Clinton’s Rigging Brigade at the State Department

After a less-than-desirable watchdog report, the State Department is doing everything in its power to protect Hillary Clinton from further damaging email releases.

The recently released report from the State Department Inspector General showed that Clinton violated the Federal Records Act and put national security at risk. Additionally, the report said that Clinton had not sought permission to use a private email server and that if she had asked, it “would not have approved her exclusive reliance on a personal email account to conduct Department business” — damning to Clinton’s argument that her decision was permitted.

Clinton’s team of connected insiders are willing to rig the deck however they can to ensure she wins the White House.

Exclusive emails obtained by The Daily Caller show that once Clinton’s private server came to light, the State Department’s legal division was urged by John Bellinger, the former State Department legal adviser in the Bush administration, to make it clear that the legal department did not sign off on Clinton’s email arrangement.

However, it would appear as though Bellinger’s advice was ignored, since the State Department never publicly stated that Clinton’s private server was not approved by them — creating the perception that her decision was permitted. It was only when the IG report was released that it was discovered that the State Department had never approved it nor did Clinton ever ask for permission.

State Department lawyers have recently said in a filing that the Republican National Committee, which filed a FOIA request in December for the records of Clinton aides, would have to wait 75 years in order to receive the requested documents. “Given the Department’s current FOIA workload and the complexity of these documents, it can process about 500 pages a month, meaning it would take approximately 16-and-2/3 years to complete the review of the Mills documents, 33-and-1/3 years to finish the review of the Sullivan documents, and 25 years to wrap up the review of the Kennedy documents — or 75 years in total,” the State Department said.

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As if all of the collusion wasn’t enough, it was reported on Monday that the State Department would be delaying another request, from the International Business Times, to provide all of Clinton’s correspondence on the Trans-Pacific Partnership until after the election.

The delay is convenient for Clinton, who has flip-flopped on the issue of trade. Clinton, once a champion of the bargain, only announced her opposition to TPP once all negotiations had come to a close and while under political pressure from Sen. Bernie Sanders. While Clinton was secretary of state, she praised the negotiations, saying that an agreement with the nations of the TPP would help create new jobs and opportunities and at one point even calling it the “gold standard” in trade agreements.

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The State Department retrenchments come on the heels of controversy for the agency after officials admitted to intentionally deleting eight minutes of footage from a 2013 press briefing on the Iran nuclear deal. “There was a deliberate request [to delete the footage] — this wasn’t a technical glitch,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday. “Deliberately removing a portion of the video was not and is not in keeping with the State Department’s commitment to transparency and public accountability.”

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But where exactly is the accountability? It seems as though the State Department is continuously involved in hiding information, especially when it benefits Clinton. Clinton herself claims to be transparent, but the spiraling frenzy of controversy and cover-up at the State Department over her ongoing email scandal suggest the exact opposite.

Clinton’s team of connected insiders are willing to rig the deck however they can to protect her and to ensure she wins the White House.