If you are like me, you are sick and tired of all the lies surrounding Hillary Clinton and her emails.
You know, the lies such as “She lied. Director Comey said so.”
Follow along with me as we dissect these lies and prove that Secretary Clinton has consistently been telling the truth.
You have to give Trey Gowdy credit. The Draco Malfoy lookalike did a masterful job of leading FBI Director James Comey through a list of questions that seemed — to the uninformed — to “prove” that Hillary Clinton lied about her emails. A close examination of these questions and answers completely disproves that conclusion.
As detailed below, Congressman Gowdy’s questioning of Director Comey was deliberately misleading, as most of the statements that Gowdy attributed to Secretary Clinton were not accurate or the questions posed were intended to elicit answers that were misleadingly incomplete.
- Gowdy stated that “Secretary Clinton used one device.” In fact, Clinton never claimed to have used only one device during her tenure. The “one device” claim derives from Clinton’s explanation that she wanted to use a personal account so that she would be able to carry only one device at a time for both personal and work emails -- not from a claim that she only ever used one device. Did Clinton lie about using only one device? No.
- Gowdy noted that Secretary Clinton had commented that there was nothing marked classified on her emails sent or received. Comey noted that “there were a small number of portion markings on I think three of the documents.” As Comey later testified in response to questioning from Congressman Cartwright, since classified items require specific headings indicating their status, it was reasonable for Secretary Clinton to infer that items without such headings – including the three items he mentioned and every other email among the 30,000-plus emails reviewed -- were not classified. In fact, the State Department has now determined that those emails were marked inappropriately in the first place. Were all required markings on the items, and did Clinton lie about the absence of items marked classified? No.
- Gowdy notes that Secretary Clinton stated that all work related emails were turned over to the State Department. Clinton’s testimony before the Benghazi Committee explained that she had instructed her lawyers to turn over “anything that could possibly be construed as work related.” She explained to Gowdy that “there was an exhaustive search done under the supervision of my attorneys.” She explained to Congressman Jordan that her attorneys had used search terms and data parameters, but that she “did not look over their shoulders, because I thought that it would be appropriate for them to conduct that search, and they did.” As Director Comey noted in his statement on July 5, “we found no evidence that any of the additional work-related e-mails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them. Our assessment is that, like many e-mail users, Secretary Clinton periodically deleted e-mails or e-mails were purged from the system when devices were changed. Because she was not using a government account—or even a commercial account like Gmail—there was no archiving at all of her e-mails, so it is not surprising that we discovered e-mails that were not on Secretary Clinton’s system in 2014, when she produced the 30,000 e-mails to the State Department.” Did Clinton lie in stating her understanding that all relevant emails had been delivered? No.
- Gowdy claimed that “Secretary Clinton said that her lawyers read every one of the emails”. It was Gowdy who lied, not Clinton. Near the end of the marathon 11 hour Benghazi Committee hearing, Congressman Jordan pressed Clinton for details about the nature of the search performed by her attorneys. Jordan wanted Clinton to “answer today, what were the search terms?” Secretary Clinton’s responded, “the search terms were everything you could imagine that might be related to anything, but they also went through every single e-mail.” When Jordan continued to press for details about search terms and date parameters, Clinton responded, “Well, Congressman, I asked my attorneys to oversee the process. I did not look over their shoulder. I did not dictate how they would do it. I did not ask what they were doing and how they made their determinations.” It is clear from this context that Secretary Clinton did not oversee the examination of emails by her attorneys, and her statement that “they went through every single e-mail” was not a claim that they had “read every one of the emails”, because she made it clear that she was not in a position to know that. Rather, it meant that she understood that they were thorough in their review. After all, if they had read the entire text of all emails, why would there have been a need to use search terms? So did Clinton lie? No, it was Gowdy who lied.
In addition to the items touched upon by Congressman Gowdy, there are other alleged lies that continue to circulate in the anti-Hillary echo chamber.
- One such lie is that Secretary Clinton set up her private email system for the specific purpose of avoiding scrutiny of her communications as Secretary of State. The State Department Inspector General’s report confirmed that Secretary Clinton used a private email account during her tenure in the Senate as well as during the 2008 campaign, so she continued using her previously existing approach as Secretary of State. Contrary to the accusation of her detractors, she did not go to the trouble and expense of creating a new email system when she entered the State Department — she instead simply continued a practice that had served her well for many years.
- Another lie is that Secretary Clinton was obligated to turn over all emails, regardless of whether they were private or business related. The Department of Justice confirmed that applicable requirements of the Federal Records Act puts the obligation on the government official, not the agency or a third party, to determine what is a federal record required to be turned over.
- Yet another lie is that Secretary Clinton is personally responsible for initiating and supervising the content of all of the emails that agencies later determined “should have been” classified at the time they were sent. The Washington Post reported that the overwhelming majority (about 95%) of the items now regarded as classified were sent to Clinton by others, primarily from career diplomats who themselves understood the classification requirements but determined at the time that the material was not classified. Clinton’s detractors now take the position that she is entirely responsible for the judgment of those professionals based on after-the-fact determinations by others. Fair? I don't think so.
Keep in mind that Secretary Clinton and others within the State Department used a separate secure system to transmit information known to be classified. This should be obvious even to her detractors, since she obviously must have sent or received more than 110 classified items (the number cited by Director Comey) during her tenure. Also keep in mind that her personal email account was never intended for transmission of classified information, and not a single one of the over 30,000 emails that were reviewed contained all required markings indicating classified status. Again, these items on her personal account were emails sent and received by career diplomats and others familiar with classification requirements but who did not regard the items in question as requiring classification. Nevertheless, in retrospect it has been determined — perhaps as a result of “overclassification” — that certain items were transmitted that should have been marked as classified. For this Secretary Clinton has been accused of deliberately risking the nation’s security? Balderdash!
Secretary Clinton’s words and actions over almost 30 years have been scrutinized to an extent that seems unparalleled. Her detractors have succeeded in creating a false narrative about her alleged untruthfulness. A fair-minded person considering the points above will recognize that she provided truthful answers.
Did Hillary lie? No, but her detractors are doing it in spades.