* House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) publicly conceded that the committee’s work is an election scheme intended to undermine Hillary Clinton.

* A lifelong conservative Republican who worked for the committee has complained that the committee’s sole interest was in tearing down Hillary Clinton.

* Senior Republican officials acknowledged to the New York Times that GOP leaders directed the Benghazi committee to focus on Clinton’s email server management – instead of the deadly Benghazi attack – in order to “cause political problems” for the Democratic candidate.

* Rep. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.) has now admitted that his party’s Benghazi panel was “designed” to target Clinton.

The Benghazi Committee isn’t investigating a scandal. The Benghazi Committee is the scandal.

Now that he’s wrapped up the nomination, his chances of being America’s next president have shot up from 17 per cent to 29 per cent.

But that still makes Hillary Clinton a 69 per cent favourite (Mr Sanders or ‘some other Republican’ both have a 1 per cent chance).



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Every person given a government background check for the last 15 years was probably affected, the Office of Personnel Management said in announcing the results of a forensic investigation of the episode, whose existence was known but not its sweeping toll.

The agency said hackers stole “sensitive information,” including addresses, health and financial history, and other private details, from 19.7 million people who had been subjected to a government background check, as well as 1.8 million others, including their spouses and friends. The theft was separate from, but related to, a breach revealed last month that compromised the personnel data of 4.2 million federal employees, officials said.

Both attacks are believed to have originated in China, although senior administration officials on Thursday declined to pinpoint a perpetrator, except to say that they had indications that the same actor carried out the two hacks.

The breaches constitute what is apparently the largest cyberattack into the systems of the United States government, providing a frightening glimpse of the technological vulnerabilities of federal agencies that handle sensitive information. They also seemed certain to intensify debate in Washington over what the government must do to address its substantial weaknesses in cybersecurity, long the subject of dire warnings but seldom acted upon by agencies, Congress or the White House.
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FACT: None Of The Emails Sent To Clinton Were Labeled As "Classified" Or "Top Secret"

Government Officials: None Of The Emails Were Marked As "Classified" When They Were Sent. The Washington Post reported that when the ICIG first "found information that should have been designated as classified" in four emails from Clinton's server -- two of which he now says contain "top secret" information -- government officials acknowledged that the emails were not marked as classified when they were sent (emphasis added):

[blockquote style="border:1ps solid #000000;padding:10px;background:#ddffee;"] The Justice Department said Friday that it has been notified of a potential compromise of classified information in connection with the private e-mail account that Hillary Rodham Clinton used while serving as secretary of state.

A Justice official said the department had received a "referral" on the matter, which the inspector general of the intelligence agencies later acknowledged came from him.

The inspector general, I. Charles McCullough III, said in a separate statement that he had found information that should have been designated as classified in four e-mails out of a "limited sample" of 40 that his agency reviewed. As a result, he said, he made the "security referral," acting under a federal law that requires alerting the FBI to any potential compromises of national security information.

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Officials acknowledged that none of the e-mails reviewed so far contain information that was marked classified when they were sent. But a new inquiry would prolong the political controversy Clinton is facing over her un­or­tho­dox e-mail system. (The Washington Post, 7/24/15)(more)

FACT: IG Referral To Justice Department Was Not Criminal, And FBI Isn't Targeting Clinton Herself

Reuters: Inspector General Referral Is Not Criminal. Reuters reported on July 24 that there was "no criminal referral over [the] Clinton emails":

[div class="excerpt" style="border:1px solid #000000;padding:10px;"] The Justice Department said Friday it has received a request to examine the handling of classified information related to the private emails from Hillary Clinton during her time as secretary of state, but it is not a criminal referral. (Reuters, "No Criminal Referral over Clinton Emails" 7/24/15)

Indianapolis (CNN)As Donald Trump captures the mantle of presumptive Republican nominee, a new poll finds he begins his general election campaign well behind Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

The new CNN/ORC Poll, completed ahead of Trump's victory last night, found Clinton leads 54% to 41%, a 13-point edge over the New York businessman, her largest lead since last July.

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BERKELEY SPRINGS, W.Va. — States that spend more money on social services and public health programs relative to medical care have much healthier residents than states that don’t, a study out today by a prominent public health researcher found.

The study comes as the Obama administration prepares to fund its own research to support the idea that higher social service spending can improve health and lower health care costs. Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services proposed a long-awaited rule that will pave the way for more doctors and hospitals to work closely with social services providers to keep people healthier, such as with home visits or help with housing.

Health care and social services experts in West Virginia, where jobs and access to health care can be hard to come by, cite daily reminders of how improved services can save money later. Their challenge is expanding the reach of the programs they do have. "There's always more need than resources," says Audrey Morris. director of the non-profit Starting Points of Morgan County here.

