To be honest, I just assumed that Hillary's protectors at the State Department would have done something like this. It's nice to have an insider confirm it, but you didn't really think it would go any other way, did you? Congress demands documents concerning Benghazi. Hillary's priority is her own political viability, not the security of this nation or of the people in our consulates, and certainly not the truth.
Come on.
So what will be the first thing her people direct to happen? Of course. Before we have to give Congress those documents, get rid of anything that makes Hillary look bad. I doubt it was even necessary for her to order it. Everyone who surrounds her knows what she's all about. It might have been Cheryl Mills who ordered it. It might have been Jake Sullivan. What difference, at this point, does it make?
The only thing that surprises me here is that Mills walked into the room, saw Ray Maxwell sitting there and - not knowing who he was or that he was for sure a Hillary loyalist - she was sloppy enough to let him stay long enough that he could see what was going on. It turned out Maxwell is Hillary's worst nightmare, an insider with a conscience.
Sheryl Atkisson - who has been doing excellent work for the Heritage Foundation's Daily Signal since she was bum-rushed out of CBS, in case you didn't know -
has more:
According to former Deputy Assistant Secretary Raymond Maxwell, the after-hours session took place over a weekend in a basement operations-type center at State Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. This is the first time Maxwell has publicly come forward with the story.
At the time, Maxwell was a leader in the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA), which was charged with collecting emails and documents relevant to the Benghazi probe.
"I was not invited to that after-hours endeavor, but I heard about it and decided to check it out on a Sunday afternoon,” says Maxwell.
He didn’t know it then, but Maxwell would ultimately become one of four State Department officials singled out for discipline—he says scapegoated—then later cleared for devastating security lapses leading up to the attacks. Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were murdered during the Benghazi attacks.
Maxwell says the weekend document session was held in the basement of the State Department’s Foggy Bottom headquarters in a room underneath the “jogger’s entrance.” He describes it as a large space, outfitted with computers and big screen monitors, intended for emergency planning, and with small offices on the periphery.
When he arrived, Maxwell says he observed boxes and stacks of documents. He says a State Department office director, whom Maxwell described as close to Clinton’s top advisers, was there. Though the office director technically worked for him, Maxwell says he wasn’t consulted about her weekend assignment.
"She told me, ‘Ray, we are to go through these stacks and pull out anything that might put anybody in the [Near Eastern Affairs] front office or the seventh floor in a bad light,’” says Maxwell. He says “seventh floor” was State Department shorthand for then-Secretary of State Clinton and her principal advisors.
“I asked her, ‘But isn’t that unethical?’ She responded, ‘Ray, those are our orders.’ ”
Hillary's staff at State unethically destroying documents? Yeah, what of it?
Cue the Clinton Machine's assault on Ray Maxwell in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .
It's unlikely this gets any traction with the MSM, of course, since they've already decided that the Benghazi story itself is non-news. That's how they've justified ignoring other sources who have recently come forward with information the contradicts that White House/MSM narrative, as
Rob told you last week.
By the way, where do you think Hillary learned that hiding documents is a good way to save her own skin? Didn't she get away with it pretty nicely 20 years ago by claiming she couldn't find the Whitewater billing records, only to have them turn up when they could no longer cause her any trouble?
Here's a weird force that operates in Hillary's favor, even though it shouldn't: When something happens that proves Hillary is dishonest and unethical, it's not news because everyone already knows that. It's like when Tony Romo has a bad game and you say, "Hey, that guy's terrible!" Cowboys fans say, "So?"
What does that have to do with anything?
Somewhere along the line conventional wisdom settled on the thinking that being a completely dishonest, unqualified, self-absorbed narcissist does not disqualify Hillary from serious consideration for the presidency, so if you want to argue against her, you have to come up with something entirely unrelated to that.
That being the case: Hillary's staff at State unethically destroying documents? Yeah, what of it? That's how the MSM will justify not touching this. The next time Hillary does something honest or sincere, that will be news. (Because it will be the first time.) This? This is just another day in Washington D.C., and in Clintonland, where it became clear long ago that no one is honest or ethical - which apparently matters not at all.
