FBI finally takes Hillary’s thumb drives from her lawyer

Hillary Clinton has finally agreed to turn over her personal email server to the government. As RNC Chairman Reince Priebus says: “All this means is that Hillary Clinton, in the face of FBI scrutiny, has decided she has run out of options.”

In related news, Clinton’s attorney David Kendall turned over to the FBI three thumb drives containing copies of work-related emails sent to and from her personal email addresses via her private server. He did so after the FBI determined he could not remain in possession of the classified information contained in some of the emails.

I’ve complained about Kendall possessing this material in the first place. Neither he nor the lawyers who work with him have security clearances. And the FBI should have anticipated that some of the material Clinton turned over to Kendall contained classified information.

Furthermore, even before Clinton became the subject of a criminal investigation, there was an obvious alternative to turning the emails over to her lawyer. She could have immediately given them to the State Department. In fact, because she did not comply with the procedures required in order to remove documents, she was obligated to do so.

As for Kendall, it seems to me that he should have told his client straight away that he couldn’t review any material containing classified information or, indeed, any sort of sensitive information that is supposed to be held confidential by government employees. And given his inability to know which items contained such information, he should have declined to review any of the documents.

Having failed to do so, the question is whether Kendall and/or his colleagues reviewed such material. For example, did they review the four documents (out of 40 that the government has now scrutinized) that have been deemed classified? How about the two that are “top secret”? If so, that’s a matter of serious, and perhaps criminal, concern.

I doubt that these concerns have only just surfaced at the Department of Justice. It’s likely that voices there have been saying for some time that Kendall ought not to be in possession of Clinton’s emails and that they should be turned over forthwith.

Why did the government wait so long to make this demand? Has it, like Team Clinton, decided that it has run out of options?

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