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Rep. Issa: Clinton Could Face Criminal Charges

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By Jesse Byrnes. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Sunday suggested that Hillary Clinton could face criminal charges if she knowingly withholds emails from congressional investigators.

Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Issa noted that “voluntary cooperation does not guarantee that it’s a crime not to deliver all” requested emails.

“A subpoena, which Trey Gowdy issued, is so that in fact it will be a crime if she knowingly withholds documents pursuant to subpoena,” Issa said.

The former House Oversight Committee chairman issued three subpoenas related to the 2012 Benghazi attacks, he said, acknowledging the House Select Committee on Benghazi last week subpoenaed all of Clinton’s emails during her tenure as secretary of State.

Clinton last week called on the State Department to release the 55,000 pages of her emails that she self-selected and turned over. State has turned over about 900 pages to the committee. (Read more about the possible criminal charges against Hillary Clinton HERE)

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‘Huge Gaps’ in Clinton Email Record, Benghazi Probe Chief Says

By Lisa Lambert and Timothy Gardner. Huge gaps exist in the emails former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has provided to a congressional committee investigating the 2012 attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the panel’s chairman said on Sunday.


Republican Representative Trey Gowdy said his committee lacked documentation from Clinton’s trip to Libya after the attack despite a popular photo image of her using a handheld device during a flight to that country.

“We have no emails from that day. In fact we have no emails from that trip,” said Gowdy, who heads the committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. “There are huge gaps.”

Widely considered the frontrunner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton used a private email account for all official business as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. (Read more from this story HERE)

White House Takes out Two Democrat Critics of Its Insane Iran Deal in One Week: Hillary and Menendez

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It would appear that the Obama back office is far more competent than its front office.

Lee Smith asks a logical question: “We’ve Known About Hillary’s Email for Years. Why the Hoopla This Week?”

…the public first became aware that Clinton was using her personal email two years ago, in March 2013, when a Romanian Internet activist using the nickname Guccifer hacked into Clinton ally Sidney Blumenthal’s AOL account and uncovered a trove of work emails between the two from and to her personal account…

So, why did it take the Obama Administration two years to admit to what was already known and to then suggest that Clinton’s behavior was reckless and may have even been criminal? And why did it take so long for a major news organization like the New York Times to come up with the big “scoop” it published earlier this week?

Or to put the question another way, why did Hillary Clinton become the Obama Administration’s bête noire this very week, the same one during which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pulled all of the world’s focus onto the issue of the administration’s negotiations with Iran?

The answer is that the two are related: This week’s tarring of Hillary Clinton is part of the White House’s political campaign to shut off debate about its hoped-for deal. It’s not hard to see why they’re anxious. With Netanyahu’s speech forcing lawmakers and editorial writers to face up to the proposed agreement’s manifest problems, the administration fears the prospect of Democrats jumping ship and signing on to Kirk-Menendez sanctions legislation that also would give Congress oversight on the deal. So far, the White House has managed to keep Democratic lawmakers in line, no matter how much they seem to question the wisdom of the proposed deal. Hillary Clinton, gearing up for a 2016 run in which she is likely to put some distance between herself and Obama’s dubious Middle East policies, is the one major national Democratic figure who can give Democrats in Congress cover.

Did someone say “Menendez”?

Via CNN:

The Justice Department is preparing to bring criminal corruption charges against New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, alleging he used his Senate office to push the business interests of a Democratic donor and friend in exchange for gifts.

People briefed on the case say Attorney General Eric Holder has signed off on prosecutors’ request to proceed with charges, CNN has learned exclusively.

Back in January, Sen. Menendez made headlines for blasting the Obama administration’s handling of the Middle East, saying that the White House sounds as if their talking points “come straight out of Tehran.”

The “timing” was noticed:

Amazing timing, that DOJ nails Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., right after he becomes the loudest critic of Obama’s Iran deal.

— jimgeraghty (@jimgeraghty) March 6, 2015

Let’s see. The DOJ has ignored a series of egregious felonies committed by Lois Lerner, Eric Holder, Steven Miller, Lisa Jackson, and a host of others.

Why then, would it now attack Robert Menendez, Democrat Senator from New Jersey?

