'Astonishingly False': Hillary Claim of 'Zero' Classified Emails Fact-Checked Hillary Clinton (Getty Images)
Wednesday, 07 September 2022 03:44 PM EDT
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton drew mockery and ridicule after claiming she had "zero" classified information on a private email server, even as she attempted to criticize former President Donald Trump over his clash with the Justice Department regarding material seized from his home.
Judicial Watch's Tom Fitton and other conservatives called her assertions "astonishingly false," a "verifiable lie," and gaslighting with more 2016 "stolen-election" allegations.
The barrage of posts on Twitter came after Clinton took to the social media website to suggest she had no classified material on the non-government computer server that was the subject of an FBI investigation in 2016.
"I can't believe we're still talking about this, but my emails," Clinton tweeted Tuesday. "As Trump's problems continue to mount, the right is trying to make this about me again. There's even a 'Clinton Standard.' The fact is that I had zero emails that were classified."
Clinton added claims of exoneration by fired FBI Director James Comey and even State Department members held over in the Trump administration.
"Comey admitted he was wrong after he claimed I had classified emails," Clinton added via Twitter. "Trump's own State Department, under two different secretaries, found I had no classified emails.
"That's right: ZERO," she repeated.
The Washington Times' Tim Young shot back, "Don't wait up for this complete lie to be fact checked."
Fitton, however, obliged.
"Fact check: Astonishingly false," he tweeted.
The Justice Department inspector general report in June 2018, reviewing the FBI's 2016 presidential election actions, provided clarity for the Clinton claim, saying the emails were not marked classified, but contained classified material and should have been marked as such. Also, there were classified emails missing and not turned over by Clinton's lawyers.
"'81 email chains containing approximately 193 individual emails that were classified from the CONFIDENTIAL to TOP SECRET levels at the time the emails were drafted on UNCLASSIFIED systems and sent to or from Clinton's personal server.' In other words, the USIC agencies determined that these 81 email chains, although not marked classified, contained information classified at the time the emails were sent and should have been so marked. Twelve of the 81 classified email chains were not among the 30,490 that Clinton's lawyers had produced to the State Department, and these were all classified at the Secret or Confidential levels."
Clinton complained she was tired of the investigation into her handling of classified materials but still insisted the Justice Department continue its investigation of Trump's handling of information, which he maintains he declassified when he was president.
"By contrast, Trump has hundreds of documents clearly marked classified, and the investigation just started," Clinton tweeted, concluding, "I'm more tired of talking about this than anyone, but here we are."
The Spectator's Stephen Miller suggested the latest pursuit of Trump seems to go back to the start of the left's painting of him as the political enemy.
"We're never escaping 2016. Ever. As long as you know this and are prepared," Miller tweeted.
Clinton's reference to the "Clinton Standard" is a direct reference to the analysis of Newsmax contributor and former Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, who has said he voted for Clinton in 2016 and is a liberal Democrat friendly with the Clintons.
Regardless, Dershowitz said any investigation and/or indictment of Trump should have to meet the former President Richard Nixon or Hillary Clinton standards.
"No. 1, it has to beat the Nixon standard: So egregious, so serious, that even Republicans would agree," Dershowitz told "American Agenda." "No. 2, it has to meet the Hillary Clinton standard. Why is this different than Hillary Clinton? What's the justification for doing to Trump what was not done to Hillary Clinton?
"I don't think those two standards were met in the unredacted portions of the affidavit," Dershowitz continued, referring to the document that justified the warrant obtained by the Justice Department authorizing the FBI’s Aug. 8 raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.
"Maybe they were met by the redacted portions, but I haven't seen it," Dershowitz said.