Trump: Clinton's Corruption On A Scale We've Never Seen Before
Hillary Clinton’s already horrific week — from double-digit Obamacare premium hikes to damaging internal memos detailing “Bill Clinton Inc.,” to shrinking leads in the polls — ended with yet another humiliating controversy as the FBI said it’s probing new campaign emails.
In an abrupt October shocker, FBI Director James B. Comey told Congress in a letter that the agency is investigating whether classified information exists in emails discovered in the sexting investigation of former Brooklyn U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, whose estranged wife, Huma Abedin, is Clinton’s close aide.
Even before news of the emails yesterday, Clinton’s lead was slipping in national polls. An ABC News Tracking Poll showed the former secretary of state’s 12-point lead on Tuesday slide to 4 points.
All of this came as voters were already casting their ballots across the country with less than two weeks before Election Day.
The fact that Clinton’s email scandal, which aides felt they had finally put behind them, would resurface at the 11th hour was a major stunner even in an election season known for unusual twists.
“This helps Trump in a time when he needs help,” Republican strategist Ford O’Connell said. “It will help him close the gap, but we’ll know better by Monday or Tuesday just how much this will help him. … The Clinton camp is running for cover. … This is a boost for Trump at the right time.”
New FBI Probe Of Emails Seen As Trouble For Hillary Clinton
Just as Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton appeared to be sailing to an election day victory, carrying a lengthening list of House and Senate Democrats in her wake, her email problems came roaring back Friday in a classic “October surprise” that Republicans said could upset the race.
FBI Director James Comey’s letter Friday to congressional leaders announcing that his agency is again investigating emails related to Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state came as a shock to both parties.
Republican nominee Donald Trump, Republicans in Congress and the GOP’s House and Senate campaign arms jumped on the news, calling for a full investigation of Clinton’s “reckless” conduct and demanding in new fundraising letters that Democratic candidates lower on the ballot “unendorse” her.
The announcement provides “a much-needed boost for Donald Trump,” said GOP consultant Ford O’Connell. “Whether it’s a decisive game-changer, we don’t know, but it certainly seems to be helping.”
Comey did not disclose how many emails were involved in the latest discovery but said further investigation was warranted.
GOP strategist O’Connell said the odds of a Trump victory rose more than six points on ElectionBettingOdds.com, a political odds-making website, although the gain still left the GOP nominee with only a 23 percent chance of winning.
Read more from Carolyn Lockheed at The San Francisco Chronicle
Email questions follow Clinton Into 2016 As Document Release Falls Behind Schedule
The State Department is ringing in the New Year by releasing 5,500 pages of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails on Thursday afternoon.
As ordered by a federal judge, the agency has been releasing the Democratic presidential front-runner's electronic correspondences from her term as secretary on a monthly basis since the summer, with the final batch scheduled for release at the end of January. Clinton has been criticized for using a personal email address on a private server kept in her home for her official business rather than a state.gov address.
Emails released so far have shed some light on communications about the terrorist attack on a diplomatic compound and a CIA annex in Benghazi that left four Americans dead, an incident that has been the subject of multiple congressional inquiries, but they have not produced anything particularly surprising.
The State Department initially planned to release more than 8,000 pages of emails Thursday, but it said in a statement that it will not be able to meet that goal. Additional emails will now be released next week.
The emails released Thursday will also reportedly be more difficult to search than previous batches due to incomplete data fields.
Regardless of what journalists and political opponents find in the latest email dump, Republican strategist Ford O'Connell said the damage caused to Clinton's candidacy by the issue is already "pretty baked in."
"It is a political liability but it is not one that is going to hurt her in the primaries," O'Connell said.
"They're purposely releasing them at times like tonight when no one's paying attention," O'Connell said.
Sanders Saves Clinton From Email Questions, But Benghazi Testimony Looms
At the first Democratic presidential debate Tuesday, front-runner Hillary Clinton avoided tough scrutiny over her email practices as secretary of state, in part thanks to support from rival Sen. Bernie Sanders, but a highly-anticipated congressional hearing next week will likely prove to be more of a challenge.
