Email Scandal: Clinton Wins A Battle, But Did She Lose The War?
Law Enforcement:
Hillary Clinton partisans might want to re-cork those champagne bottles
after FBI Director James Comey let her off the legal hook for her
reckless use of an unsecured email system while secretary of state. The
reaction to Comey's decision from otherwise erstwhile friends has been
vicious.
While protecting Clinton from being charged with any crime, Comey made it painfully obvious to anyone but the most blinkered Hillary supporter that she has been lying about her email set-up for more than a year, that she recklessly exposed national security secrets to prying eyes, and that the whole affair calls her qualifications for being president into question.
The result has been to underscore her failings, while exposing the fact that she's being given special treatment.
Consider the reliably pro-Democratic New York Times' take in its lead story on Wednesday.
"Hillary Clinton may not be indicted on criminal charges over her handling of classified email, but the FBI director, James B. Comey, all but indicted her judgment and competence on Tuesday -- two vital pillars of her presidential candidacy -- and in the kind of terms that would be politically devastating in a normal election year."
Times reporter Patrick Healy goes on to note: "In just a few minutes of remarks, Mr. Comey called into question Mrs. Clinton's claims of superiority more memorably, mightily and effectively than Mr. Trump has over the entire past year. And with potentially lasting consequences."
Ouch.
The Associated Press, meanwhile, ran a story noting that "key assertions by Hillary Clinton in defense of her email practices have collapsed under FBI scrutiny."
Comey's decision, the AP reports, "may have aggravated questions of trust swirling around her Democratic presidential candidacy."
The story goes on to show how six claims about her email set up were false.
Videos are popping up on the web contrasting claims Hillary made with Comey's findings, making her lies as plain as day.
Liberal-leaning columnist Walter Shapiro blasted Hillary, saying that "Comey's cascade of carelessness is an indictment of a woman who is partly running for president on her ability to handle a 3 a.m. emergency phone call on a secure line." He says that "Democrats are saddled with their most flawed nominee since an exhausted party nominated John W. Davis on the 103rd ballot in 1924."
CNN reports that: "The Tuesday announcement also set off a torrent of anger and frustration among some of Bernie Sanders' most die-hard supporters."
David Lightman, writing for McClatchy, said that Comey's report "is likely to hurt the former secretary of state. 'It plays right into the perception that Clinton is not trustworthy,' said Tobe Berkovitz, a former media consultant who's now an associate professor of advertising at Boston University."
Left-wing journalist Glenn Greenwald called Comey's decision: "A tawdry byproduct of a criminal justice mentality in which -- as I documented in my 2011 book 'With Liberty and Justice for Some' -- those who wield the greatest political and economic power are virtually exempt from the rule of law, even when they commit the most egregious crimes."
Greenwald's point is strengthened by the fact that Justice prosecuted a Naval Reservist just last year for almost exactly the same offenses that Hillary was engaged in -- storing classified material on a personal device -- even though he, like Clinton, did so without any malicious intent.
Of course, many of these folks attacking Hillary today will fall back in line and resume their ceaseless Trump-bashing tomorrow.
But it will be hard for anyone to erase the depiction of Clinton's dangerous, lawbreaking incompetence that Comey has now cast in stone.
While protecting Clinton from being charged with any crime, Comey made it painfully obvious to anyone but the most blinkered Hillary supporter that she has been lying about her email set-up for more than a year, that she recklessly exposed national security secrets to prying eyes, and that the whole affair calls her qualifications for being president into question.
The result has been to underscore her failings, while exposing the fact that she's being given special treatment.
Consider the reliably pro-Democratic New York Times' take in its lead story on Wednesday.
"Hillary Clinton may not be indicted on criminal charges over her handling of classified email, but the FBI director, James B. Comey, all but indicted her judgment and competence on Tuesday -- two vital pillars of her presidential candidacy -- and in the kind of terms that would be politically devastating in a normal election year."
Times reporter Patrick Healy goes on to note: "In just a few minutes of remarks, Mr. Comey called into question Mrs. Clinton's claims of superiority more memorably, mightily and effectively than Mr. Trump has over the entire past year. And with potentially lasting consequences."
Ouch.
The Associated Press, meanwhile, ran a story noting that "key assertions by Hillary Clinton in defense of her email practices have collapsed under FBI scrutiny."
Comey's decision, the AP reports, "may have aggravated questions of trust swirling around her Democratic presidential candidacy."
The story goes on to show how six claims about her email set up were false.
Videos are popping up on the web contrasting claims Hillary made with Comey's findings, making her lies as plain as day.
Liberal-leaning columnist Walter Shapiro blasted Hillary, saying that "Comey's cascade of carelessness is an indictment of a woman who is partly running for president on her ability to handle a 3 a.m. emergency phone call on a secure line." He says that "Democrats are saddled with their most flawed nominee since an exhausted party nominated John W. Davis on the 103rd ballot in 1924."
CNN reports that: "The Tuesday announcement also set off a torrent of anger and frustration among some of Bernie Sanders' most die-hard supporters."
David Lightman, writing for McClatchy, said that Comey's report "is likely to hurt the former secretary of state. 'It plays right into the perception that Clinton is not trustworthy,' said Tobe Berkovitz, a former media consultant who's now an associate professor of advertising at Boston University."
Left-wing journalist Glenn Greenwald called Comey's decision: "A tawdry byproduct of a criminal justice mentality in which -- as I documented in my 2011 book 'With Liberty and Justice for Some' -- those who wield the greatest political and economic power are virtually exempt from the rule of law, even when they commit the most egregious crimes."
Greenwald's point is strengthened by the fact that Justice prosecuted a Naval Reservist just last year for almost exactly the same offenses that Hillary was engaged in -- storing classified material on a personal device -- even though he, like Clinton, did so without any malicious intent.
Of course, many of these folks attacking Hillary today will fall back in line and resume their ceaseless Trump-bashing tomorrow.
But it will be hard for anyone to erase the depiction of Clinton's dangerous, lawbreaking incompetence that Comey has now cast in stone.
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