http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/03/more_body_blows_to_hillarys_presidential_prospects.htmlMarch 14, 2015
More body blows to Hillary's presidential prospects
By Thomas Lifson
Each day seems to bring more disasters for Hillary’s image as a potential president. Democrats not in thrall to her (or under her thumb) have got to be asking themselves hard questions. The latest: the veil of secrecy over who traveled with Hillary Clinton on 47 overseas trips she made a secretary of state has been ordered lifted. Amy Chozick of the New York Times writes:
Judge Gladys Kessler of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the State Department to produce passenger manifests from 47 overseas trips that Mrs. Clinton made as secretary of state. Citizens United requested the manifests last July through a Freedom of Information Act Request.
The State Department, the judge wrote, must release the first batch of records by April 3, with more being released every two weeks; all the documents must be given to the group no later than Aug. 1.
The group requested the flight manifests to examine whether Clinton Foundation donors had accompanied Mrs. Clinton on State Department trips.
“Clearly, the State Department is not getting the benefit of the doubt from judges anymore,” David N. Bossie, president of Citizens United. said Friday.
There should be little chance of these records “disappearing,” as Mrs. Clinton’s proprietary server is not involved in their maintenance, and as the federal government keeps track of who boards its aircraft rather strictly. If there is a pattern of donors to the Clinton Foundation enjoying travel on the luxurious 757 used by the secretary for official travel, it will be damning, and Citiens United can be counted on to make the most of it.
That said, Friday saw the shocking disclosure that the State Department did not automatically archive official email correspondence during Clinton’s term as SecState. Not only does this seem to be a blatant evasion of requirements of the Public Records Act, it puts the lie to Hillary’s UN press conference claim that her emails to State Department employees were automatically archived.
Fox News writes:
A State Department spokeswoman said Friday that the department did not start automatically archiving emails from senior officials until February of this year -- raising questions about Hillary Clinton's claim that her emails were "immediately" saved whenever she corresponded with colleagues.
The former secretary of state made that assertion during her press conference earlier this week -- and in a lengthy statement put out by her office -- as she defended her exclusive use of personal email. Clinton downplayed concerns that official emails could have been lost by suggesting anytime she emailed anyone with a ".gov" address, that email would be stored for posterity.
"The vast majority of my work emails went to government employees at their government addresses, which meant they were captured and preserved immediately on the system at the State Department," she said Tuesday.
But department spokeswoman Jen Psaki made clear on Friday that this was not the way the system worked.
She said the department only started automatically archiving emails for other senior officials in February.
"They have long been planning to do this. It's just something that it took some time to put in place," Psaki said, adding that they'll "continue to ... take steps forward."
At a minimum, we can say that Mrs. Clinton didn’t know what she was talking about when made her excuses at the UN.. But it also raises serious questions about secret diplomacy being the norm.
Hillary’s continuing stream of evasions, half-truths, and lies, in the face of the objectively disastrous outcomes of her diplomatic leadership, with the abject failure of the Russian reset, the chaos and murder of an ambassador in Libya following backing for a coup against Gadhafi, the abandonment of Iraq and its subsequent rise of ISIS, the vanished Syrian “red line,” and the failure to deter the mullahs from their nuclear program have to be causing second thoughts among the remaining rational Democrats.
Ed Timperlake asks some key questions:
Do the serious members of the Democrat Party want to chance betting their future to defend the Clintons “just” one more time as three significant issues play out; potential legal jeopardy, collateral damage to down-ballot candidates and finally, ever increasing very real doubt about a Democrat Presidential candidate’s ability to protect America?
Secretary Clinton was 4th in line to become President.
How was it that she was allowed to function using only private e-mails inside U.S. Continuity of Government Planning and execution in the event of a crisis involving a potential nuclear attack on the United States?
There is a strong case to be made that Hillary has already damaged our national security. The woman who ran the infamous “3 AM phone call” commercial against Barack Obama now looks as though she is not at all up to the task of protecting our national security. How many Democdats are going to want to hitch the future of their party to her?
