Inspectors General Ask DOJ For Criminal Inquiry Into Hillary's Emails

All is not good in Hillary Land. The NY Times is reporting that two inspectors general have requested the Department of Justice (DOJ) to start a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton's possible mishandling of sensitive information on her private server while as secretary of state. For those wondering if it's a big deal war hero and former CIA director David Petreaus recently pleaded guilty to a similar charge

The request follows an assessment in a June 29 memo by the inspectors general for the State Department and the intelligence agencies that Mrs. Clinton’s private account contained “hundreds of potentially classified emails.” The memo was written to Patrick F. Kennedy, the under secretary of state for management.

Since the news of her private account/server has become public knowledge Ms. Clinton has contended that anything on her server that might have been classified received that designation after it arrived on her server. Of course she also claims that the attacks on Planned Parenthood for selling dead baby parts is somehow a war on reproductive rights.

The Justice Department has not decided if it will open an investigation, senior officials said. A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign declined to comment.

At issue are thousands of pages of State Department emails from Mrs. Clinton’s private account. Mrs. Clinton has said she used the account because it was more convenient, but it also shielded her correspondence from congressional and Freedom of Information Act requests.

She faced sharp criticism after her use of the account became public, and subsequently said she would ask the State Department to release her emails.

And she has asked the State Department to released the cherry-picked 55,000 emails her handlers decided to turn over to the folks at Foggy Bottom. A files of emails almost as large were kept my Ms. Clinton and eventually erased from her server. Some of those emails turned up (because of the other party) and were business oriented. For example Sidney Blumenthal turned over 15 emails not in the Hillary 55K.

In a second memo to Mr. Kennedy, sent on July 17, the inspectors general said that at least one email made public by the State Department contained classified information. The inspectors general did not identify the email or reveal its substance.

The memos were provided to The New York Times by a senior government official.

The inspectors general also criticized the State Department for its handling of sensitive information, particularly its reliance on retired senior Foreign Service officers to decide if information should be classified, and for not consulting with the intelligence agencies about its determinations.

Based on the revelations made in the Email case and other scandals which arose since she started running for the 2016 nomination, polling has shown that Ms. Clinton's trustworthiness numbers has fallen quickly. This might add to the decline.