Three Sentences That Explain the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal

by Andrew Stiles     •     Washington Free Beacon

Hillary Clinton is awkwardly defending herself again after an intelligence community inspector general determined that she sent classified information over her private email account. Here are three sentences that explain everything you ever wanted to know, but were afraid to ask:

1. “I’m certainly well aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material.”
— Hillary Clinton (March 10, 2015) in a press conference shortly after her private email account was revealed

2. “[The emails] were classified when they were sent and are classified now.”
— Andrea Williams, spokeswoman for the intelligence community inspector general, speaking to the Wall Street Journal (July 24, 2015)

3. “I am confident that I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time it was sent and received.”
— Hillary Clinton (July 25, 2015) in response to the Wall Street Journal story

For your edification, National Journal‘s Ron Fournier parses the substantial differences between Hillary’s assertion in sentence one vs. sentence three:

Now I’ll break it down.

–”I am confident that …” This is an equivocation rather than a declarative statement, a loophole as large as Bill Clinton’s infamous definition of ‘is.’”

–” .. that was classified at the time it was sent and received.” Her second equivocation in a single sentence, “at the time” back-peddles away from assurances that her actions didn’t expose classified material to dangerous disclosure. “There is no classified material,” Clinton vowed in March.