Clinton attempted to brush off questions about the matter as a partisan attack led by Republicans in Congress, but Cooper pushed back that the FBI is investigating and President Barack Obama recently acknowledged it is a legitimate issue.
When Cooper asked Sanders for his opinion, the self-proclaimed Democratic socialist replied, "Let me say something that may not be great politics. But I think the secretary is right, and that is that the American people are sick and tired of hearing" about Clinton's emails.
"She didn't have to handle the email question," said Republican strategist Ford O'Connell. "Bernie got rid of it for her...He basically said, 'Email scandal be gone.'"
O'Connell said he has never seen a candidate dig their opponent out of the mud like that before. With the ongoing FBI investigation and additional emails being released regularly, he doubts Sanders' comments will silence the issue.
"That may work in the Democratic primary, but this is not going away for Hillary Clinton."
When Clinton appears before the Republican-led House committee next week, she will face much more hostile and skeptical opponents, though. She will also almost certainly be speaking to a much smaller audience than the record 15.3 million people who tuned in for Tuesday's debate, so it may not have as much impact.
"That's not going to be a great spectacle for her," O'Connell said.
Can Hillary Clinton Delete Her Past?
More than a month before the April launch of her White House run, Hillary Clinton stood before a swarm of reporters at the United Nations headquarters and dealt with questions about her use of private emails for official business. It is an issue that has dogged her candidacy ever since.
Few doubted until this summer that Clinton, with vast institutional and popular support and little competition, would cruise to her coronation as the Democratic nominee for the presidency.
But many of her statements from those first defensive days have been proven false by a steady stream revelations from three congressional committees and four federal agencies investigating her use of a private email server. Just as damaging have been dozens of lawsuits pursued under the Freedom of Information Act, which have shown gaps in the batches of emails Clinton gave the State Department last year.
Despite raising more than four times as much campaign cash than her closest opponent, Clinton has seen her lead in the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire either shrink or vaporize entirely under the media scrutiny that has followed every twist in the email controversy.
Ford O'Connell, a Republican strategist, said the controversy is "just something that is never going to go away."
"The email situation doesn't really bother Democrats. What bothers Democrats about the whole situation is that she just fumbles it every single time," O'Connell said. "It's the optics of it. Every time she says something, it becomes untrue three weeks later."
O'Connell said the email story will dissipate only if the drip-drip of new information suddenly stopped and the facts were allowed to stand as they are today. He said there is also a possibility that Republicans, as the main drivers of the scandal narrative, could overplay their hand.
As O'Connell noted, the absence of new information and the aggressive repetition of existing information could test voters' appetite for the truth in the email scandal. From IRS targeting to Islamic State beheadings, the public can seemingly tire of any story if the flow of fresh details ends.
The Hillary Clinton Backer Who Will Pose Problems For Her 2016 Bid
An unlikely critic of Hillary Clinton could pose significant problems for the Democratic front-runner for the White House.
Dan Metcalfe, who previously oversaw the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) at the Department of Justice, has been publicly ripping Clinton for her exclusive use of a private email account during her time as secretary of State.
But the soft-spoken academic who resembles Santa Claus maintains he’s not looking to derail Clinton’s anticipated 2016 bid. To the contrary, he says. Metcalfe notes he is a registered Democrat and will vote for the former first lady if she runs for the White House. That makes his criticism even more damaging.
While Democrats are largely rallying behind Clinton, Republicans have seized on the email uproar. And the matter isn’t going away anytime soon: The State Department has said it is reviewing the issue, congressional committees have launched probes and The Associated Press has filed a lawsuit.
Metcalfe isn’t a public figure, but he is a respected expert who has been asked to address legal groups, government agencies and Congress.
GOP strategist Ford O’Connell predicted that Metcalfe’s comments would be used against Clinton in the general election.
When it comes to the email controversy, O’Connell said Republicans “want to create a narrative about Hillary that may not necessarily bring voters over to their side but could potentially keep some of her potential supporters at home.”
