As we learn more, Hillary’s email saga is far from over

There were no blockbuster moments, but Donald Trump was inadequately prepared for the first presidential debate. It didn’t matter. Although prepared, as a politician, Hillary Clinton isn’t very skillful or appealing, and she can’t escape years of serial prevarications, aka lying.

New statistics have emerged that cannot comfort Hillary Clinton’s 25-year-and-running presidential campaign or reassure her supporters:

A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll revealed that 64 percent of voters remain critical of “Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state.” An IBD/TIPP Poll found that 63 percent of Americans want a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton Foundation irregularities and Hillary’s email scandal. In fact, confirming the FBI’s investigation as a sham, new evidence of Hillary’s email malfeasance has refueled public interest.

America just learned that, in July 2014, Clinton’s outside tech specialist, carelessly hiding behind a traceable alias, entered an online “Reddit” forum seeking advice on deleting email addresses from the files of a “very VIP” client. Even altering archived government records is against the law.

Her techie’s actions mirror Clinton’s persistent efforts to conceal her criminal misuse of private email servers while in office. Both national security and technology experts have concluded that Hillary’s email practices compromised American secrets to Chinese, Russian and, likely, other foreign interests -and the allegedly-criminal attempts by Hillary and others to cover up her illicit home-brewed servers couldn’t have been possible without her knowledge and approval.

Recently, additional, older information was released as well. After the State Department informed Clinton that the House Benghazi Committee had subpoenaed copies of her emails, Clinton’s digital archives were deleted using a high-tech scrubber called “BleachBit,” a clear violation of law.

Nonetheless, investigators found 180 emails classified as “secret” or “confidential.” And last week, State announced that the FBI recovered about 2800 work-related emails Hillary never released to either department.

Hillary has pleaded ignorance, but the record shows that the State Department explicitly directed her not to use private servers.

Ironically, Hillary even emailed State Department underlings instructing them not to conduct State business “from personal email accounts due to information security concerns.”

Hillary-lovers dismiss hard evidence as technical mumbojumbo no one, including Hillary, can understand. They don’t care. Or, at least some of them don’t. Remember: Nationwide, “64 percent of voters remain critical of ‘Clinton’s use of a private email server...’”

In 2015, 29 percent of Americans identified as Democrats (26 percent as Republicans), The 64 percent who “remain critical” outnumber self-identified Democrats and Republicans combined. Expressed differently, even if every registered Democrat excused Hillary’s email abuses, she’s still in trouble, because average voters do care.

In fact, polling reveals lots of “caring” among voters on the center and center-left who dislike unfair double standards, value the rule of law, think laws should be impartially administered — and they remember Hillary’s lies.

If elected, Hillary couldn’t govern effectively, because only the most gullible among us would believe a single syllable she utters.

The saga isn’t over. Jerry Shenk is a Lebanon County-based columnist whose work is featured at www. patownhall.com. You can email him at jshenk2010@gmail.com