have been notified that the agency intends to question them—and Hillary too.
Each week brings new information on Hillary’s use of a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state. And it seems that each revelation is coupled with Hillary’s release of a new restatement of her position.
• When the server was first discovered in March 2015, Hillary originally insisted that no classified information was ever transmitted on her servers. (It’s not illegal to have a private server; it is illegal to use it for classified information.)
• Then her story changed to insist that she never personally sent or received classified e-mails.
• Then, at least 104 e-mails were released by the State Department that were classified that Hillary wrote and sent herself.
• So then her story changed again to say that she never sent or received e-mails with “classification markings.” This revisionof her defense raised two questions that have not yet been answered satisfactorily:
1. On some of the e-mails, Hillary is caught directing her staff to remove the classification marking and to send the information to her as a “paperless” document. This would vitiate her defense that none of the docs were marked classified; and
2. Hillary, as secretary of state, is one of the few people who is charged with the duty of deciding what is classified and what is not. Many of her documents contained material that was obviously classified and, marked or not, she should have known it.
The State Department, in releasing Hillary’s e-mails sent over her private server, redacted material from hundreds and even thousands of them. Each redaction is presumably of classified material, undermining further Hillary’s claim not to have used the server for classified material.
At this writing, we have no idea how this scandal will end up. Some predict an indictment. Others suggest a special prosecutor will be appointed. Many fear that Attorney General Loretta Lynch will refuse to move against Hillary once she becomes the Democratic nominee. Then the question will be: What did the FBI investigators find and what did they recommend to Attorney General Lynch? Any way it comes down, the e-mail scandal will be devastating for Hillary. But for our purposes, the very fact that Hillary so wanted to guard her secrecy that she used a private server and engendered all this unnecessary controversy emphasizes Hillary’s penchant for secrecy and paranoia and is, in itself, a pretty good reason not to elect her.
Reason Seven: Hillary Is Obsessively Secret and Paranoid
“Even paranoids can have enemies,” said Henry Kissinger. 77 The former secretary of state probably wasn’t directly referring to hissuccessor, but it’s not a bad fit. Hillary has far more than her share of enemies, critics, and partisan opponents. So do most politicians. The longer they have played the game, the more they attract. But the good ones handle it lightly. Like Reagan, they don’t dwell on it and tend to laugh off the attacks.
Then there is the Nixon/Hillary sort who let their resentments fester and spread. They brood over slights and suspect everyone of being an enemy. Hillary’s entire political career is one big example of how such paranoia can be one’s own undoing. Like a Greek tragedy where the heroine is undone by her shortcomings and defects, Hillary’s paranoia has gotten her into no end of trouble time after time after time.
Dick recalls from his own dealings with her how often she needed to be saved from her own paranoia. In August 1996, Dick and Eileen attended Bill Clinton’s 60th birthday party. Typical of the Clintons, it was not a small intimate affair but a gigantic fundraiser at Radio City Music Hall in New York City to amass money for his reelection campaign. In the middle of Bill’s speech, a group of gay demonstrators called Act Up stood in their seats and shouted at the president, demanding that he veto the Defense of Marriage Act and allocate
Each week brings new information on Hillary’s use of a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state. And it seems that each revelation is coupled with Hillary’s release of a new restatement of her position.
• When the server was first discovered in March 2015, Hillary originally insisted that no classified information was ever transmitted on her servers. (It’s not illegal to have a private server; it is illegal to use it for classified information.)
• Then her story changed to insist that she never personally sent or received classified e-mails.
• Then, at least 104 e-mails were released by the State Department that were classified that Hillary wrote and sent herself.
• So then her story changed again to say that she never sent or received e-mails with “classification markings.” This revisionof her defense raised two questions that have not yet been answered satisfactorily:
1. On some of the e-mails, Hillary is caught directing her staff to remove the classification marking and to send the information to her as a “paperless” document. This would vitiate her defense that none of the docs were marked classified; and
2. Hillary, as secretary of state, is one of the few people who is charged with the duty of deciding what is classified and what is not. Many of her documents contained material that was obviously classified and, marked or not, she should have known it.
The State Department, in releasing Hillary’s e-mails sent over her private server, redacted material from hundreds and even thousands of them. Each redaction is presumably of classified material, undermining further Hillary’s claim not to have used the server for classified material.
At this writing, we have no idea how this scandal will end up. Some predict an indictment. Others suggest a special prosecutor will be appointed. Many fear that Attorney General Loretta Lynch will refuse to move against Hillary once she becomes the Democratic nominee. Then the question will be: What did the FBI investigators find and what did they recommend to Attorney General Lynch? Any way it comes down, the e-mail scandal will be devastating for Hillary. But for our purposes, the very fact that Hillary so wanted to guard her secrecy that she used a private server and engendered all this unnecessary controversy emphasizes Hillary’s penchant for secrecy and paranoia and is, in itself, a pretty good reason not to elect her.
Reason Seven: Hillary Is Obsessively Secret and Paranoid
“Even paranoids can have enemies,” said Henry Kissinger. 77 The former secretary of state probably wasn’t directly referring to hissuccessor, but it’s not a bad fit. Hillary has far more than her share of enemies, critics, and partisan opponents. So do most politicians. The longer they have played the game, the more they attract. But the good ones handle it lightly. Like Reagan, they don’t dwell on it and tend to laugh off the attacks.
Then there is the Nixon/Hillary sort who let their resentments fester and spread. They brood over slights and suspect everyone of being an enemy. Hillary’s entire political career is one big example of how such paranoia can be one’s own undoing. Like a Greek tragedy where the heroine is undone by her shortcomings and defects, Hillary’s paranoia has gotten her into no end of trouble time after time after time.
Dick recalls from his own dealings with her how often she needed to be saved from her own paranoia. In August 1996, Dick and Eileen attended Bill Clinton’s 60th birthday party. Typical of the Clintons, it was not a small intimate affair but a gigantic fundraiser at Radio City Music Hall in New York City to amass money for his reelection campaign. In the middle of Bill’s speech, a group of gay demonstrators called Act Up stood in their seats and shouted at the president, demanding that he veto the Defense of Marriage Act and allocate
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