Dakota Beacon

Slowly but surely the wheels of justice grind on. It may take a long time before a full accounting of Hillary Clinton’s devious political schemes for claiming the US Presidency for herself are divulged. But this is how cover-ups work. The truth is slow to unravel -- by design.

God bless Judicial Watch (JW)! For those not familiar with the group, JW is a public service law firm specializing in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits investigating claimed or suspected misconduct by government officials. Without their efforts, much wrongdoing by federal government officials would never come to light.

JW filed over twenty FOIA lawsuits involving Clinton’s emails. Several of the lawsuits have been successful resulting in court-ordered questioning of Clinton’s aides and Obama White House officials as well as the release of Clinton’s emails themselves.

(A word of caution. Beware of Wikipedia’s review of JW. Wikipedia’s sourcing is highly biased against JW. The information provided is pretty much one-sided, not well corroborated, and snarky.)

Most people have heard about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s unsecured computer and server used for official government work installed in her home. Just before being sworn in as Secretary of State in 2009, Clinton set up an email server at her home in Chappaqua, NY. She used this email server for all her electronic correspondence both work and personal during her 4-year tenure.

In March 2015 Clinton’s email system became national news. According to Clinton, she set up a personal email server as a matter of “convenience.” It would simplify her busy life. Also, she said she preferred to carry one Blackberry phone rather than two for the same reason. Normally there would be two phones: one for work and one for personal use.

Critics argue otherwise. Using her personal server, she became the sole arbiter of what should or should not be provided to the government, made available to FOIA requests, and what would be made available to congressional committee investigations such as hearings on the Benghazi incident.

The continuing FBI investigation eventually discovered that, contrary to her earlier explanation, Clinton had used several personal devices. To avoid implicating her, staffers told the FBI they had destroyed these devices with a hammer and could not account for others. The “fix” was in. Who could track her communications?

Clinton claimed she had sent or received 62,320 emails serving as Secretary of State. She said about half, or 30,000 were personal and had been destroyed. The remaining were turned over to the State Department.

In July 2015 the inspector general of the US intelligence community confirmed Clinton had sent “Top Secret” email over her private server. In August 2015 she signed an affidavit swearing she had turned over all government records and that no classified material was sent through her server.

In August 2015 Clinton agreed to hand over her private server to the FBI. After examination, the FBI found over 65 “Secret” emails and 22 “Top Secret” emails on her server.

In July 2016 FBI report confirmed that, because of lax security on Clinton’s personal server, “it is possible hostile actors gained access.”

Two days before Election Day FBI Director James Comey said he had not changed his mind about his earlier conclusion that Clinton should not face criminal charges for her handling of classified information. Was there an on-going FBI cover-up shielding Clinton and the Obama White House? Or is such speculation just conspiracy thinking?

Which brings us to the current state of affairs.

“Judicial Watch announced today [April 23, 2019] that a senior FBI official admitted, in writing and under oath, that the agency found Clinton email records in the Obama White House, specifically, the Executive Office of the President. The FBI also admitted nearly 49,000 Clinton server emails were reviewed as result of a search warrant for her material on the laptop of Anthony Weiner.”

“E.W. (Bill) Priestap, assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division, made the disclosure to Judicial Watch as part of court-ordered discovery into the Clinton email issue.”

“US District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ordered [January 2019] Obama administration senior State Department officials, lawyers, and Clinton aides, as well as Priestap, to be deposed or answer written questions under oath. The court ruled that the Clinton email system was ‘one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency.’”

“…Priestap also testifies that 48,982 emails were reviewed…from the laptop of Anthony Weiner, who had been married to top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.”

“’This astonishing confirmation, made under oath by the FBI, shows that the Obama FBI had to go to President Obama’s White House office to find emails that Hillary Clinto tried to destroy or hide from the American people,’ said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.”

As the colloquial question goes, “How do you like them apples?” But then, this is all old news. We’re all aware of this through the exquisite coverage by newspapers and TV news!