Report: State Dept. Emails On Anthony Weiner’s Laptop

CBS News reports that an anonymous federal official has confirmed that Anthony Weiner’s laptop contains State Department emails that are not duplicates of those that State turned over to Congressional investigators:

The FBI has found emails related to Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state on the laptop belonging to the estranged husband of Huma Abedin, Anthony Weiner, according to a U.S. official.

These emails, CBS News’ Andres Triay reports, are not duplicates of emails found on Secretary Clinton’s private server. At this point, however, it remains to be seen whether these emails are significant to the FBI’s investigation into Clinton. It is also not known how many relevant emails there are.

I think it has been understood since the Weiner story first broke that some of Hillary’s State Department (clintonemail.com) messages are on the laptop. The principal news here is that some of them, at least, are new. Putting aside whether they are significant or not, this would seem to confirm, once again, that not all of Hillary’s work-related emails were preserved and turned over for production, as Hillary claimed.

These rabbit trails are interesting to follow, and someday we might learn something explosive from the messages that Weiner helpfully preserved. (My speculation about that is here.) But I think it is a mistake to get too far into the weeds. As I said tonight on the Seth and Chris show in Phoenix, we sometimes over-legalize this sort of issue, and thereby set the bar much too low.

Thus, when the FBI issued a report that said Hillary and her staff were “extremely careless” in handling classified information, it should have been the end of the Clinton campaign. Who wants a president who can’t follow basic protocols to protect the nation’s secrets?

Instead, because Director James Comey didn’t recommend charging Hillary with a federal crime, Democrats reacted as though a great victory had been won. She isn’t going to jail? Fantastic! She’s our next president! As I said, that sets the bar far too low.

Stories about the Clintons’ corruption are similar. Currently, there are reports that the FBI has been investigating the Clinton Foundation for some time, and some agents are determined to pursue criminal charges. That may or may not happen, but focusing on narrow legal issues loses sight of the big picture. With minor exceptions, neither of the Clintons has ever held a real, private-sector job. For thirty years, they have earned modest salaries as ostensible public servants. Yet today, their net worth is somewhere between $100 million and $300 million.

How can that happen without the Clintons being corrupt? It can’t. Peter Schweizer has done a magnificent job of pinning down chapter and verse on the Clintons’ schemes in Clinton Cash, and those details are revealing, to be sure. But the basic scam is simple: my wife is Secretary of State, and you have business before the State Department that is worth many millions, or billions, to you. You can’t pay my wife a bribe, but you can donate $2 million to the Clinton Foundation, and in connection with that donation pay me another $1 million to come to your country and give a speech. Get it?

They all got it. The Clintons put the U.S. State Department up for sale. And, while the details are fascinating, voters don’t need any evidence of corruption beyond the Clintons’ nine-figure net worth.

The good news is that most voters have pretty much figured this out. They may not understand the legal intricacies, but surveys indicate that a large majority of Americans think Hillary is dishonest and corrupt. They are right. We shouldn’t fall into the trap of accepting the idea that she is a fine presidential candidate unless and until she is actually criminally prosecuted and convicted. Our standards should be much higher than that.

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