My house needs some serious decluttering of closets, the garage, drawers, cupboards, and, yikes, paper work. Here and there, small bits of decluttering progress happen, but when it comes to books and kitchen gadgets, there’s rarely any that leave.
Last weekend I sorted through some bookshelves full of paperbacks (mostly historical romance novels) and filled up a medium-sized box to take to the Goodwill, but I came across this Agatha Christie book of short stories, which my youngest daughter read in her early teens. Sorry about the shadowy photo, but my lame photography kind of adds to the mystery vibe… This paperback escaped purging, because I realized I had never read these short stories before.
A few weeks ago, sorting through some books, I came across this childhood favorite of mine:
I thought about throwing it into my Goodwill box. That didn’t happen.
Miss Marple, in writing, is even more delightful than she is on TV or in movies. I love characters who sit removed from the action, quietly whiling away at their needlework, while their mind is on much more serious matters. As for the Princess Tales, the pages are very yellowed, but there are some interesting black and white images of princesses, who will likely end up in a junk journal in the near future.
Sadly, my sleuthing skills will never be on par with the marvelous Miss Marple, so I’m stuck sorting through open source information, reading through tedious government reports and lots of googling. Today, I’ve spent time rethinking and refreshing my memory about what else was going on around the time and/or shortly before the pivotal events in the 2016 corruption saga.
Trump is not the only American president to act like a mafia don and he’s not the only presidential candidate in 2016 to rely heavily on a “fixer”. Trump relied on his longtime friend and personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, who has now defected to not just cooperating with Mueller’s investigation. Cohen, out of all of the lawyers in America, hired Clinton loyalist and dogged Clinton mouthpiece, Lanny Davis.
So, who was Hillary Clinton’s trusted “fixer”?
It was Bill Clinton, of course.
Bill Clinton very much wields the power in the Dem good ol’ boy network, that Hillary never will. Hillary has operatives, who report only to her, but her political power will never equal Bill Clinton’s. He is a former-president, a bona fide political genius, has a large circle of political operatives, friends, Dems who owe him, while she, despite being a powerhouse fundraiser, is only a twice-failed presidential contender.
Bill Clinton maintained a pretty low public profile in Hillary’s 2016 run. However, he made news at a few pivotal times .
Here’s an August 2015 story of Bill Clinton and Vernon Jordan “happily golfing” with Obama at Martha’s Vineyard:
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-obama-bill-clinton-golf-marthas-vineyard/story?id=33106106
Bill Clinton and President Obama looked so “happy” in that photo, that I wondered what on earth they were chatting about, with Vernon Jordan, longtime Clinton hack along and Bill Clinton’s angry face and “strong-arm posture”.
Obviously, Obama knows that Hillary has enough damaging information on the Obama administration security failures, Benghazi, etc., that there’s no way Obama can ever stand up against the Clinton machine and retain his own legacy. President Obama used a private gmail account and emailed Hillary at her email address on her private server. That information is in FBI Notes of Huma Abedin’s interview. Abedin is shown various email chains and one includes emails from a gmail account with an alias, that Obama used.
In October 2015, Hillary appeared before the Benghazi Committee to clear Benghazi off the deck for her presidential run. Dems on the Benghazi Committee ran a full-throated spin effort for 11 hours straight – repeating two phrases, over and over and over, to set in stone, in the public mind these two points: “This hearing is a right-wing witch hunt” and “This is costing the American taxpayers $4.7 million.” (pssst, note, Trump is just a Dem spin copycat with the “witch hunt” lament)
Bill Clinton wanted that email investigation gone, so imagine his ire that a year later, as the drip-drop of more emails fall-out was still impacting weekly in 2016. The drips were sucking oxygen from Hillary’s campaign, almost as much as Hillary’s lackluster campaign style.
Then, in late June 2016, there was the Bill Clinton/Loretta Lynch tarmac meeting to get the ball rolling in “THE END” to the FBI’s investigation of Hillary’s emails. It appears Bill Clinton decided to strong-arm the DOJ to deep-six Hillary’s email investigation.
Loretta Lynch refused to recuse herself from the email investigation, but she made some bizarre statement that she would abide by the FBI’s recommendation on prosecution, even though she fully knew prosecutorial decisions are a DOJ responsibility. She put James Comey in an uncomfortable position, but as evidence bears out, Comey and the FBI had already written drafts exonerating Hillary months before.
Googling last night, I came across two news stories that made me think that understanding Washington politics is a lot like following daytime soap operas. With soap operas, if you don’t watch regularly, you need to have a friend or family member, who does and who can fill you in on all the long, winding back story. James Comey was a deputy attorney general in 2004, involved in the Sandy Berger case.
Berger, a former Clinton national security adviser, stole classified documents from the National Archives. Berger got off pleading to a single misdemeanor, a fine and later he had his law license revoked. Yet, while Secretary of State, Hillary was emailing Sandy Berger, using an unsecured server and with a man who assuredly should not have any access to sensitive information. They were discussing sensitive information about:
“Others could be controversial, such as 2009 messages from former national security adviser Sandy Berger about how to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over negotiations with Palestinians.”
https://nypost.com/2015/07/31/dozens-of-clinton-emails-censored-for-security-reasons/
Time to get back to Bill Clinton, though. In July 2016 Comey exonerated Hillary on her email scandal, but Comey came under intense criticism and questioning from Congressional Republicans. He quickly became adept at donning his Hillary defense counsel hat when being questioned by Congressional Republicans, all while claiming complete and total objectivity, impartiality and above all, unquestionable personal integrity. James Comey, always answers to a higher loyalty… just ask him… even when he is flagrantly weaving and dodging spinning for Hillary Clinton. However, it seems part of Comey resented being placed in this untenable position by Loretta Lynch and the Clintons, because he started making public statements.
