President Trump revoked the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan last week after ordering a review of nine people — one current and eight former officials — who he considers political adversaries.
One name not on the publicly announced list: former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic candidate whose campaign was plagued by an FBI investigation into her mishandling of classified information.
Many former officials retain security clearances, but the status of Clinton’s clearance is not publicly known, despite being subject to intense debate, including bicameral legislation seeking to revoke her access.
The State Department told the Washington Examiner that it could not release information about Clinton’s clearance, citing her privacy, and Clinton’s attorneys would not comment.
“Due to privacy considerations, the department does not release information on former employees,” said Anne Carey, a spokesman for the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]Mark Penn, The Former Pollster For Both Bill Clinton And Hillary Clinton, Has Penned An Op-ed In The Hill Wednesday In Which He Argues That Michael Cohen’s Guilty Plea Shows The Double Standard That Prosecutors Have Applied Unfairly To Donald Trump.
Penn argues that while what Trump is alleged to have done — paying Stormy Daniels for a non-disclosure agreement she had sought for five years prior to the election — was legal, Hillary Clinton failed to report campaign expenditures that led to the Steele dossier.
He writes: The usual procedures here would be for the FEC to investigate complaints and sort through these murky laws to determine if these kinds of payments are personal in nature or more properly classified as campaign expenditures. And, on the Daniels payment that was made and reimbursed by Trump, it is again a question of whether that was made for personal reasons (especially since they have been trying since 2011 to obtain agreement). Just because it would be helpful to the campaign does not convert it to a campaign expenditure. Think of a candidate with bad teeth who had dental work done to look better for the campaign; his campaign still could not pay for it because it’s a personal expenditure.
Contrast what is going on here with the treatment of the millions of dollars paid to a Democratic law firm which, in turn, paid out money to political research firm Fusion GPS and British ex-spy Christopher Steele without listing them on any campaign expenditure form — despite crystal-clear laws and regulations that the ultimate beneficiaries of the funds must be listed. This rule was even tightened recently. There is no question that hiring spies to do opposition research in Russia is a campaign expenditure, and yet, no prosecutorial raids have been sprung on the law firm, Fusion GPS or Steele. Reason: It does not “get” Trump. – READ MORE
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