New York Times’ Josh Barro: Hillary’s Email Scandal ‘Just Background Noise’ [+video]

93a0d8f1def964247f0f6a70670073e4_c0-62-4543-2710_s561x327By Jeffrey Meyer. Appearing on MSNBC’s Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on Monday, the New York Times’ Josh Barro dismissed the ongoing controversy surrounding Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server as “all just background noise.”

Barro, who also serves as an MSNBC contributor, downplayed the Clintons’ scandalous past because “[e]verybody’s formulated an opinion about whether they think the Clintons are above board or whether they care about whether the Clintons are above board or not.”

Despite revelations that Hillary’s private e-mail server contained classified documents, Barro maintained that it won’t hurt her in any way, and the campaign does not believe Clinton will face any legal repercussions:

I can’t imagine this breaking through in a way that the previous 25 or 35 scandals did, unless she were to be indicted, which I do not think is going to happen and I have no reason to believe would happen and I don’t think the campaign has any reason to believe would happen.

(Read more from “New York Times’ Josh Barro: Hillary’s Email Scandal ‘Just Background Noise'” HERE)
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Court Says Hillary Clinton Emails Broke ‘Government Policy’

By Stephen Dinan. A federal judge said Thursday that former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s unique email arrangement violated government policy and prodded the department to talk with the FBI to determine what documents can be recovered from the computer server and flash drives used to store her emails.

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan was surprised that the State Department hadn’t made that request and poked at the administration’s claim that the FBI needed to be left alone to conduct its investigation. He gave the agencies 30 days to figure out whether emails can be recovered.

“We wouldn’t be here today had this employee followed government policy,” the judge said, casting doubt on Mrs. Clinton’s claim that she did nothing wrong when she set up her own email server at her home in New York and used it for all of her government business, and belatedly returned 30,000 emails to the department.

The administration agreed to have the State Department and FBI work together to determine what documents could be recovered, suggesting that the government will have to try to reconstitute the emails Mrs. Clinton’s attorney has asserted were expunged from the server.

Peter D. Wechsler, the Justice Department lawyer handling the case for the State Department, balked at requests from the plaintiffs that the government go back and look for backup tapes or try to find Mrs. Clinton’s old computer or BlackBerry. (Read more from “Court Says Hillary Clinton Emails Broke ‘Government Policy'” HERE)

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