Vincent J.
Curtis
17 Oct 2016
The word
“rigged” was first used by Bernie Sanders in the Democrat primaries. He used “rigged” in two ways: to describe the
arrangement of the economic system against ordinary working people, and the way
in which the Democrat National Committee was working hand-in-glove with Hillary
Clinton to undermine his presidential campaign.
A WikiLeaks
document dump back in July of emails hacked from the DNC proved Sander’s case
in respect of the DNC, and led to the resignation of the Chair of the DNC,
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz on the eve of the convention.
Donald Trump
picked up on the theme of politics and economics in America being rigged to
favor certain people and disfavor others.
The current WikiLeaks document dump of John Podesta’s emails shows how
the Hillary campaign worked hand-in-glove with the Obama Administration to
preserve Hillary’s candidacy when it appeared on the ropes due to the exposure
of her email practices. Obama’s
intervention may have saved Hillary from the hoosegow by rigging the
investigation.
In the midst of
the email scandal, a career civil servant, Patrick Kennedy, came to public
prominence. He is one of the people whom
I previously described as being covered in political filth as a result of
getting close to one of the Clintons. As
Undersecretary of State for Management, he worked closely with Hillary Clinton
during her tenure as Secretary of State, and ran interference for Hillary’s use
of a private server despite knowing it was flagrantly illegal. Not only was the server susceptible to
hacking by a foreign power, but also it defeated FOIA requests – as it was
intended to do. If the State Department
were asked for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails, they could honestly
say that they have none. A career civil
servant, Kennedy would have known these things because he was responsible for
ensuring compliance with federal records keeping laws.
Fox News
Contributor and reporter for The Weekly
Standard Stephen F. Hays discovered in FBI 302 forms the effort by Kennedy
to rig the classification process of Hillary’s discovered emails to ensure that
some really damning ones did not see the light of day, while others of concern
were rendered harmless.
Hays reports as
follows:
“Kennedy has
been a central figure in the Benghazi and email controversies. He was involved
in the controversial decisions not to bolster security at the Benghazi
diplomatic outpost despite repeated requests for addition security. And
although Kennedy is responsible for ensuring State Department compliance with
federal records requirements, he communicated regularly with Clinton using her
private email. In a sworn deposition in connection with Freedom of Information
Act litigation brought by Judicial Watch, Kennedy testified that he exchanged
dozens of emails with Clinton and never thought to ask how the private emails
would be archived in a manner consistent with federal law. "It's not something
that I ever focused on," Kennedy testified.”
Why Kennedy
still has a security clearance and hold a high position at State after this
admission remains a mystery.
One thing Hayes
did not mention was that Kennedy was on the McMullen Committee that was charged
with investigating the Benghazi debacle and famously failed to interview
Hillary Clinton about it.
Returning to the quid pro quo
scandal concerning emails, Kennedy pressed the FBI to change the classification
of emails found on Hillary Clinton's private server, and he may have offered a
kind of bribe to the FBI in exchange for their cooperation. The offer from Kennedy was to provide more
overseas staffing positions to the FBI at diplomatic outposts, and in exchange
the FBI would agree to change the classifications of certain emails. One of them in particular, Kennedy asked for
a change to “B9” classification, which would have allowed him “to archive the
document in the basement of the department of state never to be seen
again."
Kennedy’s offer went as far
as the FBI official whose responsibility included making determinations on
classifications. And not just on this
particular email. After rebuffing
efforts by others in the FBI to go along with the offer, the official, an FBI
records section chief, met Kenned privately, and "Kennedy spent the
next 15 minutes debating the classification of the email and attempting to
influence the FBI to change its markings."
The FBI records section chief also told investigators that he sat in on
a conference call between Kennedy and FBI Counterterrorism chief Michael
Steinbach. Kennedy again pressured
Steinbach to change an email from classified to unclassified. Steinbach declined, according to Hays’ report. (If the change had been made, the email would
not have amounted to a classified document being found on Hillary’s server.)
In other words, Kennedy variously tried to up-classify
documents so that they could never be discovered, or declassify documents so
that they would appear innocuous, and not be a classified document on Hillary’s
unsecured server.
What we see in this episode is the attempt by a career civil
servant, evidently in love with his old boss, try to the rig the system in
order to protect her future career prospects – and with them quite possibly his
own as well.
This episode is another of a series of career civil service
attempting to rig the political process to the advantage of a political cause
or a political person they happen to like or support. Lois Lerner and the use of the IRS to harass
and suppress political opponents and opposition of Barack Obama are other cases
in point. The media are practically
unanimous in their belief that Donald Trump is unworthy to hold the office of
president and will stop at nothing to defeat his candidacy, including report
scurrilous accusations without confirming evidence.
The system knows how to protect itself from the Bernie
Sanders and Donald Trumps of America, and that protection takes the form of
rigging the system to keep the interlopers out. Steve Hays has uncovered another example of an
attempt to rig the system by those in it to preserve the candidacy of Hillary
Clinton, and protect her from the consequences of her actions and choices.
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