The Smoking Gun

     Just in case you’ve spent the last four years in a coma, Hillary R. Clinton, at one time a United States Senator and the Secretary of State during the first of Barack Obama’s terms in the White House, is running for president and is at this time the putative nominee of the Democrat Party. She’s also embroiled in a scandal or two. Probably the most sensitive of them is the one over her use of a private email system while she was Secretary of State. It’s been alleged that this compromised the security of various bits of classified information, including some that was classified Top Secret / Special Authorization Required. Throughout the investigation she’s maintained that she never knowingly sent or received information that was marked classified.

     Apparently, that’s not the case:

     EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Clinton, from the moment her exclusive use of personal email for government business was exposed, has claimed nothing she sent or received was marked classified at the time.

     But a 2012 email released by the State Department appears to challenge that claim because it carries a classified code known as a “portion marking” - and that marking was on the email when it was sent directly to Clinton’s account.

     The “C” - which means it was marked classified at the confidential level - is in the left-hand-margin and relates to an April 2012 phone call with Malawi's first female president, Joyce Banda, who took power after the death of President Mutharika in 2012.

     "(C) Purpose of Call: to offer condolences on the passing of President Mukharika and congratulate President Banda on her recent swearing in."

     Everything after that was fully redacted before it was publicly released by the State Department -- a sign that the information was classified at the time and dealt with sensitive government deliberations.

     A US government source said there are other Clinton emails with classified markings, or marked classified, beyond the April 2012 document.

     Those of us familiar with general Clintonian venality – and in a few cases, outright criminality – can’t really pretend to be surprised by this development. A great deal of classified information must flow both to and from the secretary of state. Many people are involved. With thousands of email communications at issue, it was next to guaranteed that someone would “slip up” and leave an obvious classification marking on one or more items.

     Nevertheless, this is, as the saying goes, “the smoking gun:” an email found on the private, unsecured Clinton server that demonstrably carries a classification marking. Mrs. Clinton can no longer maintain her facade of perfect innocence.

     So what now?

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     There have been various rumblings about the FBI’s investigation into this matter. The most dramatic ones have included the suggestion that, should Attorney-General Loretta Lynch refuse to indict Mrs. Clinton even after irrefutable evidence of criminality is found, FBI Director James Comey, a man with a high reputation for integrity, would resign in protest and in doing so, take the evidence public. The resulting firestorm of negative public relations would not only ruin Mrs. Clinton’s chance at the presidency, but would also permanently tarnish the Obama Administration, which provable knew about Mrs. Clinton’s practices. Those of us desperate for some semblance of integrity in government have prayed that, failing an indictment, Director Comey would do exactly that...but such is the viciousness of the Obama regime, and the Democrat Party generally, that it would be unwise to be certain that Director Comey could not and would not be deterred.

     The next best outcome, failing indictment or a public resignation and revelation by Director Comey, would be a series of “leaks” from the FBI that would effectively take the evidence against Mrs. Clinton wholly public. While not unthinkable, and certainly preferable to a quiet sanitization of the affair, this would not do enough damage to the Clinton for President campaign to guarantee against her election. Consider all the black marks against Obama in 2008. These failed to keep him out of the White House. Moreover, all that evidence was still available in 2012, was compounded by the many failures and peculations of his first term, including the Benghazi atrocity, and the nation still returned him to office.

     Absent an indictment and trial for felonious violations of the National Security Act, there is no guarantee that Hillary R. Clinton will not become the forty-fifth president of the United States. Indeed, should the defense allege successfully that the investigators committed some violation of Mrs. Clinton’s rights that poisoned the evidence against her, even a trial might not have the desired effect.

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     I recently decided to forgo all further interest in the 2016 presidential campaign. The amount of venom in the air is simply too great for me to endure any further exposure to it. Yet with the Fox News revelations about the “smoking gun” email, I can’t help but ask several questions – questions that cannot be definitively answered:

1. Should the FBI recommend an indictment of Mrs. Clinton, would Loretta Lynch refuse to do so?
2. Should Lynch issue such a refusal, would Director Comey resign and take the evidence public?
3. Should Director Comey refrain from resigning, would the FBI “leak” a damning case against Mrs. Clinton?
4. Should no such leaks occur, would news reports such as the one cited here doom her to defeat?
5. Most troubling of all, were Mrs. Clinton to be indicted, might she still be elected president?

     The behavior of the electorate in presidential elections since the Reagan Administration has been quite variable, difficult to predict. I would argue that even an indictment and trial would not be certain to torpedo Mrs. Clinton’s electoral chances. Not only are Democrat partisans remarkably willing to forgive their own for high crimes and misdemeanors, the Democrat machine, in coordination with traditional Clintonian underhandedness, might suffice to install her in the Oval Office despite everything. Indeed, no prohibition against a convicted felon serving as president – or in any other federal office – appears anywhere in the Constitution.

     Let’s hope no such thing comes to pass...but let’s also hope that if our politics is that far sunk in the mire, patriotic Americans will rise at last – and with more than outcries of shame.