrounding Stevens, who was then serving as special envoy.
“The situation in [the Libyan town of] Ajdabiyah has worsened to the point where Stevens is considering departure from Benghazi,” said an April 10, 2011, email obtained Thursday by The New York Times.
“The envoy’s delegation is currently doing a phased checkout . . . He will monitor the situation to see if it deteriorates further, but no decision has been made about departure. He will wait 2-3 more hours, then revisit the decision on departure.”
Ultimately, Stevens stayed and became ambassador to Libya after the death of dictator Moammar Khadafy.
The “no smoking gun” narrative quickly spread to other outlets.
The messages appear to contain no smoking guns that support GOP allegations that Clinton directly brushed off requests and warnings from staff in Libya about the need for more security at the diplomatic compound in Benghazi.
First, it’s rather shocking that Hillary Clinton decided to include this particular email at all. (And I will grudgingly give her a bit of credit for doing so.) This is not a message devoid of meaning in the larger Benghazi tale. If the final failures which resulted in the death of Stevens and the others, along with the subsequent meltdown in security and stability around the compound, were the true problem, but Secretary Clinton maintains that nobody could have foreseen things going that badly off the rails, this information casts her defense in doubt to say the least. She was obviously aware that better security was needed, but nothing was done to properly address the deficit and that fault for that lies squarely on her shoulders.
But I’ll agree that while this certainly looks bad, it’s not the “smoking gun” which congressional investigators have suspected is lying at the bottom of this mess. But was anyone expecting to find such a poison pill? As journalists rush to examine and analyze this first round of emails, there’s an important bit of recent history which is being blithely ignored in the coverage. Those aren’t all the emails. No matter what you find, we are never, ever going to know if it’s the full story because you’re only seeing the information which the subject of the investigation chose to hand over.
The phrase “smoking gun” is an old one which is frequently attributed to a Sherlock Holmes story from the late 1800s. The meaning is clear and the discovery of such a damning piece of evidence is always the result of clever good guys ferreting out the details which the bad guys would like to see left in the shadows. The bank robber rarely walks up to the cop on the beat, hands him a still warm revolver and says, “Excuse me, but I believe you’re looking for this?”
The emails which are now coming to light merit coverage and I’m not saying we shouldn’t examine them. But context is critical in any thorough journalistic effort, and any report on these documents which doesn’t include the fact that we’re only seeing the cards Hillary Clinton chose to show us is weak tea at best.
I WANT them to release the emails [that I didn’t delete, filter or alter].
“I am admitting by this that State Department owns them by saying I want them to release them. Why did I erase, alter, delete, fold, staple and mutilate State Department emails? They were on MY server, in MY control, against policy and against the law. Where is my server? Oh, I can’t recall, I don’t think you’d be able to show that I had a server in my control, I don’t think you can prove that.....I just don’t have that recollection.................”
We all know that the e-mails are out there somewhere, either in the Cloud, another recipients in-box or on a server still to be found. Just like the IRS E-mails they are there. It only remains for someone to dig them out and make them public. They will be seen. When? That is the 64 dollar question.
And we must assume that Russia, China and Iran all have them. So even if our own lamestream media never finds them, and the NSA won’t disclose them, POTUS Hillary will be wide open to foreign blackmail over the worst disclosures.
Just 4 dead bodies...
BOSTON – Hillary Clinton reiterated that her darkest time as Secy of State was the deadly 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Mrs. Clinton, in a speech to more than 3,000 people at a women’s leadership conference here, called the attack and loss of lives “very, very painful” and “certainly the biggest regret that I have as secretary of state.”
She noted that she had taken responsibility for security at the diplomatic outpost, where Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died, and had pledged to do everything she could to ensure a similar tragedy won’t happen again. (Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
============================================
REALITY CHECK-- The New York Times reports a year later Hillary’s private email account contained official info termed “sensitive but unclassified” (SBU).
According to the May 2015 NY Times article, Secy of State Hillary had '“information that included the whereabouts and travel plans of American officials in Libya as security there deteriorated during the uprising against the leadership of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in 2011.”