Well, just four days ago, the National Journal reported that “At AIPAC, Sen. Menendez Goes Head-to-Head With the Obama Administration on Iran”.


March 2, 2015 Sen. Bob Menendez takes joy in being on the wrong side of Tehran, and he’s not afraid of being at odds with his own party’s White House.

“When it comes to defending the U.S.-Israel relationship, I am not intimidated by anyone—not Israel’s political enemies and not by my political friends when I believe they’re wrong,” Menendez declared to an energized crowd at the AIPAC policy conference Monday evening… A call to action for his fellow members of Congress, Menendez vowed never to back down from a brawl to defend the U.S. and Israel’s “sacrosanct” and “untouchable” relationship.

Menendez’s speech marked a crescendo in a long and—at times—tense relationship with the Obama administration. As the White House seeks to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran, Menendez has been the leading Democrat questioning the process. While President Obama has demanded cooperation from Congress, the Foreign Relations Committee’s top Democrat sponsored legislation in December that aimed to bog Iran down with more economic sanctions. His intent was to put more pressure on the country to cooperate with the United States, but the White House claimed it undermined its months-long discussions. (See “White House Takes out Two Democrat Critics of Its Insane Iran Deal in One Week: Hillary and Menendez”, originally posted HERE)

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No Surprise: White House Alerted About Missing Clinton Emails MONTHS Ago

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The White House, State Department and Hillary Clinton’s personal office knew in August that House Republicans had received information showing that the former secretary of state conducted official government business through her private email account — and Clinton’s staff made the decision to keep quiet.

Sources familiar with the discussions say key people in the Obama administration and on Clinton’s staff were aware that the revelation could be explosive for the all-but-announced candidate for president. But those involved deferred to Clinton’s aides, and they decided not to respond.

In the end, Clinton’s staff waited six months — until after the New York Times published a story on Tuesday about the email account and the possibility that it hampered public access to official records — to begin their response.

Clinton’s slow-off-the-block defense has left many political strategists and observers confused because even a presidential campaign in its early stages should have been prepared to get out ahead of bad news. Had the existence of the email address and private server been made public in August, they say, it could have become a marginal issue in the run-up to the midterm elections, which Democrats badly lost anyway and in which Clinton wasn’t a candidate. But the decision to let it linger has meant it will cast a much larger shadow over Clinton’s expected campaign announcement.

According to the sources, the problem came to light in August as the State Department prepared to respond to a request from the House Select Committee investigating the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. State Department officials noticed that some of the 15,000 pages of documents included a personal email address for Clinton, and State and White House officials conferred on how to handle the revelation, which they expected the committee to notice. But they felt that Clinton’s personal staff should take the lead, since she was no longer in government, and Clinton aides decided to wait and see. (Read more about the missing Clinton emails HERE)

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More Clinton Dirt: Hillary Clinton Engaged in a ‘Scheme to Conceal’ Her Email

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By Hunter Walker. The congressional committee dedicated to investigating the 2012 terrorist attacks on the US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya believes that Hillary Clinton engaged in a “scheme to conceal” her email while she was secretary of state.

Jamal Ware, a spokesman for the committee which is chaired by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-South Carolina), issued a statement on Wednesday responding to a tweet Clinton sent the prior night. Clinton wrote that she wants “the public to see” her email and asked the State Department to release her messages. Ware dismissed this and said it “does not answer questions” about Clinton’s email “scheme.”

Ware’s response highlighted the fact that Clinton’s aides reviewed her emails and decided which ones should be turned over to the State Department. (Read more from “Hillary Clinton Engaged in a ‘Scheme to Conceal’ Her Email” HERE)


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Hillary Clinton Created Multiple Email Addresses on Shaky Private Server

By James Rosen. Hillary Clinton appears to have established multiple email addresses for her private use, and possibly the use of her aides, under the domain of “clintonemail.com,” according to a prominent member of the hacking community who supplied independent research data, conducted with high-tech tools, to Fox News.


The hacker used an open-source tool, publicly available, called “The Harvester” to search a variety of data sources – including well-known platforms such as Google, Bing, LinkedIn, Twitter and others – for any stored references to email addresses seen using a particular domain, in this case clintonemail.com. Hackers working under contract for private firms, also known as “White Hat hackers,” routinely use The Harvester during so-called “penetration testing,” or “pen testing,” on behalf of clients trying to ensure that their internal systems are secure.

