By Jennifer Rubin
Washington Post columnist
The latest Fox News poll reports that “a 58 percent majority thinks Clinton ‘knowingly lied’ when she announced in a March press conference that no emails on her private server contained classified information. A third says there is ‘another explanation’ for internal government investigators determining secret info was in fact on Clinton’s server (33 percent). Moreover, by a 54-37 percent margin, voters feel Clinton put our national security at risk by using a private email server.” That is extraordinary and arguably poses an insuperable barrier to the White House.
She faces a problem for which spinning is of little or no use. The FBI is not spinnable. Even more ominous for Clinton, The Post reports, “The investigation is being overseen by two veteran prosecutors in the Justice Department’s National Security Division. One of them helped manage the prosecution of David H. Petraeus, the retired general and former CIA director who was sentenced to probation earlier this year after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified materials. He was also fined $100,000.” Treating Hillary Clinton just like other top officials who have been prosecuted for mishandling secret information is about the last thing Hillaryland wants.
Former attorney general Michael Mukasey explains how troubling the allegations are and how indefensible is the alleged conduct:
It is a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than a year to keep “documents or materials containing classified information . . . at an unauthorized location.” Note that it is the information that is protected; the issue doesn’t turn on whether the document or materials bear a classified marking. This is the statute under which David Petraeus—former Army general and Central Intelligence Agency director—was prosecuted for keeping classified information at home. Mrs. Clinton’s holding of classified information on a personal server was a violation of that law. So is transferring that information on a thumb drive to David Kendall, her lawyer.
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