Even more egregiously, Hillary was getting sub rosa emails from her henchman, Sidney Blumenthal, an individual who was banned from govt employment by Obama.
The NYT reported on Blumenthal's secret emails
to Hillary (emails she did not want revealed):
<><> Blumenthal was on the payroll of the Clinton Foundation,
<><> at the same time Blumenthal was being paid by political groups aiding 2016 Clinton,
<><> at the same time he was advising a US business seeking Libyan contracts,
<><> at the same time he was secretly advising Secy of State Clinton about Libya.
====================================================
The crimes committed here are so numerous that they boggle even the most astute mind. Just for starters: Collusion, conspiracy, bribery, govt fraud, falsified documents, wire transfers, accounting fraud, misuse of govt position, etc, etc, etc.
"I wish this boob would stop talking so I can think.
Dammit, four dead sure puts a crimp in my presidential plans.
Well, as Bill would say: just blame Republicans."
Although Blumenthal was banned from govt employment, from his paid perch as her employee at the Clinton Foundation, he sent Secy of State Hillary memos on Libya that she forwarded (unattributed and unquestioned)....even as Blumenthal's agit-prop caused eye-rolling among State Dept pros.
Hillary portrays herself as the picture of openness, that she wants her e-mails public as soon as possible. But the Clinton-Blumenthal emails were cleansed off her server until a Romanian hacker came forward.
The Clinton Foundation slush fund---AKA a "charity"---is now exposed as a holding tank for Clinton political operatives.....looks like the various "Clinton charities" are uninformed about the Foundation's aiding the Clintons scheme to return to power.
Blumenthal was sending Hillary memos about Libya at the same time that he was in league with people trying to make money in Libya. Did Blumenthal’s would-be business associates get together and say: “We need to find the best expert we can on North Africa, someone who understands the subtleties of Libyan politics: "Let's get Sidney Blumenthal."
More likely it was: “We need to find someone who has a back channel to Hillary so the State Dept will give our venture the most favorable possible consideration. Let’s get Sidney Blumenthal!” (EDITED EXVERPTS---RICH LOWRY---NY POST OP-ED)
She's a democrat.
And like all democrats her only regret is that she got caught.
Amen.
The best way to predict the future is to create it
It looked like ABC presstitute and Foundation donor Stephanoli had the party-line down pat.....but when Stefanopoli said it, the phrase burned the ***es of his ABC-News bosses.
The Clintons' cadre of puckered-up ***-kissers (lying-in-wait for federal jobs)---are spinning like crazy----blathering about "not a shred of evidence" of criminal wrongdoing.
As ABC's George Stephanopoulos helpfully parroted in the Clinton Cash interview: "There's no smoking gun." The party-line is that "it’s extremely difficult to identify a direct quid pro quo"....b/c while Hillary was Secy of State, foreign funny money was moving around from hand to hand with big money deals approved which she could say were going to be approved anyway.
And at the same time, all that foreign money was floating around, it was flowing into the "charitable Clinton Foundation"..... not into Hillary’s bank account
(waiting for hysterical laughter to die down)
ABC-TV News is reportedly standing by Stephanopoulos.....but for how long? Because if they truly think it’s not a problem, then the “smoking gun” points not just to the credibility of Clinton donor George Stephanopoulos, but to ABC-TV News, as well.
Of course there are no smoking guns in the e mails released by the state department because the smoking guns went up in smoke when Hillary’s crew hit the delete button before they got to State and sent them sanitized pap that state is now releasing.
Post 6 is correct, Hillary as pres will be under the thumb of donors and foreign governments.
`Man, what a surprise!
The tiny number of e-mails that Shrillary decided to release do not support charges of malfeasance and criminal negligence.
Well, let’s call the whole thing off.’
Your GOP-e
This woman needs to go to jail.
But what is even more troubling is all the enablers. The vast majority of democrats that will continue to stand up for her. All of the msm, which is a complete and total failure in this country, will be her cover.
Benghazi ping.
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