Courtesy of Pam Martens.
Congressman Trey Gowdy, a Former Federal Prosecutor, Questions FBI Director James Comey at a House Oversight Hearing on July 7, 2016
Just 18 days before the Democratic National Convention is set to convene in Philadelphia, where delegates and superdelegates will select the presidential candidate in one of the most critical elections in U.S. history — coming amidst signs of slowing economic growth and financial stresses where a strong, trusted leader will be needed to steer the country through major headwinds — the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee delivered Hillary Clinton’s campaign a day from hell yesterday.
On hand to raise alarming questions about Clinton’s fitness to handle classified national security material was FBI Director James Comey, State Department Inspector General Steve Linick and Charles McCullough, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community.
Here’s a cursory rundown of statements from the hearing that you are likely to see very shortly popping up in PAC ads for Donald Trump: FBI Director Comey added the word “negligent” to his previous assessment of “extremely careless” in describing how Clinton handled Top Secret material. Comey also revealed that two to ten people with no security clearance at all were given access by Clinton to her private basement server in her New York home that stored the Top Secret material in a non secure manner.
When quizzed by Congressmen on how he would deal with an FBI agent who behaved in such a negligent manner, Comey said the matter would be adjudicated and could result in termination and/or a loss of security clearance.
Inspector General McCullough dropped his own bombshell during the hearing. McCullough revealed that Clinton or one of her aides placed tens of thousands of emails, some containing Top Secret material, on a thumb drive and handed it to Clinton’s attorneys to decide what emails should be turned over to the State Department. (Clinton left the State Department without turning over the government records for more than a year, in violation of the Federal Records Act and potentially obstructing Freedom of Information Act requests from being filled.) The tiny thumb drive, called that because it’s about the size of one’s thumb and thus easily stolen or lost, was then housed in Clinton’s attorneys’ office – which lacked government security features for holding classified material according to McCullough.
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