Earlier this week, The Daily Caller News Foundation published a story with a serious allegation: A Chinese-owned company successfully hacked Hillary Clinton’s infamous and supposedly “private” unauthorized home email server and obtained copies of virtually every email that passed through the server throughout the entirety of her term as secretary of state. According to the DCNF, “The Chinese firm obtained Clinton’s emails in real time as she sent and received communications and documents through her personal server, according to the sources, who said the hacking was conducted as part of an intelligence operation.”

President Donald Trump commented, “Report just out: ‘China hacked Hillary Clinton’s private Email Server.’ Are they sure it wasn’t Russia (just kidding!)? What are the odds that the FBI and DOJ are right on top of this? Actually, a very big story. Much classified information!”

The following day, an FBI official pushed back on the report, stating, “The FBI has not found any evidence the servers were compromised.” Notice that the FBI did not outright deny the report as false. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) noticed, asserting, “It’s not surprising that the FBI ‘has not found any evidence’ regarding Clinton’s servers being breached. Like I stated to former FBI agent Peter Strzok in the House Judiciary hearing, it was the Obama-appointed Intelligence Community Inspector General that discovered the breach. It was not the FBI that found it, so their statement was technically correct, but very deceptive in its omission.”

It has long been suspected and assumed that Clinton’s home-brew server was compromised. And with China having successfully breached the Office of Personnel Management back in 2015, hacking Clinton’s server would have been a cakewalk. In fact, Clinton may have suspected as much. In one of the emails collected from her “private” server, Clinton wrote, “Even weirder — I just checked and I do have your state but not your gmail — so how did that happen. Must be the Chinese!”

Once again this story appears to reveal one of the oldest tactics from the Clinton political playbook: attacking their opponents for engaging in unethical behaviors they themselves are guilty of committing.