Bernie Goes Negative, Changes Tune On Hillary’s “Damn Emails”

Bernie Sanders goes on the attack, says the investigation of Clinton’s private email server is “valid”

It is one of the most memorable pieces of political theater thus far in the 2016 Presidential cycle: Bernie Sanders seemingly coming to the defense of Hillary Clinton regarding her email scandal with Bernie saying in the first Democratic debate, “the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails!”

But Bernie Sanders has changed his tune. He did after all preface his “sick and tired” statement with “let me say something that may not be great politics.” And now the politics of the Presidential race has Bernie reconsidering his earlier defense of Hillary.

RELATED: Bernie Sanders Covers for Hillary on Email Scandal

As the WSJ reports:

Sen. Sanders of Vermont, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, also said the federal investigation of the security surrounding Mrs. Clinton’s private email account is appropriate.

In the Democratic debate last month, Mr. Sanders said voters were “sick and tired” of the focus on Mrs. Clinton’s “damn emails.” Afterward, many Democrats and political analysts said that he had appeared to dismiss her use of a private email account and server in her four years as secretary of state.

Mr. Sanders rejected that assessment on Wednesday. If her email practices foiled public-records requests or compromised classified information, those are “valid questions,” Mr. Sanders said.

Valid questions do remain, as Judge Andrew Napolitano points out in his recent op-ed on Hillary’s political and legal troubles:

Clinton’s sordid behavior throughout this unhappy affair reveals a cavalier attitude about the truth and a ready willingness to deceive the public for short-term political gain. This might not harm her political aspirations with her base in the Democratic Party; but it will be a serious political problem for her with independent voters, without whose support she simply cannot be elected.

Yet, her name might not appear on any ballot in 2016.

That’s because, each time she addresses these issues — her involvement in Benghazi and her emails — her legal problems get worse. We already know that the FBI has been investigating her for espionage (the failure to secure state secrets), destruction of government property and obstruction of justice (wiping her computer server clean of governmental emails that were and are the property of the federal government), and perjury (lying to a federal judge about whether she returned all governmental emails to the State Department).

Now, she has added new potential perjury and misleading Congress issues because of her deceptive testimony to the House Benghazi committee. In 2011, when President Obama persuaded NATO to enact and enforce a no-fly zone over Libya, he sent American intelligence agents on the ground. Since they were not military and were not shooting at Libyan government forces, he could plausibly argue that he had not put “boots” on the ground. Clinton, however, decided that she could accelerate the departure of the Libyan strongman, Col. Moammar Gadhafi, by arming some of the Libyan rebel groups that were attempting to oppose him and thus helping them to shoot at government forces.

So, in violation of federal law and the U.N. arms embargo on Libya she authorized the shipment of American arms to Qatar, knowing they’d be passed off to Libyan rebels, some of whom were al-Qaida, a few of whom killed Ambassador Stevens using American-made weapons. When asked about this, she said she knew nothing of it. The emails underlying this are in the public domain. Clinton not only knew of the arms-to-Libyan-rebels deal, she authored and authorized it. She lied about this under oath.

All this said, Clinton’s email scandal is much too ripe of an example of her proclivity for bending the truth in her favor and flip-flopping on major issues given the way the political winds blow. Bernie Sanders has made the decision that it would be foolish for him to get on the wrong side of a FBI investigation, and that it, indeed, it wouldn’t be “great politics” if he let this scandal go unexamined or didn’t tale it seriously as an indictment of Hillary’s trustworthiness as a leader.

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Bernie Sanders may be wrong about many things, but by attacking Hillary Clinton on this and many other issues, he can only be in the right, politically and otherwise.