Obama Wins; America Loses

[Wednesday], Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski became the 34th senator to support the Iranian nuclear deal. Her support gives President Obama the votes needed to sustain his veto of a congressional resolution disapproving the deal. That means this terrible deal will likely go into effect.

This is a hollow victory for Obama and the deal’s supporters. A new Rasmussen poll finds that 66% of likely voters believe that the deal should not go into effect unless Congress approves it. But that isn’t going to happen because most members of Congress will not vote for this bad deal. And it is a bad deal.

How do we know that?

More than 200 retired U.S. admirals and generals oppose it.

Scores of arms control and non-proliferation experts say it is “not verifiable.” They are right. Iran’s defense minister said [Wednesday], “Iran does not plan to issue permission for [U.N. inspectors] to inspect every site.”

And two-thirds of civilian and military government workers in national security-related positions who were polled oppose it.

Advocates of this deal have contended that it will make war less likely. Military experts disagree. In fact, Secretary of State Kerry seems to disagree too.

[Wednesday] Kerry sent a letter to members of Congress who have expressed concerns about the deal. In an attempt to reassure them, Kerry wrote that the Obama Administration is offering major new weapons deals to Israel and Saudi Arabia.

If the deal makes war less likely, then why are we rushing a lot of new weapons to the Middle East?

Now, let’s consider the messages coming out of Iran.

This week Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, chief of Tehran’s top clerical body, said that the United States remains Iran’s “number one enemy” and that the nuclear treaty changes nothing.

The New York Times reports that Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, denounced America as the “same Great Satan.”

Another Iranian general said, “The Islamic Revolution will continue enhancing its preparedness until it overthrows Israel and liberates Palestine.”

Servergate Gets Serious

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is involved in a major scandal with severe national security implications. The media have been incredibly passive when it comes to getting to the bottom of this story. Here is a good example.

You may not recognize Bryan Pagliano. He was the Information Technology director for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign. Pagliano followed Mrs. Clinton to the State Department, where he worked as a “special projects manager” for the department’s chief technology officer.

One of Mr. Pagliano’s first special projects was setting up Hillary Clinton’s private email server on which she conducted government business in violation of State Department protocols.

House investigators want Mr. Pagliano to testify about what he did, why and who ordered it. But [Wednesday] they were informed through his lawyer that Mr. Pagliano would invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination if forced to testify before the committee.

So the man at the center of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server to handle classified information is refusing to testify because he’s afraid he may incriminate himself.

That sounds like big news to me. The Washington Post put it on page 19.

So the next move is up to the House. Members of Congress could grant him immunity. Or they could issue a subpoena calling him before the Select Committee on Benghazi and if he refuses to testify, they could cite him for contempt of Congress and put him in jail. I highly recommend that course of action.

This is a serious issue. The FBI’s counter-espionage team is now scouring Mrs. Clinton’s server for any evidence that it may have been compromised by foreign agents. The fact that this is even necessary shows that she did in fact put national security at risk.

By the way, there are reports today that a hacker claims to have all of Mrs. Clinton’s deleted emails and is offering to sell them for $500,000. If that is true, you can safely assume that the Russians and Chinese have them too.

Poll Position

A new national poll finds Donald Trump expanding his lead in the GOP primary race to 30%. Dr. Ben Carson is second at 18%. No other candidate received double-digit support.

Looking ahead to the general election, a separate poll finds that three GOP candidates essentially tie Hillary Clinton in head-to-head contests — Ben Carson, Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina.

In a three-way race, Hillary Clinton would win with 42%. Trump finishes second with 27% while Bush is third with 23%.