The application of The Harvester to clintonemail.com revealed additional email addresses besides the one that Clinton aides have insisted publicly that she used, and have said was the only one that she used, when she served as Secretary of State: namely, [email protected]. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Amid Clinton Controversies, Democrats Yearn for an Alternative

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By John Wagner. Democratic activists in early presidential nominating states say that new controversies swirling around Hillary Rodham Clinton have made them more eager than ever for alternatives in 2016.

The undercurrent of anxiety about Clinton’s vulnerabilities has grown in recent days with potentially damaging news of foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation and the former secretary of state’s use of private email accounts to conduct official business.

But as they survey the landscape, few Democrats see other credible contenders.

“The problem is, there’s nobody out there who’s not Clinton who’s the equivalent of Barack Obama,” said Larry Drake, chairman of the Portsmouth Democrats in New Hampshire. “He was a fresh face … and he gave great speeches and he turned out to be electable.”

The angst among Democrats offers new evidence that opportunities remain for other candidates despite Clinton’s commanding lead in early polls. H. Boyd Brown, a member of the Democratic National Committee from South Carolina who supports former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, said Clinton will not wear well as Democrats are exposed to a continuing drumbeat of press scrutiny. (Read more from “Amid Clinton Controversies, Democrats Yearn for an Alternative” HERE)
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Judicial Watch Sues for Hillary and Huma’s Egypt Emails

By Judicial Watch Press Room. Judicial Watch announced today that it has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the State Department seeking any and all communications – including emails – from then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Chief of Staff Huma Abedin with Nagla Mahmoud, wife of ousted Egyptian president Mohammad Morsi, from January 21, 2009 to January 31, 2013 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00321)). This latest lawsuit will require the State Department to answer questions about and conduct thorough searches of Hillary Clinton’s newly discovered hidden email accounts. Judicial Watch also has nearly a dozen other active FOIA lawsuits that may require the State Department to search these email accounts. Huma Abedin is also alleged to have a secret account as well.

Judicial Watch submitted its original FOIA request on August 27, 2014. The State Department was required by law to respond by September 26, 2014 at the latest to Judicial Watch’s request for:

•Any and all records of communication between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Nagla Mahmoud, wife of ousted Egyptian president Muhammad Morsi, from January 21, 2009 to January 31, 2013; and

•Any and all records of communication between former State Department Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin and Nagla Mahmoud from January 21, 2009 to January 31, 2013.

To date, the State Department has not responded.

Ms. Mahmoud threatened Mrs. Clinton after Morsi was ousted. According to JihadWatch.org:

In the words of El-Mogaz News, Morsi’s wife “is threatening to expose the special relationship between her husband and Hillary Clinton, after the latter attacked the ousted [president], calling him a simpleton who was unfit for the presidency. Sources close to Nagla confirmed that she has threatened to publish the letters exchanged between Morsi and Hillary.”

The report continues by saying that Nagla accuses Hillary of denouncing her former close ally, the Brotherhood’s Morsi, in an effort to foster better relations with his successor, Egypt’s current president, Sisi—even though, as Nagla laments, “he [Morsi] was faithful to the American administration.”

“Now we know why the State Department didn’t want to respond to our specific request for Hillary Clinton’s and Huma Abedin’s communications,” stated Tom Fitton. “The State Department violated FOIA law rather than admit that it couldn’t and wouldn’t search the secret accounts that the agency has known about for years. This lawsuit shows how the latest Obama administration cover-up isn’t just about domestic politics but has significant foreign policy implications.” (Read the original Judicial Watch press release HERE)

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Hillary Clinton’s Use of Private Email at State Department Violated Federal Law

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By Michael S. Schmidt. Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, State Department officials said, and may have violated federal requirements that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record.

Mrs. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act.

It was only two months ago, in response to a new State Department effort to comply with federal record-keeping practices, that Mrs. Clinton’s advisers reviewed tens of thousands of pages of her personal emails and decided which ones to turn over to the State Department. All told, 55,000 pages of emails were given to the department. Mrs. Clinton stepped down from the secretary’s post in early 2013.

