On Friday, Oct. 28, there was yet another plot twist added to the 2016 U.S. presidential race. This recent turn of events was one of the worst, if not the worst, roadblock to hit the Democratic Party; the Clinton camp was blindsided and couldn’t have possibly seen this one coming. Here’s a play-by-play of what happened and the possible repercussions.
The Problem
On Monday morning, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said it was reviewing newly obtained emails linked to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Who is Involved?
Hilary Clinton, Huma Abedin, and Anthony Weiner.
As we all know, Hilary Clinton is running for president of the United States. Prior to that, Clinton was the U.S. Secretary of State. Through both positions, Huma Abedin served as her trusted chief of staff.
Hailing from New York, Anthony Weiner served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2010, Weiner and Abedin decided to get married; however, the couple split in 2016 following Weiner’s (three) sexting scandals. Amid the first scandal, Weiner resigned from congress.
The sexting scandals are important. Media outlets claimed that Weiner had engaged in sexting an underaged teen, which, obviously, is a federal crime. The FBI in turn opened an investigation and seized, not only Weiner’s electronic devices, but his wife’s as well. On Friday, Oct. 28, the FBI found emails associated with the Hilary Clinton email controversy on Wriner’s devices.
Sources claim that these are the very emails that Clinton was accused of deleting.
What is the email controversy, exactly?
It’s no secret that politicians have access to classified information. And, with the existence of hackers, transmitting sensitive information via the web is pretty risky. The U.S. government has federal servers, which are much more secure than average servers and have a greater chance to withstand cyber attacks.
While Hilary Clinton served as Secretary of State, she opted to use her personal email server rather than the aforementioned federal server. What this meant is that classified and top secret information was on her server rather than the governments. To some, this little detail could be shrugged off, while others believed it was a violation of department procedures and federal laws.
Hilary Clinton claimed she used her personal server because it was convenient. Clinton prefers communicating via BlackBerry and did not want to tote around two phones. There are claims that setting up a federal server email on a BlackBerry is actually impossible to do, which means she might not have been able to use a BlackBerry at all, had she opted to use the federal server.
It’s important to note that Hilary Clinton was NOT the first politician to use a private server. According to Marie Harf, the State Department spokesperson, Secretary John Kerry is the first secretary to solely rely on a federal account ‘for some historical context.’ But those who oppose Hilary and her actions, agreed that while it is not unheard of to use a private server, other politicians used them far less than Hilary Clinton did.
So in the end, an investigation was initiated and Hilary Clinton was instructed to hand over all of her exchanged emails to the FBI in order for them to determine if classified information was threatened or shared. Hilary cooperated to an extent — she gave the FBI half of the emails (roughly 30,000). She deleted the remaining 30,000 as they were of personal nature and did not pertain to the investigation.
The FBI concluded that the classified information was kept secure and no breach was detected. There was no criminal intent on Hilary Clinton’s part, either.
But to bring this scandal full-circle, the emails discovered on Weiner’s laptop – the laptop initially seized for a sexting scandal investigation – contained Abedin’s emails, some of which might be from the 30,000 emails deleted by Hilary Clinton.
Now what?
FBI officials have requested and obtained a search warrant to sift through Abedin’s emails to decide whether or not they pertain to the closed investigation. News outlets have reported that this will be a timely process – one that will definitely extend past Election Day.
For Hilary Clinton, the timing could not have been worse. But being the strong politician she has proven to be, this has not knocked her off her game. Clinton issued a statement placing her faith in the FBI as well as their initial conclusion that there were no signs of criminal intent or action.
As for Donald Trump, this scandal could not have had better timing. He is reinforcing the claim that Hilary Clinton is corrupt and that she is not fit to be president.
At the end of the day, the decision is in our hands. From one side, it’s quite sketchy that Hilary Clinton insisted on using a personal server when a federal server was accessible. On the other hand, if Clinton was used to using her BlackBerry, then we can’t really blame her for opting out. Convenience is something we all strive for. Does that make us criminals?
We’ve come a long way. This presidential race has been far from normal. Some dubbed it the race of two evils. Several people are saying that between the republicans and democrats, there will be no true winners. But that should not deter you from doing your civic duty. GO VOTE. Be fair. Be just. Take everything into consideration. Including the scandals both parties are associated with, the policies of both parties, and the realistic outcome. Try to be as objective as possible. On Nov. 8th, we will choose the person who runs our country for the next four years. There will be no take-backs. There can be no changes after that. Be wise.
May the best candidate win and may the odds be ever in [our country’s] favor.