Hillary Clinton is set to address the New York Democratic Committee’s nominating convention in another foray into public life as she brushes off findings by special counsel Robert Durham that she spied on Donald Trump’s campaign.
The former secretary of state, senator and 2016 Democratic nominee finally responded on Wednesday to the recent revelations that she hired people to spy on Donald Trump, calling it ‘desperate’ and a ‘fake scandal.’
New York Democrats will gather to hear Clinton speak at the Sheraton in Times Square as they craft the party’s platform and nominate candidates to run for statewide office.
Clinton, who held the Senate seat for New York from 2001 to 2009, has frequented the state’s conventions since, headlining for Cuomo’s nomination in 2018.
This year’s convention will look different than the last one- disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo will not be present, having been replaced by his Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, and New York City’s progressive-but-widely-unpopular Mayor Bill DeBlasio is out – Eric Adams now serving in his place.
Clinton’s spot back on the main stage has sparked speculation that she may be plotting a political comeback.
Last month Democratic pollster Doug Schoen and former Manhattan Borough President Andrew Stein wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal last month that Clinton was ‘already in an advantageous position to become the 2024 Democratic nominee.’
Last week a source familiar with Clinton’s convention plans told CNBC that she is ‘beloved by the mainstream members of the Democratic Party’ and that ‘her popularity is likely higher than that of President Biden.’
Clinton refused to answer shouted questions on Tuesday about the Durham report. At approximately 3:40 PM she waved off questions from a DailyMail.com reporter as she left a Queens restaurant with daughter Chelsea
Biden claims he will run aqain in 2024, but critics question whether he’ll be mentally savvy enough to handle it at age 82. Vice President Kamala Harris’s floundering poll numbers and poor performance during a run for the Democratic nomination in 2016 could shut her out from the top spot.
But some Democrats disagree with party Chairman Jay Jacobs’ decision to bring back Clinton for the convention.
‘I do not think a resurrection of Hillary Clinton’s political ambitions is appropriate, nor do I think she’s helpful to the long-term future of the New York Democratic Party,’ Assemblyman Phil Steck, D-Colonie, told the New York Post.
‘I think we need to show people we care more about Main Street than Wall Street and Hillary Clinton does not do that for the Democratic Party.’
Committee member Patrick Nelson, who represents an upstate district near Saratoga Springs said: ‘I wish the Democratic Party leadership would have chosen someone for keynote speaker who was more forward-looking and unifying.
‘We have the youngest woman elected to Congress from New York — AOC,’ suggesting the party should have picked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. ‘Hillary Clinton has been quite divisive.’
The only contested statewide race this year will be the one for governor, with Hochul squaring off against New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Rep. Tom Suozzi.
The convention will also nominate candidates for Senate, lieutenant governor, attorney general and comptroller, but the incumbents in those races are expected to be nominated with little opposition.
All official elected party members can cast a vote, Candidates that secure 25% of the vote or more automatically get a spot on the ballot, while candidates that secure 50% or more of the vote are designated the nominee.
‘Trump & Fox are desperately spinning up a fake scandal to distract from his real ones. So it’s a day that ends in Y,’ the former presidential candidate tweeted ahead of the convention along with an article from the Democrat-friendly Vanity Fair.
‘The more his misdeeds are exposed, the more they lie,’ Clinton added. ‘For those interested in reality, here’s a good debunking of their latest nonsense.’
She linked to the Vanity Fair column filed under ‘conspiracy theories’ and titled: ‘You’ll never believe it but Hillary Clinton did not, in fact, spy on Trump’s White House.’
The article is by the magazine’s politics correspondent Bess Levin, who writes articles highly critical of the Trump’s and Republicans and serves as a mouthpiece for the Democratic agenda.
The subtitle of her article Clinton shared said: ‘In less breaking news, Donald Trump remains a moron.’
Levin claims in the piece that the findings do not prove that Clinton spied on Trump and instead that the cybersecurity researchers hired by Clinton were actually investigating malware at the White House.
‘Trump and company got the whole thing hilariously, mortifyingly incorrect,’ Levin wrote.
‘But fear not: We’re sure they’ll issue a lengthy correction and heartfelt apology to the people whose reputations they impugned—and the ones Trump suggested should be put to death—in no time,’ she sarcastically ended the article.
Donald Trump released two statements after Hillary’s tweet, accusing the Democrats of an ‘espionage campaign on his New York City apartment’ and ‘another way to undermine the 2020 election’.
He also asked ‘who gave Crooked Hillary Clinton’s ‘plumbers’ their orders?’
‘With Hillarygate it is the Mainstream Media Coverup that is almost as big of a crime as the act of treasonous espionage itself. It is showing the world why our media is truly the enemy of the people!’ he added.
Clinton’s first response to the revelations comes after she refused to answer DailyMail.com’s questions on Tuesday about Special Counsel John Durham’s finding that allege her allies spied on the Trump campaign.
