© Reuters / Aaron P. Bernstein
Hillary Clinton wanted a fire for all the smoke surrounding her never ending email scandal...well here comes the fire.
Judicial Watch has released another 510 pages of State Department emails from Hillary Clinton ran the US State Department.
Judicial Watch notes that the newest email tranche includes a 2009 request by Clinton Foundation executive Doug Band for diplomatic passports for himself and an associate.
Here is the exchange between Doug Band (Clinton Foundation Executive) and Huma Abedin back in July 2009.Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's aide Abedin responded to Band's request positively, saying, "Ok will figure it out." The emails show Hillary Clinton forwarding classified information to Abedin's unsecured, non-state.gov account. The emails also show Bill Clinton sought a meeting with Mrs. Clinton for a major Clinton donor with State Department officials and Hillary Clinton herself pushed for a joint event with the Clinton Global Initiative. Band also pushed for and obtained special help from Abedin for seven-figure Clinton Foundation donor Chris Ruddy, of Newsmax.com.
The new documents included 37 Hillary Clinton email exchanges not previously turned over to the State Department, bringing the known total to date of such emails uncovered by Judicial Watch to 228 of new Clinton emails (not part of the 55,000 pages of emails that Clinton turned over to the State Department). These records further appear to contradict statements by Clinton that, "as far as she knew," all of her government emails were turned over to the State Department.
The Band request was for a special diplomatic passport for himself and his associates - an unidentified "JD" and apparently Justin Cooper, formerly a key member of Bill Clinton's personal office and the Clinton Foundation who has been linked to registration documents for and the shutting down of the email server at the center of Mrs. Clinton's State Department emails controversy.
Doug Band requests diplomatic passports for himself, Justin Cooper and an unknown person referred to as "jd." The Band-Abedin exchange went as follows:
Zerohedge notes...From: Doug Band
To: Huma Abedin
Sent: Jul 27, 2009 10:32 AM
Subject:
Need get me/ justy and jd dip passports
We had them years ago but they lapsed and we didn't bother getting them
From: Huma Abedin [Huma@clintonemail.com]
Sent: Monday, July 27, 2009 10:38:39 PM
To: Doug Band
Subject: Re:
Ok will figure it out
Judicial Watch makes it very clear that the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations strictly limits the granting of diplomatic passports to members of the Foreign Service, their family members, or those working on U.S. government contracts.- we're sure Donna Brazile, the new DNC chair, will see these various "requests for favors" from the Clinton Foundation and others as just another attempt to "criminalize normal behavior."
According to 22 CFR 51.3...
Is that enough fire for Hillary Clinton?A diplomatic passport is issued to a Foreign Service officer or to a person having diplomatic status or comparable status because he or she is traveling abroad to carry out diplomatic duties on behalf of the U.S. Government. When authorized by the Department, spouses and family members of such persons may be issued diplomatic passports. When authorized by the Department, a diplomatic passport may be issued to a U.S. Government contractor if the contractor meets the eligibility requirements for a diplomatic passport and the diplomatic passport is necessary to complete his or her mission.
Via: http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-new-abedin-emails-reveal-top-clinton-foundation-executive-doug-band-sought-diplomatic-passport-clinton-state-department/
While I strongly believe that the Clintons are vile, corrupt, lying, psychopaths, I can't see how this is a "smoking gun" of any kind.
Anyone can ASK for a diplomatic passport (or a trillion dollars in free gov't cash, or a deed to all the national parks, or . . .) If their requests were not actually fulfilled, this is a non-issue. Even Huma's "OK, will figure it out", is not a big deal so long as the passports were not issued.
Unfortunately, sensationalizing stuff like this takes away attention from real Clinton criminality that is clearly prosecutable (if there were any interest in meting out justice in the so-called "Department of Justice").