Just one more Hillary story that won't go away

Will Hillary Clinton's declarative sentence — "The server will remain private" — become an interrogative one? That metamorphosis is already more likely, since the State Department "disclosed on Friday that until last month it had no way of routinely preserving senior officials' emails," which "raises the possibility that some emails from Mrs. Clinton to other State Department officials may have been lost altogether."

This isn't going away. Indeed, "this" may only be the beginning. Although the State Department's spokeswoman conceded that she's no "expert on the technical capabilities," she also ventured that the department's intra-official email correspondence at the higher levels isn't necessarily "lost to history" since "there are technical means of gaining access to past information." If true, then the most direct, most expedient path to regaining Hillary's "lost" emails would be for records officials to obtain her server. That, in itself, could possibly reconstruct correspondence at the highest level — and in one clean sweep, rather than trying to recover the secretary's correspondence that is scattered throughout perhaps dozens of department accounts.

This isn't going away. Hillary's retention of the server, which may contain recoverable data, is certain to become a fresh investigative circus for you-know-who. All their carpet-chewing won't change any hyperpartisan minds on the left, or for sure on the right, but it will keep the story in the news. It will hover and haunt, and thereby it could chip away at the middle. It could do earlier-than-expected, hair-raising damage to Hillary's comfortable, 10-point leads over the carpet-chewers' presidential frontrunners.

No, this isn't going away, because "the State Department disclosure is likely to bring intense scrutiny to the process that Mrs. Clinton and her lawyers used in deciding late last year which of the roughly 60,000 emails from her personal account should be considered work-related and turned over to the State Department." Such scrutinizing torrents await Hillary's campaign announcement next month. For now, she can fill the press with battering, reportorial remarks — "A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton did not return an email, call or text seeking comment," says the NYT; "A Clinton spokesman had no comment on the department’s disclosure," adds Politico — but at some point the deluge can't be ignored.

The story could have gone away, or at least drained into insignificance, if only Hillary had promptly released the server for independent examination. Her contrarian retention now promises to morph into a contracted legal matter. It could drag on for months. But more important what she has really retained is her vexing habit of begging for ridicule, such as in Dowd's "Open Letter to the Leaders of the Clinton Republic of Chappaqua" this morning: "You seem like an annoyed queen, radiating irritation at anyone who tries to hold you accountable."

Nor will the ridicule cease after Hillary's "staffing up" next month with a feral pack of backstabbing courtiers. And there's another story that won't go away. Because as a manager, Hillary is still the magnificent bungler she was in 2008. As "the stories" accumulate, hers will become an increasingly bumpy ride.

 

Comments

[Bob]

The email "scandal" is just another example of our petulant and imperious national media. According to mediamatters.org among others, the NYT is already walking back its accusations. Remember how the "liberal" NYT obsessed over Whitewater during the '90's? Improbable as it may seem, maybe The Gray Lady learned a lesson. Right wing outlets, as with Benghazi, will probably never drop the story. But who, other than their ossified audience, cares about what they have to say?

[Peter G]

Technically no. The Clnton's server would probably not be the recovery source. It might be since merely deleting something only removes a single reference dgit and frees the memory space used for storing that data to be verwritten as required. It may be recoverable right up to the point it is overwritten. Unless the person doing the deleting is anyone with basic knowledge of computer science. They would know to use a multipass rotational wiping system. From that there is no data recovery. It is possible to recover e-mails since copies are essentially stored en route during transmission. That's how they partially recovered millions of Bush era e-mails that were accidentally deleted and intentionally overwritten.

Would turning over the server have put allegations to rest? No way. No how. Surrendering every shred of privacy is not something anyone has a right to expect of Hillary Clinton or anyone else. She has a perfect right to insist that she has rights and it would be a grievous mistake to surrender them. You don't ever get them back. I'm pleased to see this is how public perception is shaping up.

[lawrence]

As "the stories" accumulate, hers will become an increasingly bumpy ride.

Or maybe a slow trudge.
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