By now, many people know that the FBI reopened its criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton and her emails after the FBI found thousands of new emails on a computer owned by Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner (her husband) during an investigation of Weiner for allegedly sexting with a 15 year old girl. Huma Abedin is Hillary's closest aide. She was traveling with Hillary yesterday when the news broke. No doubt, Hillary asked Abedin what was on the computer that was found by the FBI. Of course, when Hillary was forced to hold a five minute press conference to try to stem the damage, she didn't tell America what Abedin told her; instead, she called on the FBI to release all the information, something that she knows the FBI cannot do.
So how have the mainstream media played this? It's really big news. America has never had an election in which one candidate was the subject of an active FBI criminal investigation until now. And we all know that there's no way that the FBI would have taken this step eleven days before the election unless the emails that they found were true bombshells, the sort of "smoking gun" that they did not find earlier. The answer with the media is sadly predictable. They are trying to protect Hillary as best as they can.
I heard the CBS News this morning. CBS focused on two questions in its coverage: 1) Why did the FBI wait until now to release this news? 2) Will the FBI release all the information that it has, as requested by Hillary Clinton? The CBS coverage only included the questions; no attempt was made to answer those questions. In other words, CBS went only with the Clinton campaign talking points. After all, the answers to those questions are rather obvious. The FBI waited until now because it only got the information off the Weiner/Abedin computer two days ago. The FBI won't release all the information it found, because it cannot legally do so. Indeed, as Comey's original letter to Congress makes clear, much of the information found may be classified, something that the FBI needs to check. Until the agents determine whether or not the thousands of emails are classified, they cannot release them even if they wanted. Further, Hillary and CBS both know that the rules that govern the FBI prohibit release of information from an open criminal investigation.
When I saw how CBS reacted to the news, I decided to go to the most slanted news source I know. I chose Yahoo News. Yahoo News was not covering the email story. Their headline was about whether or not Trump was splitting the Hispanic community and if that held a future danger for the GOP. I searched through the Yahoo site and eventually found a small article on Hillary's email problems with the FBI, but one really had to look to find it.
I looked at some other mainstream media sites and found more efforts to help Hillary Clinton deal with this disaster for her campaign. Some just pointed out over and over that we really don't know what the FBI has found and that it might be nothing. That's true. Of course, the FBI is smart enough to know that if it found nothing of importance, it would be suicidal to reopen the criminal probe of one of the major candidates. Somehow, that fact was left out of the coverage.
The truth is that this story won't go away no matter what the mainstream media does. Hillary is going to have to tell America what was on Abedin's computer. Better still, Hillary should have Huma Abedin release the copy of her computer data to the public. If she followed the law, there won't be any classified information on that computer. Such storage of classified info on a home computer would itself be a crime. So let's assume that Hillary's closest aide is not a criminal, she could then easily release all the data on the computer. Hillary already told us that we have a right to know about this; now, it's time for her to get that info to us.
So how have the mainstream media played this? It's really big news. America has never had an election in which one candidate was the subject of an active FBI criminal investigation until now. And we all know that there's no way that the FBI would have taken this step eleven days before the election unless the emails that they found were true bombshells, the sort of "smoking gun" that they did not find earlier. The answer with the media is sadly predictable. They are trying to protect Hillary as best as they can.
I heard the CBS News this morning. CBS focused on two questions in its coverage: 1) Why did the FBI wait until now to release this news? 2) Will the FBI release all the information that it has, as requested by Hillary Clinton? The CBS coverage only included the questions; no attempt was made to answer those questions. In other words, CBS went only with the Clinton campaign talking points. After all, the answers to those questions are rather obvious. The FBI waited until now because it only got the information off the Weiner/Abedin computer two days ago. The FBI won't release all the information it found, because it cannot legally do so. Indeed, as Comey's original letter to Congress makes clear, much of the information found may be classified, something that the FBI needs to check. Until the agents determine whether or not the thousands of emails are classified, they cannot release them even if they wanted. Further, Hillary and CBS both know that the rules that govern the FBI prohibit release of information from an open criminal investigation.
When I saw how CBS reacted to the news, I decided to go to the most slanted news source I know. I chose Yahoo News. Yahoo News was not covering the email story. Their headline was about whether or not Trump was splitting the Hispanic community and if that held a future danger for the GOP. I searched through the Yahoo site and eventually found a small article on Hillary's email problems with the FBI, but one really had to look to find it.
I looked at some other mainstream media sites and found more efforts to help Hillary Clinton deal with this disaster for her campaign. Some just pointed out over and over that we really don't know what the FBI has found and that it might be nothing. That's true. Of course, the FBI is smart enough to know that if it found nothing of importance, it would be suicidal to reopen the criminal probe of one of the major candidates. Somehow, that fact was left out of the coverage.
The truth is that this story won't go away no matter what the mainstream media does. Hillary is going to have to tell America what was on Abedin's computer. Better still, Hillary should have Huma Abedin release the copy of her computer data to the public. If she followed the law, there won't be any classified information on that computer. Such storage of classified info on a home computer would itself be a crime. So let's assume that Hillary's closest aide is not a criminal, she could then easily release all the data on the computer. Hillary already told us that we have a right to know about this; now, it's time for her to get that info to us.
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