Hillary Clinton Versus Fox News: The Ugly Truth

Navigating the confusing web of information put forth by Fox News and the Clinton campaign often feels akin to slogging through the proverbial quagmire, to put it nicely. In trying to make sense of the latest flurry of activity, it appears that Clinton has handed over a “blank” server to the FBI. Meanwhile, her camp tried to seize upon two emails that were highlighted in a Fox News report Wednesday as proof that the candidate did not use a home-based private email system to send classified communications.

Clinton has admitted to deleting as many as 30,000 government emails that were sent and received during her time in office, but when her use of a separate private email system was revealed in March, she initially said there was “no classified material” involved. Clinton later amended this story to say that no information she handled on the private system was marked classified at the time, the Washington Post reported.

Now, it seems that investigations by the FBI into Clinton’s use of the private email server are being slowed by the fact that the computer devices in question have been wiped clean or destroyed, according to Fox News.

“Clinton’s lawyer David Kendall recently told a Senate committee that emails and all other data stored on her computer server were erased before the device was turned over to federal authorities.”

Still, the FBI doesn’t give up easily and is working to recover the contents while Clinton sidesteps the issue with jokes and feigned innocence, fueling rumors of deception.

When asked by Fox News whether the devices were wiped, the presidential hopeful reportedly quipped, “What, like with a cloth or something?”

Officially, Clinton’s campaign is taking the stance that she was merely a “passive recipient” of the material in question, with her campaign press secretary Brian Fallon honing in on the two emails Fox News released earlier this week.

“We think it vindicates our point that Secretary Clinton did not send or receive classified material.”

Clinton and her supporters have also pointed out that there is no evidence of wrongdoing or illegal activity, as well as no evidence that classified information crossed the private email server, indicating that the entire investigation is the result of a bogus political attack by the Republican party in collaboration with Fox News. Clinton also stated that she opted to divert government emails through the separate server because she believed doing so would make it possible for her to carry just one mobile device to monitor both personal and private emails.

Regardless, storing classified information at an unauthorized location is a crime, and if Clinton were to be indicted for failure to secure classified information, she could find herself in a serious legal situation. According to Fox News, a former CIA agent was recently sentenced to three years in prison for destroying just one highly classified email. Also, in the past month, the Department of Justice indicted a young sailor for taking a selfie for his girlfriend in front of a top-secret sonar screen on a nuclear submarine.

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