http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/23/ken-allard-obamas-silent-manipulation/print/Obama’s silent manipulation
By Ken Allard - - Sunday, August 23, 2015
With the total of Hillary Clinton's "potentially classified" emails steadily climbing north of 300, Bob Woodward of Watergate fame recently provided a proper context for the scandal. "It reminds me of the Nixon tapes," he told MSNBC, my old network but the one that now features more objective commentary by Al Sharpton and Chris Matthews. How their faces must have dropped when Woodward suggested that investigators should "follow the trail" of their front-runner's emails. Is Hillarygate unprecedented or really just Nixon 2.0?
Ironies abound, not the least of which is that the search for mishandled emails will inevitably grow larger as more eyewitnesses are located and deposed, their once-private files seized and scrutinized. Having conducted such investigations as an Army counter-intelligence officer, it always surprised me when a close friend or trusted business associate would suddenly reveal derogatory information about the person we were investigating. They became even more talkative the closer you came to the delicate issue of their own complicity, even if it was only partial. "Sir, the best way to secure your own position is to tell us everything you know about this case. Right now, you're a witness, not a subject." Exactly that same process is proceeding apace right now. As it expands, that investigation may lead to other Clinton concealments, from personal corruption in her foundation to her highly ambiguous role in Benghazi.
The current ironies were also predictable for the few who really knew Hillary Clinton. Until quite recently, it was hard for the rest of us to imagine someone so fiercely protective of her own reputation that she would use a private email server. Only Mrs. Clinton would have placed her own interests ahead of every government procedure for safeguarding information that rightfully belongs to the American citizens who paid her salary. So who knew her that well?
Writing for Insight, former Justice Department attorney Sidney Powell argues that other knowing participants "in Clintonmail.com" likely included the top of the White House food-chain: President Obama and "All His Muses —Counter-terrorism advisor Lisa Monaco, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and then White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler (not to mention Valerie Jarrett." Mrs. Powell then asks, "why hasn't the DOJ subpoenaed the emails from any of the recipients—or the internet service providers?"
Good question, especially since it involves National Security Advisor Susan Rice. Right after Benghazi, Ms. Rice famously insisted on all the Sunday talk-shows that the American consulate had been attacked by flash-mobs protesting an anti-Islamic video. By then of course, she knew full well that the attack had been a well-coordinated terrorist assault. But K.T. McFarland of Fox News was the first major analyst to wonder: Why was Susan Rice acting as administration spoke-person for an attack on an American diplomatic facility? Wasn't that properly the job of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton?
Of course it was. But a woman so self-serving that she maintained her own email server was also smart enough to avoid being caught in an obvious lie. So hapless Susan Rice was sacrificed in front of the TV cameras while Mrs. Clinton lived on to fight another day, confident that her reputation was intact. And for awhile it was.
But in these pages on Thursday, Monica Crowley raised the fascinating possibility that the prosecution of General David Petraeus was an elaborate set-up. If it was, then "Mr. Obama used the Petraeus prosecution to set the precedent to prosecute Mrs. Clinton: "I'm so sorry about this, but my hands are tied." Revenge, you see, is a dish best eaten cold.
His real motivation may be payback for Mrs. Clinton's refusal to be front-person for an unsustainable cover-story or narcissistic protection of his alleged legacy. But as Miss Crowley correctly notes, the leaks against Mrs. Clinton and her associates are not accidental. "Mr. Obama is a clever dark knight: he's not just going after the queen. He's going after her court, too." All left twisting slowly, slowly in the wind.
These menacing machinations are enabled by a compliant media establishment, rehearsing the myth of Barack Obama while faithfully supporting his leftist agenda. The most recent proof: Sharryl Attkisson's book, Stonewalled. Mrs. Attkisson bravely documented the close familial ties between CBS News and the Obama White House, facilitating news manipulation and control. But she also described a scarily covert attack that planted classified documents on her PC's hard drive when her investigative reporting got too close to the truth about Benghazi.
In Stephen King's canonical horror-thriller, It, the reader gradually notices that there is something scary about Pennywise, an eerie clown who seems to show up whenever something ghastly happens. Silent manipulation for sinister purposes: sounds like the Obama White House.
