To the Editor:
In December of 2012, four months after the Benghazi attacks, Hillary Clinton was scheduled to testify on the matter before a Congressional Committee. A few days prior to her appearance, the State Department reported that she had a stomach virus, become dehydrated, fainted, suffered a concussion and would be unavailable. An ambulance was not called and she was not hospitalized. No additional details were provided by State Department spokesmen.
United Nations Ambassador John Bolton, called the injury a "Diplomatic Illness .........to beat the band." But the bottom line is the claim of illness and the concussion enabled her to avoid testifying on Benghazi. Mission accomplished.
Liberal media bought the claim hook-line-and-sinker. Conservative commentators had their doubts.
Recent reports by the FBI concerning their interview with Hillary indicate the former Secretary of State “could not recall” or “did not remember” at least 40 times when asked questions by the FBI.
Following is a list of the questions she could not remember answers to:
- When she received security clearance
- Being briefed on how to handle classified material
- How many times she used her authority to designate items classified
- Any briefing on how to handle very top-secret "Special Access Program" material
- How to select a target for a drone strike
- How the data from her mobile devices was destroyed when she switched devices
- The number of times her staff was given a secure phone
- Why she didn’t get a secure Blackberry
- Receiving any emails she thought should not be on the private system
- Did not remember giving staff direction to create private email account
- Getting guidance from state on email policy
- Who had access to her Blackberry account
- The process for deleting her emails
- Ever getting a message that her storage was almost full
- Anyone besides Huma Abedin being offered an account on the private server
- Being sent information on state government private emails being hacked
- Receiving cable on State Dept personnel securing personal email accounts
- Receiving cable on Bryan Pagliano upgrading her server
- Using an iPad mini
- An Oct. 13, 2012, email on Egypt with Clinton pal Sidney Blumenthal
- Jacob Sullivan using personal email
- State Department protocol for confirming classified information in media reports
- Every briefing she received after suffering concussions
- Being notified of a FOIA request on Dec. 11, 2012
- Being read out of her clearance
- Any further access to her private email account from her State Department tenure after switching to her HRCoffice.com account.
It is a time-honored tradition in Washington scandals to claim one doesn't recall as they were busy being busy Washington officials, The Associated Press said in a 2005 report on common criminal defenses inside the Beltway.
Hillary has been in politics, with Bill for more than 30 years. There is no way in this world that her claims of being unable to recall some of the questions she was asked by the FBI can be true. Those answers were specifically intended to avoid telling the truth. A person who has served as a U.S. Senator and Secretary of State deals with those topics on an almost daily basis. So it is not possible to not know the answers.
A Dec. 29, 2009 executive order (13526) by President Barack Obama listed the Secretary of State as one of a select few of about two dozen government officials with ‘Original Classification Authority’ to “classify information originally as “Top Secret” or “Secret” on sight. And she says she thought that a "C" (Confidential) in front of a line in a document meant that it was preceded by an A and a B in an alphabetical listing in the document.
Such a statement by a person with her experience borders on lunacy. She is totally unqualified to be President of the United States. If the concussion saga is true and her memory is as bad as demonstrated, then she cannot possibly serve as our President!
This does not even address the illegal nature of her leadership and personal conduct.
The performance of the FBI in this whole matter is impossible to comprehend.
Rod Spears
Edwardsville