Her expansive use of the private account was alarming to current and former National Archives and Records Administration officials and government watchdogs, who called it a serious breach. (Read more about Hillary’s use of private email HERE)


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Maybe Hillary Should Retire Her White House Dreams

By Ron Fournier. Maybe she should stay at the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, where the former secretary of State could continue her life’s work of building stronger economies, health care systems, and families. Give paid speeches. Write best-selling books. Spend time with Charlotte, her beloved granddaughter.

Because she doesn’t seem ready for 2016. Like a blast of wintry air in July, the worst of 1990s-style politics is intruding on what needs to be a new millennium campaign: Transparent, inspirational, innovative, and beyond ethical reproach.


Two weeks ago, we learned that the Clinton Foundation accepted contributions from foreign countries. Assurances from the Obama administration and Clinton aides that no donations were made during her tenure as secretary of State were proven false.

I called the actions sleazy and stupid. Sleazy because any fair-minded person would suspect the foreign countries of trying to buy Clinton’s influence. Stupid because the affair plays into a decades-old knock on the Clintons: They’ll cut any corner for campaign cash. In the 1990s, Bill Clinton and his top aides used the White House as a tool to court and reward big donors. (Read more from this story HERE)

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The Clinton Foundation’s Dirty Donors

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Photo Credit: Personal Liberty So now we know that a lot of foreign governments – many of them with very shaky records on human rights — have given a ton of money to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s foundation. Is anyone surprised? More to the point, is anyone really bothered by it?

At least one top-ranking Republican is. Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, says that “The latest revelations about the Clinton Foundation’s shady deals are disqualifying.” And by “disqualifying,” he means they should be enough to keep Hillary from getting her party’s nomination to be the next President of the United States.

Fat chance that will happen. Nevertheless, a bunch of questions are being asked about the millions of dollars that countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and U.A.E. poured into the Clinton Foundation, much of it while Hillary served as Secretary of State.

The RNC chairman declared, “No one in their right mind, Democrat or Republican, can think the foundation receiving foreign government donations while Hillary Clinton served as Secretary of State, and in violation of its ethics agreement with the Obama Administration, is acceptable.” And he added, “This is symptomatic of the Clintons’ obsession with raising cash at all costs.”

The foundation was created in 2001 when Bill Clinton left office. Originally called the William J. Clinton Foundation, it changed its name to the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Foundation when Hillary resigned as Secretary of State. Since its formation, the foundation has raised a staggering $1.6 billion, with much of the money coming from foundations, corporations and foreign governments. (Read more about the Clinton Foundation’s donors HERE)

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Hillary Clinton Seen Launching Presidential Bid in April; CPAC Announces Straw Poll Results

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By Peter Nicholas and Carol E. Lee. Hillary Clinton and her close advisers are telling Democratic donors that she will enter the presidential race sooner than expected, likely in April, a move that would allay uncertainties within her party and allow her to rev up fundraising.

Clinton aides have spoken of the earlier timetable in private meetings, according to people engaged in recent discussions about the presumed Democratic front-runner’s emerging 2016 campaign. Many within her camp have advocated her staying out of the fray until the summer.

Jumping in sooner would help the Democratic field take shape, reassuring party leaders and donors that the former first lady, senator and secretary of state is running. A super PAC loyal to Mrs. Clinton has faced hesitation from donors who don’t want to make big pledges until she is a candidate. Such concerns would evaporate after she announces.

But Mrs. Clinton would become an even larger target for Republicans when she enters the race. She also would be pressed to opine on a raft of thorny issues in the news, including how to combat the military advances of Islamic State militants in the Middle East. (Read more about Hillary Clinton announcing her presidential bid HERE)


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CPAC Announces Official Results of Its 2015 Presidential Straw Poll

By Nick Morpus. As the Conservative Political Action Conference comes to a close, it’s time to announce the results of its annual presidential poll.