Clinton and her daughter Chelsea emerged from a Filipino restaurant in Queens after approximately three hours during which they appeared to be filming on Tuesday.
Exclusive pictures and video obtained by DailyMail.com show a stone-faced Clinton silently waving away repeated questions of whether she spied on Trump. She refused to say when or if she planned to comment.
The White House is still deferring any questions relating to the latest findings to the Department of Justice after it was revealed Clinton paid to try and find a link between Trump and Russia.
‘I would point you – any questions about this – to the Department of Justice,’ President Joe Biden’s Press Secretary Jen Psaki said during her briefing Wednesday.
Hillary Clinton finally addressed on Wednesday the latest revelations that she hired a firm to spy on Donald Trump, calling the allegations a ‘fake scandal’
When pushed on if ‘monitoring internet traffic’ could be defined as spying, as detailed in Special Counsel John Durham’s report, Psaki repeated her direction for reporters to take questions to the Justice Department.
Clinton linked to a Vanity Fair article by Bess Levin (pictured) that insisted Republicans and media got it wrong and Clinton did not spy on Trump. The subtitle of her article is: ‘In less breaking news, Donald Trump remains a moron’
Republicans are renewing their attacks against the Democrat-led Russia probe into Trump’s campaign connections following Durham’s filing last week.
They claim the latest bombshell proves Democrats will do anything to win – including illegal acts – and are demanding probes into Representative Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler so they are held accountable for being ‘complacent’ in Clinton’s spying.
Durham’s report alleged that Clinton did pay to have Trump Tower and White House servers hacked to create a fake scandal despite her lawyer Michael Sussmann telling federal officers that he was not hired by anyone specific to find the connections.
Representative Pat Fallon told Newsmax on Wednesday: ‘This will put the final nail in the Clinton candidacy coffin – once and for all.’
‘We an be sure that Hillary Clinton will be flippant about it,’ the Texas Representative said to the conservative news outlet. ‘This is a real issue. I think this is literally going to sink the Clinton political machine once and for all.’
Press Secretary Jen Psaki continues to refuse to comment on the latest revelations, referring reporters to the Justice Department for any questions relation to Durham’s report – even though there are allegations that Biden knew about the claims when he was still vice president
Arizona Representative Andy Biggs sent out a statement Wednesday saying: ‘Durham’s recent revelations show what we knew all along – Hillary Clinton and her Democrat cronies actively spied on President Trump. No American should accept that a presidential candidate engaged in criminal activity and created a false scandal about their opponent to win an election.’
‘These accusations beg the question, what else will Democrats do to win an election?’ Biggs posed.
‘Hillary Clinton and the corrupt actors involved in this scheme should be prosecuted. And the media should uphold their duty and responsibility to report the truth.’
Republicans are blaming media, as well as Democrats, for allowing the truth to go uncovered until now.
‘For years the media parroted the Democrat narrative about Russia collusion. And now as we’re learning, week after week, that was a complete lie,’ Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott said on Tuesday.
‘The latest with the Durham report is that the Clinton campaign – the same group that fear mongered this Russian collusion – actually spied on the President of the United States,’ he added. ‘They spied on the President of the United States! They spied and they lied.’
‘We need accountability. We need accountability for the Clinton campaign, we need accountability for Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler because they were complicit in this,’ Scott said. ‘So the media needs to start doing their job, talk about exactly what’s coming out and hold these people accountable. On top of that, the Attorney General [Merrick] Garland – he needs to be out there making sure that Durham has all the resources he needs to do a thorough investigation.’
Trump era Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said this week that then-Vice President Joe Biden and President at the time Barack Obama knew Clinton’s 2016 campaign was trying to hack into Trump’s servers to ‘fabricate’ links to the Kremlin.
He also said Durham has ‘enough evidence’ to indict ‘multiple people’.
Senator Rick Scott of Florida said that Clinton needs to be held accountable, along with Democratic Representatives Jerry Nadler (left) and Adam Schiff (right) for being ‘complicit’
Clinton allegedly approved in the 2016 election ‘a plan concerning U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server,’ according to a CIA Counterintelligence Operational Lead (CIOL) first revealed when a heavily-redacted version became declassified in October 2020.
The filing notes that ‘On or about October 12, 2018, Law Firm-1 issued a statement to multiple media outlets in which the firm stated, in part: ‘When Sussmann met with [the FBI General Counsel] on behalf of a client, it was not connected to the firm’s representation of the Hillary Clinton Campaign, the DNC or any Political Law Group client.’
It also says that the ‘then-Managing Partner of Law Firm-1 wrote a letter to the editor of a major newspaper in which he asserted, in part, ‘Mr. Sussmann’s meeting with the FBI General Counsel James Baker was on behalf of a client with no connections to either the Clinton campaign, the DNC or any other Political Law Group client.’
Durham’s filings now reveal that Clinton’s campaign did hire Sussmann and that he lied to federal officers. He has pleaded not guilty.