“That’s why they’re not just jamming this down the throat as much as they could because they recognize they’re going to have to reintroduce this in the general election and [say] that she’s inauthentic; she’s willing to cut corners and acts in her own self-interest,” he added.
Hillary Clinton's Email Controversy Could Fade, Despite Unanswered Questions
Questions remain over 2016 White House potential contender Hillary Clinton's private server and email account, but the controversy could fade into the background as election season gets fully underway.
The New York Times revealed last week that Clinton solely used a private email account to conduct business during her four-year tenure as secretary of state, and kept a private server at her residence, sparking a wave of controversy and myriad questions, such as whether she sent any classified information through the account.
On Tuesday, Clinton broke her week-long silence on the issue, likening the move to an honest mistake, saying it "would have been better" if she had used a government email account, which is the norm, but that she used a personal account for the sake of " convenience."
Many questions over that incident remain unanswered. While Republicans and other critics continue to accuse Clinton of not being forthcoming on how she dealt with the attack, most U.S. media is now tired of the controversy, aside from some conservative news outlets.
That means the public is unlikely to demand answers over the email controversy and may soon forget the issue.
"Republicans need to play their cards right on this," Republican strategist Ford O'Connell told Xinhua, explaining that the Republican Party (GOP) needs to use the email controversy as part of a larger theme to paint Clinton as secretive and as believing the rules don't apply to her.
"This is still early on in the election cycle. We don't know whether it's going to change anything," O'Connell said of the email scandal.
"Obviously some hard core supporters are still going to support her no matter what," he said, but added that if the GOP is successful, the party could use the scandal to take some voters away from Clinton at the margins.
"This by itself is not going to torpedo her nomination," but it could help Republicans portray her as someone who is, in their view, a consummate politician who will do whatever it takes to win, he said.
Hillary Clinton 2016, Above The Law
There was an eye-catching headline in the daily Hotair.com email for Friday, March 6:
"Rick Wilson has some advice for the GOP on Hillary: This isn't about you, so shut up."
Wilson, a Florida political analyst, says Republicans should "stop talking" about the controversy surrounding Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server in her home as opposed to the government system she was supposed to use as secretary of State.
But if they must: "Press the sore spots, subtly, but constantly," Wilson wrote. "Use it as a way to leverage discussion of the Clinton family's infamous contempt for the law and remind the public of their obsessive secrecy, paranoia, habitual lawbreaking. Wonder, in serious tones, how much of the email traffic has to do with the other scandal that reporters have been desperately trying to cover up; the Clinton Foundation's scuzzy foreign-money vacuum."
He has a point. Democrats had come to view Hillary Clinton's capturing their party's nomination as automatic and her ascension to the White House as all but inevitable. But in recent weeks, two stories have emerged — one about the millions contributed to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation by foreign governments presumably hoping to curry favor with the president-to-be and one about her use of private email to conduct public business when she was secretary of State — that threaten that inevitability and have even Democrats looking at other options.
Hillary Clinton Email Controversy Could Hurt 2016 White House Run
The 2016 White House hopeful Hillary Clinton's sole use of a private email account to conduct government business is raising hackles among critics, and experts say it could hurt her run for the presidency.
This week's New York Times uncovered Clinton's use of a private email account and a private server located in her home during her four-year stint as head of the U.S. State Department.
Critics are blasting Clinton over the discovery, arguing that she could have compromised U.S. national security and that she may also have violated U.S. laws governing transparency among public officials.
While it's still very early in the campaign, the real problem is that the scandal re-enforces the perception that the Clintons -- both Hillary and her husband, former President Bill Clinton -- are secretive, experts said.
"It is unprecedented for a high level U.S. official to solely use a personal email to conduct government business. Let alone have her own personal servers in her basement," Republican strategist Ford O'Connell told Xinhua.
"It's a growing pattern for Hillary Clinton of secrecy and lacking transparency," he said.
The message Clinton is sending to the average voter is that the laws do not apply to her, and that could hurt her campaign, as Americans want a candidate to whom they can relate on a personal level, O'Connell said.
"It's the perception of the violation that's going to be more difficult for Hillary Clinton to overcome than the violation itself," he said.