The new study is the first to compare state spending on social services — which are generally less expensive than medical costs — to spending on Medicare and Medicaid and to residents' health. Many state officials, including those here, say Medicaid claims are busting their budgets and federal officials struggle to rein in Medicare spending on drugs and medical treatments, especially for chronic disease.



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In the Pentagon letter to the committee, specifically addressed to Republican chairman Trey Gowdy and issued Thursday, Hedger wrote,

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The Department is working diligently to accommodate your staff’s multiple and changing requests; however, we are concerned by the continuous threats from your staff to subpoena witnesses that we are not able accommodate.”

Mr. Hedger particularly took issue with the committee’s demand for an interview with an anonymous Sean Hannity radio call-in “individual;” an anonymous individual Hedger said the Pentagon “expended significant resources to locate to no avail. The Department of Defense continues to believe that interviewing these ‘individuals’ is unnecessary because it is unclear what additional information could be gained from these interviews.”

Hedger requested a meeting with Gowdy to identify a “productive way to help it finish its investigation” while respecting the men and women and resources of the Department of Defense.” It is noteworthy that the $6.7 million cost as of last year did not include the Pentagon’s cost in searching out individuals with no clear connection to the Defense Department or the events surrounding the Benghazi attack. It is likely that Republicans will expend any sum during an election to attack Mrs. Clinton even if it robs money and critical assets from the military.

In the strongest language possible, the Pentagon is criticizing the Republicans for “prompting and encouraging Department of Defense interviewees to go on the record and speculate on hypotheticals posed by Committee members regardless of the interviewees’ actual knowledge or expertise.” Hedger concluded his condemnation by “respectfully requesting that you ensure pending interviews remain focused on facts; rather than ‘encouraging’ speculation.”
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While we were all busy laughing about how insecure Donald Trump is about the size of his manhood, the New York Times released this story, the latest development in the case of Hillary Clinton’s emails:

A former aide to Hillary Clinton has turned over to the F.B.I. computer security logs from Mrs. Clinton’s private server, records that showed no evidence of foreign hacking, according to people close to a federal investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s emails.

The security logs bolster Mrs. Clinton’s assertion that her use of a personal email account to conduct State Department business while she was the secretary of state did not put American secrets into the hands of hackers or foreign governments.

The former aide, Bryan Pagliano, began cooperating with federal agents last fall, according to interviews with a federal law enforcement official and others close to the case. Mr. Pagliano described how he set up the server in Mrs. Clinton’s home in Chappaqua, N.Y., and according to two of the people, he provided agents the security logs.

What does this tell us? Although it’s possible there will be some future discovery, it appears that whether Clinton’s emails were vulnerable to hacking or not, they weren’t actually hacked. That’s good news! The closest thing they’ve found is some attempts at phishing scams, which means that Clinton’s email is just like every other email address on earth.




Now let’s be honest. When this story broke, Republicans were desperately hoping that we would learn that some criminal wrongdoing or catastrophic security breach had taken place, so they could then use that against Clinton in her run for the White House. But that turns out not to be the case. [font size="+1"]So the next best thing from their perspective is that there’s some vaguely-defined “scandal” that the public doesn’t really understand, but that voters will hold against her if you just repeat the words “Clinton email scandal” often enough.

They may have gotten that. I’ve certainly seen plenty of voters quoted in press accounts saying some version of, “I don’t trust Clinton, ’cause you know, that email thing.” I’m sure 99 percent of them couldn’t tell you what they think Clinton actually did that’s so awful, but they know that there was something about emails, and it was, like, a scandal, right?[/font]

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She should have known that once she started running for president there were going to be FOIA requests and lawsuits and investigations of everything she did as Secretary of State. So yes, that was an error in judgment*. But it wasn’t a crime — and it appears that no bad consequences for the country came of it — so we shouldn’t treat it like it was.
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CNN)Overlooked in the controversy over Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, is the fact that suspected Russian hackers have bedeviled State Department's email system for much of the past year and continue to pose problems for technicians trying to eradicate the intrusion.

Federal law enforcement, intelligence and congressional officials briefed on the investigation say the hack of the State email system is the "worst ever" cyberattack intrusion against a federal agency. The attackers who breached State are also believed to be behind hacks on the White House's email system, and against several other federal agencies, the officials say.

The issue is relevant because one criticism of the Clinton private email use is that it was likely less secure than emailing within the State Department's system. But the hack shows that State's system has major security issues. The State system, investigators believe, was compromised in the past year, likely after Clinton left the State Department.

Last November, the State Department shut down its email system over a weekend to try to improve security and block the intruders.

At the time, the agency tried to send a re-assuring message that "activity of concern" by possible hackers only affected its unclassified email system.

But officials say that even a breach of the unclassified system poses major security risks, because sensitive information of value to foreign intelligence agencies is routinely shared in non-classified emails.