Despite recent surges of Governors Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, Senator Rand Paul has won the poll for the third year in a row:

1. Rand Paul 25.7 (31)
2. Scott Walker 21.4 (7)
3. Ted Cruz 11.5 (11)
4. Ben Carson 11.4 (9)
5. Jeb Bush 8.3 (N/A)
6. Rick Santorum 4.3 (7)
7. Marco Rubio 3.7 (6)
8. Donald Trump 3.5 (2)
9. Carly Fiorina 3.0 (N/A)
10. Chris Christie 2.8 (8)
11. Rick Perry 1.1 (3)
12. Bobby Jindal 0.9 (2)
13. Sarah Palin 0.8 (2)
14. Mike Huckabee 0.3 (2)
15. John Bolton 0.3 (N/A)
16. Lindsey Graham 0.1 (N/A)
17. George Pataki 0.1 (N/A)

(Read more from this story HERE)

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The Making of Hillary 5.0; Marketing Wizards Trying to Re-Imagine Clinton Brand

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As she readies her second presidential campaign, Clinton has recruited consumer marketing specialists onto her team of trusted political advisers. Their job is to help imagine Hillary 5.0 — the rebranding of a first lady turned senator turned failed presidential candidate turned secretary of state turned likely 2016 Democratic presidential nominee.

Clinton and her image-makers are sketching ways to refresh the well-established brand for tomorrow’s marketplace. In their mission to present voters with a winning picture of the likely candidate, no detail is too big or too small — from her economic opportunity agenda to the design of the “H” in her future campaign logo.

“It’s exactly the same as selling an iPhone or a soft drink or a cereal,” said Peter Sealey, a longtime corporate marketing strategist. “She needs to use everything a brand has: a dominant color, a logo, a symbol. . . . The symbol of a Mercedes is a three-pointed star. The symbol of Coca-Cola is the contour bottle. The symbol of McDonald’s is the golden arches. What is Clinton’s symbol?”

Clinton’s challenge is unique. Unlike potential Republican challengers of relatively middling fame who are introducing themselves to a national audience for the first time, Clinton is almost universally recognized. Love her or loathe her, potential voters know who she is after more than two decades in public life . . .

In politics, authenticity can be a powerful trait, and it is one that sometimes has escaped Clinton. In her 2008 presidential campaign, despite some raw displays of emotion, she often came across as overly programmed. (Read more about the marketing wizards trying to re-imagine the Clinton brand HERE)

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Jeb Bush is Unelectable According to This Conservative Group [+video]

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Photo Credit: Daily Signal By Ken McIntyre. A conservative group’s new online ad portrays Jeb Bush as “unelectable” to the presidency because the Republican presented a public service award to the Democratic favorite, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Clinton received the award, the video emphasizes, on Sept. 10, 2013 – one day short of the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead and stained her legacy as secretary of state.

(Read more about the conservative group saying Jeb Bush is unelectable HERE)

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Hotline’s GOP Presidential Power Rankings

By National Journal Staff. Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and a surging Scott Walker top Hotline’s new GOP Presidential Power Rankings – in part because they’re that good, and in part because the competition has been so bad.

If you’re going to make mistakes in the presidential race, it’s better to make them early. But Rand Paul and Chris Christie have stumbled so often they’ve slipped from the top-tier slots they occupied in the first round of the Power Rankings we released last month. Walker is moving hard in the opposite direction.

We rank would-be candidates’ chances of winning the Republican nomination based on their individual strengths and weaknesses, political organizations, poll numbers – and on the odds that they even decide to run. No serious candidates are officially running yet. Here’s how it looks if they do:

1. Jeb Bush (Previous ranking: 1)

The former Florida governor stays on top for now, if only because his fundraising prowess — charging $100,000 per ticket at a recent Wall Street event — is unrivaled among his Republican peers. But the past few weeks have revealed chinks in Bush’s armor. For starters, his first major policy speech in Detroit was flat and uninspiring; it wasn’t until the Q&A section that Bush came to life and spoke with energy and urgency about his candidacy. Worse was Bush’s failure to properly vet CTO Ethan Czahor, who was pushed out after reporters found a history of offensive remarks on social media and elsewhere. Bush aspires to be a hip, 21st-century campaigner. But his team’s failure to investigate the background of a major hire — whose 177 tweets could have been reviewed in a matter of minutes — raises serious doubts about the agility and tech savvy of the emerging Bush operation. Remember: His last winning campaign was in 2002, before Twitter even existed.

(Read more from this story HERE)