Back on topic... Joe Conason's new book is mistitled - it should be "Moral Misfit of the World."
Clinton’s Colin Powell Excuse
As new emails emerge, Hillary’s defense is that the general made her do it.
Aug. 22, 2016 6:52 p.m. ET
When Bill and Hillary Clinton get caught for bad behavior, they follow a familiar pattern. First deny, then call it old news, then roll out the attack machine of media and political allies to trash whoever needs to be collateral damage to save them. The private email-Clinton Foundation saga is now in phase three, and no less than Colin Powell has been drafted as roadkill.
The Powell-made-Hillary-do-it defense emerged late last week in two parts. The New York Times reported that FBI interview notes turned over to Congress last week show that Mrs. Clinton told the G-men that Mr. Powell had advised her to use a personal email account. The Times didn’t name its source, but in these cases always ask who benefits from the leak? Answer: Mrs. Clinton.
The Times also reported in the same story that the advance copy of a new book by Joe Conason backs up the blame-it-on-Powell story. Aficionados of Clinton scandals will remember Mr. Conason as the most dedicated stenographer in the Clinton stable.
Mr. Conason has written a biography of Bill Clinton, “Man of the World.” And the Times reports that the book relates a conversation early in Mrs. Clinton’s time at State at a dinner party hosted by Madeleine Albright, another former Secretary of State. Mr. Conason writes that Mr. Powell “told [Mrs. Clinton] to use her own email, as he had done, except for classified communications, which he had sent and received via a State Department computer.”
Mr. Conason writes that this conversation “confirmed a decision she had made months earlier—to keep her personal account and use it for most messages.” The Times notes that Mr. Conason “interviewed both Mr. and Mrs. Clinton for the book.”
Voila, the Clintons are back at their old standby, the everybody-does-it defense.
Mr. Powell’s office released a statement saying he doesn’t recall that dinner conversation. And at a weekend event on Long Island, Mr. Powell told People magazine and the New York Post that Mrs. Clinton “was using [the private email server] for a year before I sent her a memo telling her what I did.” He added: “Her people have been trying to pin it on me.”
This isn’t the first time Mrs. Clinton has tried the Powell defense. In February she twisted the findings of State Department Inspector General Steve Linnick to claim that Mr. Powell had routinely used private email and was also subject to bogus classification claims. Yet Mr. Powell never set up a private server, and he used State’s classified computer system for classified communications.
Mr. Powell explained in his 2012 memoir that his interest in using private email was to send a message to the bureaucracy about improving State Department technology. Mrs. Clinton’s goal by contrast was to hide all of her emails from federal disclosure laws.
The latest evidence for this conclusion is Monday’s news that during its email probe the FBI uncovered 15,000 work-related emails sent to or from Mrs. Clinton that she failed to turn over to the State Department. That is nearly 50% more than the 30,000 she did turn in, and she had promised to turn over all work-related emails.
Also on Monday Judicial Watch released more emails showing the close ties between the Clinton State Department and Clinton Foundation. In a June 23, 2009 email, former Clinton Foundation executive Doug Band wrote to Clinton aide Human Abedin at State: “Cp of Bahrain in tomorrow to Friday Asking to see her Good friend of ours[.]”
The “Cp” refers to Crown Prince Salman of Bahrain. The Crown Prince had established a scholarship program with the Clinton Global Initiative in 2005, and by 2010 he had contributed $32 million.
These latest emails are further evidence that Mrs. Clinton set up her private server to prevent the public from seeing how Hillary and Bill mixed public power with their personal financial and political ambitions via the family foundation. When she got caught, Mrs. Clinton cherry-picked the emails she’d turn over to State and tried to destroy the rest. Meanwhile, everyone important in the world understood that a gift to the Clinton Foundation was a way to influence the U.S. government.
As for Mr. Powell, the Clintons have never had any scruple about tarnishing someone else’s reputation to protect their path to power. Maybe they’ll make it up to him with an invitation to a State Dinner for the Crown Prince of Bahrain.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/clintons...use-1471906341
