Trust Issues Get Worse for Clinton
The continuing drip, drip, drip of Hillary’s email scandal.
Continuing the drip, drip, drip of Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, Judicial Watch released 725 pages of State Department documents Monday providing more evidence of pay-to-play at the Clinton Foundation. Judicial Watch says, “In more than a dozen email exchanges, [top Clinton aide Huma] Abedin provided expedited, direct access to Clinton for donors who had contributed from $25,000 to $10 million to the Clinton Foundation. In many instances, Clinton Foundation top executive Doug Band, who worked with the Foundation throughout Hillary Clinton’s tenure at State, coordinated closely with Abedin. In Abedin’s June deposition to Judicial Watch, she conceded that part of her job at the State Department was taking care of ‘Clinton family matters.’” Crown Prince Salman of Bahrain was one of those donors — $32 million to the Clinton Global Initiative won him a personal audience with Her Highness.
According to the Associated Press, “More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money — either personally or through companies or groups — to the Clinton Foundation. It’s an extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president.”
A campaign spokesman insisted, “Hillary Clinton never took action as secretary of state because of donations to the Clinton Foundation.” If that isn’t Clintonesque parsing of language, we don’t know what is.
In other Clinton news, the FBI found nearly 15,000 emails beyond the 30,000 Hillary Clinton printed out for the State Department. The Bureau turned those over to State for review, but State initially said it won’t release them until — you guessed it — after the election. Federal Judge James Boasberg, however, wasn’t having that. He ordered State to review the emails by Sept. 22, which could set the stage for an October surprise. Clinton has long said the 30,000 emails she deleted were wedding plans for Chelsea and yoga routines. We’ll find out.
Finally, Clinton rolled out an expanded version of a previous excuse: Her predecessor Colin Powell used private email and told her it was fine. Powell fired back that she had been “using [the private email server] for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did.” Furthermore, he used appropriate systems for classified information, and he kept his personal email for, you know, personal stuff. Clinton exclusively used personal email, including to send and receive classified information.
(Updated.)