May 5, 2016

The ramshackle Republican Party is clinging to their hopes that the excessively exploited email 'scandal' will relegate Hillary Clinton to second place in the Democratic primary contest. They must realize that Hillary will likely be the Democrats' choice to face Donald Trump, the misogynist, narcissist and megalomaniac who has left the GOP in tatters. They are therefore trying to discredit her, in very creative ways.

Romanian hacker Marcel Lazar, notoriously labeled 'Guccifer,' was instrumental in the discovery of Secretary Clinton's private server.

Several years ago a Romanian hacker broke into the email accounts of several high-ranking US officials. One of the email accounts he hacked belonged to Clinton pal Sidney Blumenthal, and it was this hack that eventually led to the revelation that Hillary Clinton had a private email address.

FOX Nation labels this latest development as a significant compromise and breach into the former Secretary of State's email server. As per usual, they are over-blowing the significance of the findings.

This is another nothing burger, plain and simple. The attacks on Hillary are coming from every source possible. Even once credible journalist, Carl Bernstein, has captivated the right wing blogosphere, namely Breitbart , with his recent 'news' about this 'scandal.' He is also predicting doom and gloom for Hillary.

What she did was an act of recklessness, and entitlement, that there’s no excuse for. And she’s going to have to go up to the FBI, under oath, and explain why she did this.

Fox and Friends, with the help of their chief intelligence 'expert,' Catherine Herridge, fueled the flames of Democratic demise with the 'revelations' of Guccifer. Herridge is a well-known Benghazi alarmist who has been hyping the idea that Clinton's server was hacked and compromised for the past two months.

This whole charade can be summarized by this Fox Nation quote from Herridge: Fox News could not independently confirm Lazar’s claims. This is another pathetic attempt at tying her to a crime that doesn't exist.

Further, server logs turned over to the FBI by Clinton's server administrator show no evidence of any hack. Zero. Zip. Nada. It's inconvenient for haters' narratives, but it is nevertheless a fact.

Mother Jones' Kevin Drum explicates this recent development a bit more objectively.

When pressed by NBC News, Lazar, 44, could provide no documentation to back up his claims, nor did he ever release anything on-line supporting his allegations, as he had frequently done with past hacks. The FBI's review of the Clinton server logs showed no sign of hacking, according to a source familiar with the case.

Wearing a green jumpsuit, Lazar was relaxed and polite in the monitored secure visitor center, separated by thick security glass. In describing the process, Lazar said he did extensive research on the web and then guessed Blumenthal’s security question. Once inside Blumenthal's account, Lazar said he saw dozens of messages from the Clinton email address.

Asked if he was curious about the address, Lazar merely smiled. Asked if he used the same security question approach to access the Clinton emails, he said no — then described how he allegedly got inside.

“For example, when Sidney Blumenthal got an email, I checked the email pattern from Hillary Clinton, from Colin Powell from anyone else to find out the originating IP. … When they send a letter, the email header is the originating IP usually,” Lazar explained.

So there you have it. Not only did Lazar hack into the Clinton server, but nearly a dozen other hackers did too. And every single one of them, apparently, has said nothing about it until now. Nor have they released any actual hacked emails. And they were all able to do it without leaving behind even the slightest trace.

Nonetheless, the resident expert at Fox News (Herridge) called Lazar's story "plausible."

Unfortunately, this will not be the last we hear of this email nonsense. Putting the political landscape in perspective, Hillary Clinton has been raked over the coals for years. Meanwhile, Donald Trump continues to prance down the Republican trail without so much as a sideways glance.

Update: Juan Williams threw a bucket of ice-cold water on them later on.

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