Comey started publicly trying to defend himself after the huge Republican blowback about how the FBI handled Hillary’s email investigation and he drew public fire from more Bill Clinton strong-arm moves. Bill Clinton lashed out:
“Bill Clinton is accusing the FBI director of serving up “the biggest load of bull I’ve ever heard” — marking the first significant public comments from the husband of the Democratic nominee on the scandal that’s plagued his wife’s campaign for over a year.”
https://nypost.com/2016/08/13/bill-clinton-accuses-fbi-of-serving-up-a-load-of-bull/
Back in August of 2016 I wrote:
Last week Hillary kept repeating lies about what FBI Director Comey said about her email server in his public statement. Okay, no biggie, when you consider every time Hillary Clinton makes a public statement she LIES. There were also reports that the FBI is deliberating whether to release the official report of Hillary’s three and a half hour interview with the FBI to Congress.
That sets the stage for my next amateur analysis of how the Clintons operate. Some odd things have occurred with both, Bill and Hillary’s comments in recent days. Bill Clinton started making statements yesterday asserting that James Comey is serving up a load of bull. Lest you think he’s senile or crazy, let me expound on how the Clintons and Obama use public comments to intimidate people.
A few months back Obama was putting the screws to General Petraeus about his retirement pay. I believe Obama wanted Petraeus to do something for him, that Petraeus was reluctant to do. I am sure when Petraeus’ scandal was settled with only one misdemeanor charge – they have a lot more serious charges that they dropped. The ones reported are serious – his mistress had hundreds of classified documents on her unsecure laptop, and his black books. Petraeus hired the Clinton lawyer, David Kendall, so you know Kendall knows where all the Clinton bodies are buried. A few days later, Ash Carter announced that they weren’t going to mess with Petraeus’ retirement benefits.
With this FBI investigation, several months ago, Obama commented on the ongoing FBI investigation into Hillary’s home-brew server and stated that it was careless, but not criminal. Bam, when Comey made his announcement he stated that her use of this unsecured server was “extremely careless” and gave a laundry list of serious findings, but then he caved and stated that while her actions were “extremely careless”, it wasn’t “criminal”. This is how the sending signals works.
These public shots across the bow are vintage Clinton tactics too. So, when I heard Bill Clinton so boldly saying what Comey said was “bull” – that was a challenge. Bill Clinton is the one behind the scenes strong-arming everyone from Obama on down to clear the path for Hillary.
https://libertybellediaries.com/2016/08/14/more-bill-clinton-strong-arm-moves/
The most important point about Hillary Clinton’s email scandal is it was Bill Clinton’s larger scandal that was being covered up. The homebrew server was set up before Hillary was ever Secretary of State, by Bill Clinton, as his personal Clinton Foundation server. Bill Clinton wasn’t just trying to save Hillary with his strong-arm moves or working to get Hillary elected. He was covering his own behind.
The FBI, reportedly, had several open Clinton Foundation investigations in 2016, yet somehow the FBI never tried to search the Clinton server for Bill Clinton foundation emails or Bill/Hillary/Huma exchanges that would go to pay-to-play??? Huma Abedin was the only non-family member with an email address on the Clinton server. She also was reported to be working for the State Department, as a “special government employee and working for Teneo, a Clinton Foundation connected firm, at the same time. There were actually two servers, the original one set-up by Bill Clinton’s IT guy and the upgraded one set-up by Hillary’s campaign IT guy, Bryan Pagliano, who was held in contempt of Congress, for failing to show to testify:
“The FBI latest document dump shows:
- The FBI acquired TWO separate email servers and mobile devices that Hillary used.
- The FBI determined 81 email chains containing classified information, ranging from CONFIDENTIAL to TOP SECRET/SPECIAL ACCESS PROGRAM were transmitted on Clinton’s TWO UNCLASSIFIED email server systems. Of those 81 emails chains, 68 remain classified.
- The FBI did not find evidence that Clinton’s server had been compromised. However, the FBI was unable to acquire all of the computer components and mobile devices used by Clinton, so they couldn’t conclusively determine whether the classified information on her system was compromised.
- On page 4, the FBI notes that Pagliano, whom Clinton had set up the second email server in home, reported that he only transferred clintonemail.com email accounts for Huma Abedin and BLANK from the old system to the new system. (The old system Bill Clinton had set up for his foundation work).”
Imagine Bill Clinton’s rage in October of 2016, when leaks from the FBI’s NY field office are reporting several ongoing investigations into Clinton Foundation pay-to-play… By that point, James Comey was probably sweating bullets trying to figure out what to do to plug the leaks and make the Weiner laptop mess go away, because all the polls looked like Hillary Clinton was going to be his new boss and Bill Clinton assuredly would not be a stay-at-home, baking cookies kind of “First Spouse”…
Comey knew all about the Clintons.
This new Comey, spouting off as a Hillary cheerleader and speaking of “extremely careless” conduct, is a far cry from the 1996, U.S. special counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee Comey:
“Comey’s first brush with them came when Bill Clinton was president. Looking to get back into government after a stint in private practice, Comey signed on as deputy special counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee. In 1996, after months of work, Comey came to some damning conclusions: Hillary Clinton was personally involved in mishandling documents and had ordered others to block investigators as they pursued their case. Worse, her behavior fit into a pattern of concealment: she and her husband had tried to hide their roles in two other matters under investigation by law enforcement. Taken together, the interference by White House officials, which included destruction of documents, amounted to “far more than just aggressive lawyering or political naiveté,” Comey and his fellow investigators concluded. It constituted “a highly improper pattern of deliberate misconduct.””
http://time.com/4276988/jim-comey-hillary-clinton/
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